11/25/2004

A Sucker's Bet

I had to laugh when I read that Las Vegas tycoon Steve Wynn plans to build a $2.4 billion mega-resort on the site of the recently imploded Desert Inn. Laugh, because the resort isn’t being built by Steve Wynn, it’s being built by losers.

Let’s face it, all that glitz and glamour we see in Las Vegas and other gambling destinations around the country isn’t paid for with the profits from cheesy entertainment and early-bird prime rib specials. If it were, I’d open a Karaoke Cafeteria. But it’s not. Those glistening neon nightmares are built upon a sucker's bet.

Unfortunately, gamblers aren’t the only ones to fall for the seductive lure of a quick and easy buck. Local governments are just as gullible. The City of Monroe is the latest to fall under the spell of easy gambling money, as they consider a casino proposed by the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma in an effort to dig the city out of a state declared fiscal emergency.

Let’s hope they don’t fall for it. While the increased tax revenues, promised development and new jobs are all enticing, they do not come without a price. For a city like Monroe, which is geographically primed for development as growth travels north on I-75, that price is not one worth paying.

To be sure, for most people gambling is little more than another entertainment option. We can choose to blow fifty or a hundred bucks on dinner and a movie or a night at the ballpark, and come home with nothing more to show for it than the memory of a night out. Or we can blow that money at a casino. No big deal.

On the other hand, how often do you hear of people spending their rent money on a ticket to see the Reds? Or the grocery money to see a movie? Perhaps never. But we see it with casinos more often than the gaming industry would like to admit. Do we really need a local gambling fix so badly that we’re willing to risk ruining lives in order to fill government coffers?

The worst thing about it is that gambling is hardest on those who can least afford it. Far too often low-income gamblers are not playing for fun, but to change their lives. Yet lives rarely change for the better in a casino, no matter what the ads may say. I find it ironic that so many are willing to embrace what essentially amounts to taxing the poor so a few might become wealthy.

The biggest challenge facing those who live in poverty is understanding that escaping it is a long-term prospect. It takes time, effort and discipline. Gambling’s promise of a quick fix undermines that premise. So not only does it make the personal financial situation worse, it also destroys the values that would make a better life possible. Is this really the way Monroe wants to fix its own financial mess?

Monroe is the next exit up I-75 from the booming West Chester/Liberty Township area. A little patience and they’ll begin to reap the same financial rewards as their neighbors to the south. But jump on the gambling bandwagon and suddenly Exit 29 becomes the vice-and-crime gateway, what with Bristol’s, Hustler, a casino and a prison all within sight of each other. That may be a full house, but it’s hardly a winning hand.

11/18/2004

Society's Role In Changing Undesirable Behavior

Now that the election’s over, it’s time to get back to the fun stuff. My recent piece on the two women who worked for me drew quite a response. The negative focused primarily on two matters. Namely, who are we to judge the misfortune of the unwed mother, and how can we possibly blame government for her predicament?

I’ll start with the second complaint because it provides the foundation for the answer to the first.

Let me clarify that I do not believe that people have babies just to get more government assistance. But I do believe that the availability of a safety net leads to riskier behavior. It is the Catch-22 of social programs. Assistance to ease the burden of difficult situations, by design, makes such situations less painful. As a result, there is less incentive to avoid those circumstances.

This is known in economic circles as Risk Compensation. As the cost of a particular action decreases, the frequency of that action increases. This was first demonstrated in the early 1970’s by University of Chicago economics professor Sam Peltzman, who found that the advent of seatbelts as required standard equipment in automobiles did not reduce the number of deaths per mile driven. While accidents were less likely to be fatal, there were far more accidents, with the result that fatalities stayed almost identical. In this case, when the cost of reckless driving decreased, the frequency of reckless driving increased.

Regarding government assistance, we see this in the person who chooses not to save for retirement in the belief social security will provide for them. For the young woman whose biggest fear of an unwanted child is the financial burden, the availability of government assistance just might be enough to subconsciously eliminate that concern from the equation.

So why doesn’t everyone behave recklessly? Dr. Gerald Wilde, psychology professor at Canada’s Queens University provides an answer. He argues that we each tolerate a unique level of risk, and we tailor our behavior accordingly. When risk declines, we compensate by taking riskier actions. The only way to prevent an increase in undesirable behavior when risk is reduced is to change the individual's target risk level, which requires a fundamental change in personal values.

This is where society’s judgment has its place. For it’s not only economic or physical costs that impact behavior. Dr. Wilde points out that social costs also play a role. For example, peer pressure can convince a teenager not to wear a seatbelt for fear of being considered a wimp. But peer pressure can also work to reduce undesirable behavior, as can be seen by the decline in cigarette smoking among teens. While education programs may have provided the initial spark, it is the social ostracization that now often accompanies smoking that is driving the real change.

We pride ourselves on our society’s tolerance. Yet, in being non-judgmental we make a value statement that certain behavior is acceptable. Moreover, government programs often codify that acceptance. But we pay a price for our tolerance because we remove a powerful cost that would deter the behavior.

Fortunately, many of our children are instilled with values that make having babies out-of-wedlock undesirable. But far too many are not. We are now into second and third generations of children who have never been part of traditional family units. These kids – both boys and girls – are far less likely to learn the values to break this cycle in the home. If not at home, then where?

From us. Passing judgment is society’s way of expressing its values. If we increase the social cost of unwanted pregnancies so that it outweighs other considerations, we can begin to break the cycle of poverty that has entrapped far too many people.

