Dear Friends,
It seems to me, we lack sufficient feedback mechanisms for institutions. It is the feedback mechanism of prices that makes the market system so efficient. That is lost on our institutions. During the Wuhan flu lock downs, the elite were insulated from the results of their policies. Small businesses were decimated but crony capitalist’s fortunes soared. Today, Biden’s policies have taken us from a glut in energy to gas lines and skyrocketing prices, immigration that was finally under control to a tsunami of economic immigrants, a return to stagflation, and an economy that simultaneously has too many and not enough workers at the same time. Nevertheless, the elite will not feel the least bit of discomfort at the suffering their policies have inflicted on us. No feedback equals no skin in the game.
Education and educators are insulated from the results of their indoctrination. While our schools produce graduates who’s knowledge, ability to learn, and skills decline every year, at a steady rate, the price of education rises like Styrofoam released at the bottom of the ocean. Ask a recent graduate from high school or even college, about Mao’s Great Leap Forward, have they read Animal Farm, and where is Germany on a globe… and their answers will tell you everything you need to know about our education system. The problem was answered for us by Milton Friedman with his voucher system. Introduce a feedback mechanism into our education system, and, like our choices for underwear, the education system will evolve to become better, cheaper, and with a plethora of options.
It would be hard to find anyone who is less insulated from the results of their actions then bureaucrats. Some would argue that bureaucrats have to live in the societies they obliterate, but I would counter, no they don’t. Look at the suburbs of Washington DC. They are bastions of wealth, privilege and arrogance, surrounded by walls, fences and armed guards. While Washington burned the summer of 2020, the elite slept in perfect peace, knowing they are protected by a ring of steel. Our extremely well paid bureaucrats love illegal immigrants, they make cheap gardeners, nannies and janitors. It is the people in the hinterlands who get to interact with MS13. Moreover, a bureaucrat making 100K a year with 80% pension, doesn’t run afoul of much regulation, those trying to build, create and found… do.
Judges are protected from the results of their rulings. In fact, the more absurd a judge’s ruling, the more it enriches the legal class. Judges have allowed so many crooked attorneys to befoul contract law, the cost of contracts has become prohibitive, and almost eliminated the utility. They have made everything so costly it doesn’t make sense to build a factory in the US anymore. The legal establishment couldn’t care less though. Because their riches come at our cost. If a few thousand workers don’t get jobs because a judge made a perverse ruling, oh well, that judge and the legal establishment will do just fine, thank you. Your insurance is so expensive, because judges have ruled that if someone breaks into your house, cuts themselves on glass they broke… you (and your insurance company) are responsible… very progressive.
For our society to advance to the next level, we have to defeat the red named, our lack of a feedback mechanism for our institutions. Government secrecy is an anathema to a free people. The first step will be to institute complete transparency as the default. No nation with a well armed populous needs to worry about being invaded. The national security agencies are about projecting power and hiding wrongdoing, not protecting us. The next step would be to build in some feedback mechanisms. We already discussed a school voucher system for education but what about the bureaucracy and courts? To control them, we need to create a system of oversight that holds judges, politicians and bureaucrats to a higher standard. Instead of the no standard whatsoever we hold them to now.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
