Why ChatGPT Will Cause Major Hardship

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Here is why I think ChatGPT will cause major hardship.

When globalization happened our government said: "Lowered cost of transport and new communications technology enables a new approach to how things are built and who builds them. Each country contributes what it does best and most efficiently, and overall the world improves because we reach a "new equilibrium" (*) and everybody is richer.  People who formerly did manufacturing, for example, could now work in offices in "information technology" or "the service industry" whatever that may mean.

But either hindsight, or some would say, a few minutes forethought, would show this was nonsense.  Workers were cheaper in some countries because they were wildly exploited.  Companies used this to bust unions in their own countries.  In some cases it wasn't about efficiency, it was about government subsidies to move an industry from one country to another.  When manufacturing or another industry left, the economic structure of cities would collapse as families became unemployed and left town.  Furthermore there was no money for retraining workers for these different industries which may already be oversubscribed.  Would a 50 yr old worker want to work as a secretary for 1/10th their former salary?  Who would train them?  Who would hire them? So formerly middle class families would slip into poverty. They would lean on their savings assuming they had any. Families would need new sources of income, perhaps a spouse would have to work.  Mothers would have to work so children would have to go to day care with a variety of long term implications for development. Remember the Republican emphasis on the traditional American family? Well, not so much it would appear.   Retirement would be affected as less money could be saved or put into social security.  A family might not be able to support sending a child to college, certainly not an elite one. The restaurants and stores that relied on these workers for customers would go out of business because their customers could not afford to eat out or would have to move away to find work.  There would be less tax revenues for the local community and the local schools.  No doubt large corporations made money, but as always in most countries they dont pay taxes.  The so called shareholders made money, yes, perhaps the top 10% of society, but again the rich dont pay taxes.  And politically we got more extremism, either right or left but mostly right (for reasons that are not so clear to me).

I have anecdotal stories about how this played out in the traditional animation industry, in glamourous digital visual effects and in the community of Culver City. 

Now with ChatGPT a big chunk of the middle class who make their living in part by being able to write competent essays will be disenfranchised and impoverished. What percentage of the population in developed countries am I talking about?  A few percent?  More?  Public relations, marketing and advertising come to mind.  Maybe Hollywood screenwriting (ha ha, thats a joke). If government was actually good at helping people find new careers and training them this might be different.  But our government doesn't even pay for education or pay the expenses of a real family while someone learns a new trade, or prevent ageism in the work place, for example.

So what do I recommend? No, ChatGPT is not about real intelligence or eliminating the great writer, but it is about a lot of real hardship in America and the rest of the developed world.  As usual, our government is useless, except for the rich.  But at the very least we should expect the three minimum requirements mentioned above.  1. Pay for education and retraining.  Seriously pay for it, and remember I am not just talking about junior college or a trade school here.  Think Harvard and Princeton.  2. Pay real expenses of a family, perhaps $50-100K / year.  And 3. Make serious efforts to reduce ageism in the work place which is rampant and about which the government does nothing.

The Republicans will say this is socialism.  But then they said that about the minimum wage, the 40 hours work week, and social security.

 

 

 * Economists get all hot when they talk about "equilibrium".

What I Learned from Davos

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I watched some of the Davos 2022 World Economic Forum sessions and this is what I learned.  

 

First Globalization is a total success and if millions, even 10s of millions of Americans are impoverished or destroyed, the rest of the world couldnt care less.

 

Second, the Russian war with Ukraine is a European matter and outside of Europe, no one really cares, they just dont want it to affect the price they have to pay for things.  Of course they will do business with Russia, who cares about genocide?  Not them.

 

Third, China is the country that matters now, the US is decidedly second rate and obviously has a failed government.  The US is still considered to have a strong economy and military, second to China of course.

 

Fourth, no European thinks that they could possibly deal with Putin in the future. The rest of the world doesnt care.

 

Fifth, no one thinks that Finland and Sweden joining NATO will really be a big problem for Russia.

Chinese Manufacturing and Refunds

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I meant to say increased above.  You can figure it out.

Is the US Government Stupid, Corrupt or Incompetent?

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When I review my own thinking about Globalization, using that term very loosely, and the various issues that it raises, I keep coming back to the same question.

It goes something like this. There is no doubt to anyone who has studied economics that many of the negative issues of Globalization, as discussed in other posts on this blog, were predictable in broad outline. And there is no doubt to anyone who examines the evidence that our government enabled Globalization but did not put in place any of the sorts of programs that would help Americans who were likely to be impoverished by these policies find a new way to make a living. Nor was there any attempt by our government to address the increasing income inequality that would be the natural result of their policies. Furthermore, the record is clear that while many economists went public with the likely implications of these policies, they were apparently ignored, but even more important, our leaders did not discuss these implications with the American people. We also have to contend with the evidence that Washington is (maybe was) completely unaware of the vast anger and distress that these policies caused until it was shoved in their face, and even then I think they were blindsided and do not really acknowledge the issues even today. (See for example the incredibly stupid and egregious defense of the deceptive undemployment index in the New Yorker, reference to be provided eventually).