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Follow up:

A 2022 New York Times story on dramatic declines in teen births suggested the following reasons:

"The reasons teen births have fallen are only partly understood. Contraceptive use has grown and shifted to more reliable methods, and adolescent sex has declined. Civic campaigns, welfare restrictions and messaging from popular culture may have played roles."

11/12/2004

Democrats Are Victims of Their Own Success

I’m going to suggest a reason for the Democratic Party’s fall from grace that I have yet to see mentioned and that a great many people won’t want to admit. Namely, that they are a victim of their own success.

The Democratic party of the twentieth century was one built upon movements – labor, civil rights, feminism, the environment, the war on poverty. Each of those battles brought to the party a sizable and passionate constituency that propelled it to political dominance for nearly sixty years.

Today, however, an ever-increasing number of voters view many of those battles as fought and won.

Consider that little more than a generation ago blacks were prohibited from using the same drinking fountains as whites and polluted rivers were catching fire. Such atrocities were rallying points that spurred the nation to action. That action brought real change.

But today, when the heads of American Express, Time Warner, Pontiac/GMC and other large corporations are African-American, when our lawyers, doctors, professors, senior government officials and most importantly, our friends and neighbors are often black, it is difficult to rally people to the cause of racial fairness.

The same with the environment. A generation ago eagles were dying and our rivers were burning. Today, with deer running through our yards, bald eagles no longer endangered and Great Lakes boaters able to see the bottom in twenty feet of crystal clear water, environmentalists lack the powerful symbolic images necessary to spur real movement on the environment.

Thus Democrats find themselves catering to an ever-shrinking coalition of activists and followers whose causes lack the emotional wallop of days gone by. And hence the rise in the importance of undefined “moral values”, which exit polls showed to be voters’ number one issue. With the declining urgency of traditional Democratic causes, values rise in relation to them. It’s like rehabbing a house – once you’ve repaired the roof and broken windows, the squeaky hinge becomes priority number one. It does so only because the bigger problems aren’t as urgent.

But that doesn’t mean it will remain priority number one. Therein lies a lesson the Republicans would be wise to learn.

For the Republicans are now on a path similar to the one the Democrats followed to political dominance. Their coalition is even more diverse - divided would be a better term - than the Democrats. You’ve got limited-government libertarians who want government out of their life consorting with the religious right, who don’t mind government as long as it’s keeping others from doing things they don’t like. It’s a coalition that often has only one goal in common – to elect Republicans to office.

If the Republicans move too far in any one direction, they risk alienating key parts of their constituency. And if they do not act decisively and successfully on a few key issues, especially healthcare, the deficit and social security, they’ll find themselves up against an inflamed electorate that the Democrats will be only too happy to oblige.

Movements occur when a critical mass is reached in the number of people willing to fight for a cause. If Republicans control the cost of healthcare, reduce the number of uninsured, restrain spending and successfully reform social security, they will ensure their continued political dominance by preventing that critical mass from moving in the Democrats’ direction.

But if they fail, “moral values” won’t mean a thing. And the pundits will be searching for answers to the end of Republican dominance. Unlike the Democrats, however, it will not be due to their success, but their failure.

11/05/2004

Random Thoughts on the '04 Election


Democrats and Religion

In the wake of polling data showing that white evangelical Christians favored George Bush over John Kerry nearly four-to-one, the Democrats have decided that they need to get religion. Watching them wrestle with that just might be more fun than watching the president wrestle with the English language.

That’s because the Democrats cannot appeal to the core values of those who vote their religion without alienating the party’s already shrinking base. To appeal to the religious right, Democrats would have to become pro-life, anti-gay and pro-prayer in public schools. There goes the feminist, homosexual and ACLU vote. I’m not sure they can afford that trade.

The problem they face is that it’s not enough to quote the bible and talk about days spent as an altar boy. You’re expected to live the creed you profess. For some time now, the left has struggled to justify the conflicts between their faith and their actions. To many of the deeply religious, faith means following the teachings of one’s church however difficult that may be. It’s not a matter of picking and choosing those teachings one wishes to obey. Until the Democrats understand that, or at least nominate someone who does, they’ll continue to lose the evangelical vote.

The Electoral College

Dick Cheney’s last minute trip to Hawaii is the best evidence yet of why we should embrace the electoral college. There is no way he’d have traveled to Hawaii if we elected the president by popular vote. The potential to swing a few votes in a direct election would not justify a trip to Hawaii, but the chance to swing a few to win the state and earn four electoral votes did.

That same dynamic holds true in the everyday governing of the country. Without the electoral college, our politics would be driven even more than they already are by special interests, with politicians pandering to those groups that could deliver the most votes. But the electoral college adds a geographic variable to the equation that forces attention on voters who would otherwise be ignored. That is a very good thing.

Red State / Blue State

The pundits once again had a field day with the electoral map, pointing out the division in the country through the use of colorful graphics. And once again, there was an elitist air to their musings. Time and again I heard of George Bush’s ability, or John Kerry’s inability, to connect with middle America. Too often it was said as though we in the red states are all a bunch of Bud-drinking, NASCAR-loving, Toby Keith fans.

In reality, there’s not that big a gulf between the red and blue states. In the states the president won, his margin was about 57 to 43 percent. John Kerry’s margin in the blue states was 55 to 45 percent. That represents a switch of little more than one vote in ten. It’s enough to decide an election, but it’s not enough to paint the electorate with the broad brush strokes those colorful maps suggest.

A truly accurate map would show subtle shades of purple, much more representative of the melting pot we’ve always so proudly claimed to be.