RoR: Forum

Given how the money supply is being inflated currently, I expect everyone will be a millionaire soon.

Post 1

Thursday, June 4, 2009 - 4:22pm

Jordan's right. I don't even think of millionaires as super rich people anymore.

Post 2

Thursday, June 4, 2009 - 5:17pm

Yep. $1 million 40 years ago equates to about $6 million now using the CPI.

Post 3

Friday, June 5, 2009 - 4:09am

Tibor, there is no reason to attack the notion of an inspector general per se. In the US, at least, their purpose is to audit government agencies. From wikipedia:

In the United States, an Inspector General (IG) is a type of investigator charged with examining the actions of a government agency, military organization, or military contractor as a general auditor of their operations to ensure they are operating in compliance with general established policies of the government, to audit the effectiveness of security procedures, or to discover the possibility of misconduct, waste, fraud, theft, or certain types of criminal activity by individuals or groups related to the agency's operation, usually involving some misuse of the organization's funds or credit. In the United States, there exist numerous Offices of Inspector General (OIGs) at the federal, state, and local levels.

Sounds like a good idea to me.

Post 4

Friday, June 5, 2009 - 5:00am

Quis custodiet impsos custodes?�Who regulates the regulators? or Who inspects and inspectors?

Post 5

Friday, June 5, 2009 - 6:36am

Dan Akroyd as President Jimmy Carter on Saturday Night Live:

"President Jimmy Carter: Good evening. On Tuesday, we Americans will have the opportunity to exercise our role as citizens in a free democracy. Yet, only a third of the eligible voters will actually cast ballots. The other two-thirds are, in a sense, very lucky. Because they do not know what's going on.

"Last week, I delivered a message on inflation. Since then, the dollar has dropped in value, the stock market has sustained record losses, and the whole Dow price index increased 0.9%. In other words, our economic system is screwed, blued and tatooed! We just have to face the fact that there is simply no way to fight inflation in a capitally-intensive, highly-technological, conflict-riddled, anything-for-a-thrill world of today. That's why, tonight, I want you to try to look at inflation in an entirely new way: Inflation is our friend.

"For example, consider this: in the year 2000, if current trends continue, the average blue-collar annual wage in this country will be $568,000. Think what this inflated world of the future will mean - most Americans will be millionaires. Everyone will feel like a bigshot. Wouldn't you like to own a $4,000 suit, and smoke a $75 cigar, drive a $600,000 car? I know I would! But what about people on fixed incomes? They have always been the true victims of inflation. That's why I will present to Congress the 'Inflation Maintenance Program', whereby the U.S. Treasury will make up any inflation-caused losses to direct tax rebates to the public in cash. Then you may say, 'Won't that cost a lot of money? Won't that increase the deficit?' Sure it will! But so what? We'll just print more money! We have the papers, we have the mints. I can just call up the Bureau of Engraving and say, 'Hi! This is Jimmy. Roll out some of them twenties! Print up a couple thousand sheets of those Century Notes!' Sure, all these dollars will cause even more inflation, but who cares? Everyone will be a millionaire!

"In my speech last week, I said that America would have to undergo an austerity program, but since this revolutionary new approach welcomes inflation, our economy will be free to grow, and we can spend, spend, spend! I believe the watchwords for the '80s should be 'Let's Party!' And in that spirit, I'd like to say, 'Live, from New York, it's Saturday Night!'"

Post 6

Friday, June 5, 2009 - 7:12am

I want to be a millionaire.

JHM

Post 7

Friday, June 5, 2009 - 7:18am

It aint all it's cracked up to be - unless ye earned it... ;-)

Post 8

Friday, June 5, 2009 - 9:02am

Tibor that is a good article and I like the analysis of greedy bureaucrats hypocritically calling others greedy for not wanting to hand over money to them. But I agree with Ted's comment about attacking Inspector Generals per se. It's a bit of a throwaway line that doesn't help support the gist of your argument. If the rebuttal you are seriously providing is "who watches the inspector", how is this conceptually different than asking "who watches the police officer?". Assuming an Inspector General is subject to government checks and balances, he is held accountable for his actions.

Post 9

Friday, June 5, 2009 - 10:20am

My throwaway lines meant to call attention to the presumption of calling some person an inspector general, suggesting that we the citizens need to be inspected. And a good many government agencies do send out surprise inspectors--OSHA comes to mind--hoping to catch various professionals in violation of their rules, rules they have no objective authority to impose on anyone, rules that amount to prior restraint since those it applies to haven't been convicted of a crime that would justify imposing burdens on them, including the burden of being inspected (often out of the blue). Now if by inspector general is mean some in-house quality control person, that's a bit different.

Post 10

Friday, June 5, 2009 - 12:51pm

An entire article could be written about the elevation of government officials of different sorts (representatives, administrators, military officers, and clerks) into czars, inspector generals, Commander in Chief, Supreme Commander, and Leader of the Free World.

As minor examples, CINCPAC was the military designation of the officer who was Command in Chief of the Pacific. It was changed at the request of someone in the White House or Pentagon during Bush's administration because Commander in Chief was to be reserved for just the president. But it isn't just titles. In one of the local commands on the Pearl Harbor Navy base, the CO was declared to be the only one who could use blue as the text color in emails. This drive to elevate is ceaseless and is the force behind most protocol and much policy. It has a tribal feeling and it is at work at all levels. It is a kind of sick relationship between those who want bask in adoration of those below them, and the second-handers that feel a sense of power and worth from being close to their leaders. A kind of codependency where each enables the other and where an increase in power has the feeling of a trickle down effect benefiting all.