So I propose to you that this leads us to ask the following questions.

Was our government completely stupid, incompetent, and unaware of the implications of their policies? Or were they deliberately following a policy that was going to destroy the lives of millions of Americans to increase the profits of the rich? A third possibility might be that they were aware of the implications, but simply failed to take the corrective actions that would be necessary to attempt to ameliorate the distress caused.

The reason I keep coming back to this question is as follows. If they were merely stupid, then they are not competent to be running our government, and we should have no hope for the future. If they were cavalier about the well-being of so many Americans, then we should not expect that to change and should have no hope for the future.

Either way, the conclusion is that our government is fucked, is dangerous to the people, and that there is no hope for the future.

None of this will make the least bit of sense to you unless you understand how well understood the issues and controversies of “free trade” aka “globalization” are. None of this is new. It goes back to the 19^th century and the dawn of modern economics as we know it.

Globalization and its Discontents Part 2/2

I can't imagine anything more futile and tedious than spending time agonizing over how to present what I have learned about some of the structural economic issues of this country. It goes without saying that i have no credibility in this area and that there is zero opportunity for my opinions to make the slightest difference.

On the other hand, I have read that a so-called democracy depends upon an informed electorate assuming, that is, that we do have a democracy, which I doubt. And some of the most important issues that we as a nation face are at the very least non-trivial and with a long and interesting history so it hasnt been entirely boring for me, but for you, thats not so clear.

If we are going to participate in the political process, then it is up to us to investigate what is going on, what the options are, correlate what we have been told with what actually happened in order to form judgments about future behavior and take what positive steps we can in a world out of our control. Furthermore, certain of the issues described below, although they are part of a very complicated economic system, do seem to have some straightforward partial solutions that would be helpful.

I will call these “naive solutions”. I mean, why not?

So with my undergraduate degree in Economics in hand, I boldly set out to understand what is going on with certain economic policies of our country. Probably no one term describes these structural issues but the one most often used is “globalization” and that will have to do for now. And the goal of my little adventure in civics and participatory democracy is to learn more about what is going on in our economy which seems to have substantially changed in the last 30 years.

Lets ask some fundamental questions.

1. Just how many unemployed people are there in this country?

I grew up at the RAND Corporation, the very home and heart of quantitative research in this country. All economic measures are imperfect but they are often useful. We need some way to judge the effect(s) of policy, and if we are using modeling and simulation, some way to evaluate the results of proposed changes in policy.

I assumed that the “unemployment rate” that we hear so much about was an imperfect measure of the percentage of Americans who are either completely unemployed or mostly unemployed. Imperfect is not the right way to describe this measure, a better way might be “deliberately deceptive”. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the “unemployment rate” only measures the percentage of people in this country who had become unemployed in the last 18 months and are still unemployed. If you have been unemployed for more than 18 months, then you are no longer counted. But of the people I know who are unemployed, by far the ones who are most affected are those who have been unemployed for longer than 18 months. How many of those are there? No one seems to know.

Furthermore, there is no measure, as far as I can tell, of the number of people who did find work, but at a rate far lower than the one they had previously. So, if they previously worked as a Marketing professional at $80K/year but are now working slinging burgers at Jack in the Box, this is not measured. There is also no accounting for the people who have given up trying to work, but would be working if they could.

But our government does not measure or attempt to measure this. And when they talk about the unemployment rate they are deliberately lying. Well, I dont find that acceptable. What are they trying to hide. Thats an easy question to answer. They dont want to know how miserable people are in this country due to their policies and they dont want you to know either.

2. But, how much of this unemployment and underemployment is the result of “globalization”?

It would be easy to find out if they wanted to know, all they would have to do is to ask the companies that lay people off, or who no longer outsource to American companies, how many people they laid off or what is the value of the contract now sent overseas.

This would not tell the whole story.  If $500 million dollars worth of salaries is extracted from a community and sent overseas to save $50 million for the corporation, that $500 million is no longer being spent in the local community. How many people does that effect and how to do you measure it?  And then of course that money is itself recycled through the community many times, perhaps to a lesser degree.  Given enough time and a research library, I would probably find that economists have measured or modeled this effect in the economy.  For our purposes it is enough to know that we do not know how much the mere outsourcing of work to save a few dollars for the corporation hurts the rest of us.

But just like the unemployment rate, we would expect that our government would want to know these numbers and would make an effort to estimate them. But they do not. All that is reported, if anything is reported, is that the corporation saved $50 million dollars that year by outsourcing. That must be nice for that corporation, and their shareholders, but how about the rest of us?

3. Surely you do not advocate "Protectionism"? What about "market forces"? 

Yes, there are market forces at work, but there are also many government forces, subsidies, taxes and so forth at work as well.  And believe it or not, "market forces" do not absolve anyone from ethics, planning or thinking.

Protectionism is a naughty word in Washington.  The code word du jour is "free trade". As previously referred to in a test case, should we allow a corporation to save $50 million if it costs our citizens $500 million in salaries?  Our Washington elite says yes. They say that so-called "free trade" will help everyone. Does it? Prove it.  

4. But doesnt Globalization help everyone?

In a word, no.

If 90% of the wealth of this country is owned by 1 percent of the population, then if profits are increased for some major corporations, those profits go to the 1 percent. But its worse than that. Not only does this not take into account the lost income to the now-unemployed workers, it does not take into account how much of that income would go to local taxes and to local businesses as people live their lives. In other words, Globalization deliberately increases the profits of the rich at the expense of the working classes and the local communities.

Furthermore, it is completely obvious to anyone who reviews the history of this process that the people who are most hurt by these policies are the people who are least able to afford it.  The worker with tiny savings can not just simply be unemployed and go get retrained as a lawyer.  First, he has a family to support. Second he has no money for school.  Third he is an older worker and our society is ageist as can be, and furthermore is ageist with specific government support to be so.  (1)

5. Why do you say the government specifically did this to hurt most Americans?  Isnt that paranoid? 

Of course.  Or maybe being called paranoid is just an ad hominem attack by people who do not want to discuss the issues.

It is the responsibility of our law makers, our bureaucracies, and our justice system to create and then implement a body of complex laws, rules, precedent and so forth.  When someone who is an elected representative tries to get support for a law, or a treaty, or a judgment and tells people it will make them more prosperous when he or she knows full well that it will not, then what do you call that?

The issues associated with so-called "globalization" have been well known in economic circles since the 19 th century. Technology has made things somewhat different, there is more work that can be sent offshore, but this is hardly the first time this phenomenon has been seen. Our politicians and leaders of industry knew to a great extent what the result would be and they did it anyway and lied about how it would be good for us the whole time.  When they knew full well that the people who would benefit would be the rich, and that the people who would be hurt would be the middle classes and the poor.  And they did nothing whatsoever to mitigate that very predictable result.  

Nor have they tried to even measure the result as we have shown.  

6. Arent you oversimplifying this situation?

Yes, the situation is far worse and far more blatantly abusive than I have described.  Lets go a little deeper.

Our government has worked to encourage business to send work to countries where slave labor, indentured labor, and vast numbers of impoverished workers look for anything to do to make a living.  They knew full well that this infinite sink of cheap labor would impoverish a tremendous number of Americans, but they did absolutely nothing to mitigate it.  What could they possibly do, you say?  One, there could be laws against sending work to countries and companies that use slave and indentured labor. Second, these laws would have to include criminal sentences and mandatory jail time for all executives of a company, to the very top, or they would do it anyway, as business in America always breaks the law to make a fast buck.  Third, we can make provision for the displaced American worker to be able to support their family and pay for their graduate school.  Fourth, we can pay for the previous item because the company that displaced them will pay for this retraining out of the profits made from globalization.  Anything else would merely say to the company, make as much money as you want but do not for a second be concerned or responsible for the immense suffering and economic results of the greed of the corporation.

Instead the government and corporations pretend that outsourcing or offshoring does not have negative effects in this country.  But it does, and someone has to pay for it.  Why not have the corporation that benefited from such outsourcing pay for it?

7. Our government has failed to enforce treaties and trade agreements designed to create a level playing field.

The case study of the visual effects and motion picture industries is quite illuminating.  The commonwealth nations (UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) have created subsidies for foreign filmmakers to bring their films to these countries.  A producer who brings $10 million worth of production work to Canada will receive a check for $4 million up front.  No producer can resist that. This has affected all the filmmaking arts and crafts, but it has wiped out the American visual effects business (with a few exceptions).  Almost all visual effects has moved offshore and while some Americans have been able to leave the country and find work, or temporary work, many have not been able to do so and have been required to leave the industry and / or are otherwise impoverished.

There are laws about such things. There are treaties. There are remedies.  But in general it requires our State Department to act and they will not act if the elected representatives do not ask them to.  And our representatives will not ask the State Department to act unless the citizens demand it.  But labor is not organized in visual effects so they do not ask, or demand, their elected representatives to help them (or to invoke any of the other remedies that exist to deal with this kind of problem).