Not just the titles, but the powers, the perks, the media attention, the policies and protocols, but also the implied sense that they have special abilities to fix all of the problems and that only they are the source of all good.

Like little children we have projected a sense of great goodness and omniscence and power upon those 'adults' - and doing so we, as a culture, massively undercut our ability to hold them accountable and limit their actions to those proper to a government. We made them our superiors leaving us no power other than to choose sides in those areas where they disagree - whose side do take, that of the current republican gods on earth or the democratic gods on earth?

In the meantime, the populace is like guilty little children who accept that Mommy and Daddy get to inspect and rule over every aspect of our lives. They will fix our problems, give us our goals, heal our hurts, make the rules, punish us when we are bad, and protect us from all harm.

We need to understand that as important as philosophy is, we also need to understand self-esteem and the sense of personal responsibility that empowers emotional adults, and whose absence creates emotional children running about in adult bodies. It is an understanding necessary for political freedom. Historically, pilgrims and pioneers were forced by circumstances to practice these virtues that are now mistakenly seen as optional. That is the psychological side of the political equation.

Post 11

Friday, June 5, 2009 - 2:15pm

Pardon me, but I guess I need to point out that like the term court martial the term inspector general contains a postposed adjective? We are dealing not with a "general who inspects" but with an "inspector whose jurisdiction is general". This archaic title may be confusing in its word order, but there is nothing wrong or suspect with the practice of having an official whose purpose is to audit other officials. Tibor's interestingly spelled Freudian objection ("impsos") notwithstanding, the proper remedy for his concern is two have two inspectors general, each to watch the other, not to do away with the office. It is bizarre to see otherwise learned and literate people objecting to a reasonable institution based upon their misunderstanding of its etymology. Live and learn. As for the various "czars," that is indeed and abomination both linguistically and politically, but that's a separate matter.

Post 12

Friday, June 5, 2009 - 3:46pm

Ted,

This is the heart of Tibor's short article:

"Take, for example, some comments made by Laura Chick, California's Inspector General. But before I get to that, just consider this woman's title: Inspector General! Is that an office anyone ought to hold in a genuinely free country? I think the answer isn't difficult to arrive at. Ms. Chick was laying out her very original insight that greed is the source of our troubles. Then she added this gem about what brought on the current financial mess: 'We all were planning to become millionaires.' No data provided, not even some unofficial survey about what people want when it comes to their economic lives. Nada, just an unsupported, reckless announcement about us all."

Tibor's primary focus was on the Inspector General's attack against "greed" - as an example of the presumptuous behavior of those in office. As I read it, the title was an aside. The intent of the office of Inspector general is a good one and the title arises from that intent. But in practice it is a different story. Take a look at the things that the California Inspector General is auditing for - things like 3 hours of exercise for high risk inmates instead of two.

It is unfortunate that the title he chose for his example was the Inspector General, because there are many horrifying examples that support his central theme - examples where a building code inspector, an OSHA inspector, a health inspector, or any of the alphabet soup of inspectors are a blight on our ever-decreasing freedoms.

The community I'm in has club house and food was served buffet style to a private party on stainless steel tables with a table cloth. Someone called the county health inspector to complain that there were no "sneeze guards" - the inspector came out and wrote the homeowner's association up with multiple complaints: No sneeze guards, a "popcorn" type of texture on the ceiling above the bar, wood shelves in use to store glasses instead of stainless steel, and about 4 or 5 others - costing the homeowners about $10,000. The inspector passed the word to another department who came out and made us change the color type of surface around the pool. The federal government passed a rule that made us change the drain type in the bottom of the pool. About $14,000. And on, and on, and on....

Post 13

Friday, June 5, 2009 - 3:53pm

Well of course she's an idiot. That's a separate issue from not knowing what an inspector general is. I agreed with what he wrote otherwise. If our current consensus is that two good inspectors general are better than one bad one then the issue is moot.

Post 14

Friday, June 5, 2009 - 11:11pm

But I do object to the inspector general's job, not only title. Consider this line from Ted: 'We are dealing not with a "general who inspects" but with an "inspector whose jurisdiction is general".' Well, that's just great--an inspector whose jurisdiction is general--i.e., everything! All we need is someone, anyone, butting in on everything, on the general realm, on nothing in particular but everything in general. That would be the tsar, the absolute ruler. Maybe what is meant is quality controller or supervisor but inspector general leaves a foul taste!

Post 15

Saturday, June 6, 2009 - 5:07am

Whenever I see the term "inspector general", I think of Danny Kaye's movie...

Post 16

Saturday, June 6, 2009 - 5:25am

Before this I had heard of Inspector General only as a military position. Ted's excerpt in post #3 from Wikipedia describes it as used more widely in government. Still, it seems to mean an internal auditing position, not one to inspect matters having nothing to do with the operations of the government organization of which it is a part. So "general" should not be interpreted too broadly.
(Edited by Merlin Jetton on 6/06, 5:32am)

Post 17

Saturday, June 6, 2009 - 5:47am

Unfortunately there is no hint in the title "inspector general" as to the scope or area of jurisdiction. Thus my very serious unease with it.

Post 18

Saturday, June 6, 2009 - 10:44am

Fine, object not to the reality, an auditor of all government departments generally, but to your Monty-Pythonesque fear based on a lack of familiarity with the term. Next we'll hear that the privy council met in a toilet, and that the president's cabinet is where he keeps his Metamucil.

Post 19

Saturday, June 6, 2009 - 12:06pm