Our government had a responsibility to act and it did not do so, and as a result many, many people were impoverished and had to leave the country.  And why?  Because the movie studio wanted the subsidies, it helped them, not the worker.  But who cares about the worker, the non-shareholder? I presume that the field of visual effects is not unique, and that if our government is so completely in the pocket of the large corporation and against the worker in this industry, that the government also acts against the interests of the worker in other industries as well.

Isnt this really the fault of the worker for not organizing? Well, maybe, that is certainly part of the problem here. Maybe our system should require labor to organized to defend their basic rights? After all, the people who are hurt are not just those who did not organize (the craft of Visual Effects) but the local economies as well. But isnt this really just blaming the victim? Its all her fault because she did not scream loud enough when being raped? Maybe.

8. But what could our government do to change the situation?

The following would in no way solve all the problems.  Peoples lives have been destroyed to increase the profits of the rich and we can not turn back the clock.

First, measure unemployment. Second, pay for retraining (calculated at about 250K per person). Third, stop abusive visa programs such as the H2B program. Fourth, compel the corporations to pay their share of the retraining. Fifth, see to it the costs of shipping and communications reflects real costs and does not violate our laws. Sixth, enforce the trade laws regarding subsidies. Seventh, criminalize the corporate violations of the law that result in American unemployment. Eighth, stop oppressing the middle and lower classes with taxes, but increase the taxes on the rich. Backdate this five years. Ninth, use our intelligence community to shut down the transfer of wealth to off shore tax shelters and the work of companies to do the same. Tenth, make it illegal for our corporations to outsource or off shore work to companies that use indentured labor, slave labor, or suppress workers rights. As always with our corporations, these requirements must have criminal penalties attached.  Eleventh, the subsidy issue in the motion picture industry proves that labor must be organized to fight for its rights in our government, so not only must the "right to work" bullshit be eliminated, but unions of one type or another must become mandatory.  Twelfth, force our government to create a strategic economic plan for the economic well being of all our citizens. We have strategic plans for defense and energy, we should have one for our economy. Thirteenth, reduce the influence of big corporations on the political system.  Do this one first.

9. What conclusions should we draw?

I concluded from my little research project into the economic policies of this country the following:

1. That the policies that go under the term of "free trade" were guaranteed to impoverish and/or economically damage the American worker.

2. That the US Government knew this and lied to the American people about the likely economic results of their policies in order to increase the profits of the rich.

3. That the US Government does not measure nor does it want to measure the amount of economic distress that exists in this country.

4. That the US Government does not enforce the laws and treaties that might mitigate the distress their policies have caused.

5. That the US Government has not taken any of the steps or implemented the policies that would assist the American worker in this economy.

6. That in order for us, the 99 percent, to change this situation we will have to change our government, and force them to make the changes.  These changes include measuring the distress, stopping certain visa programs, implementing laws against outsourcing and offshoring to companies and countries using slave or indentured labor, or who deny worker rights, implementing new training and education programs for all Americans that put them on a even footing with the children of the rich, making it illegal to outsource or offshore unless it can be shown that the net benefit to society as a whole (and not just the profits of the corporation) are positive, criminalizing corporate malfeasance, making it illegal to outsource or outshore work to governments and companies known to be involved in immoral and unethical activities, creating real and non-insulting benefits for our unemployed and impoverished, force the State Department to implement the laws regarding subsidies, change the tax structure of this country to put the burden on the rich, and discover and punish off-shore and illegal tax accounts by our rich and our corporations.

Some of these are easier to do than others, but all of them are doable and should be done at once. Ha. Maybe you think that is unrealistic, and you are probably right. Our government has made it very clear what they think about the working classes of this country.

They could not care less.

[To follow: a post on the need to criminalize corporate crime and more specific remedies for the economic inequality our government has so conscientiously brought into being].

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1. You are invited to spend a day reviewing the laws about ageism and ask yourself whether there is any chance for one second that these laws are intended, in any meaningful way, to prevent discrimination based on age.  My conclusion after spending a week on it, is that there is not the slightest chance in hell that these laws are expected to be taken seriously.  One more time our government pays lip service to some nice sounding social policy but does nothing to make it happen.  It would be a joke, if any of it was funny.

2. See the Congressional Research Service Report "The Economic Effects of Trade: Overview and Policy Challenges" at https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44546.pdf

Most Excellent Career Advice from Friends

There was a time, years ago, when one's friends and professional colleagues were an important part of one's career path. There are a variety of trendy-and-sometimes-stupid terms to describe this phenomenon, but back then the world was not seen as a zero-sum game where if you win I lose and vice versa.

In my years of wandering through the wilderness, I have been given some good advice and some very bad advice. Sadly, I have learned the hard lesson more than once that no one can figure out what I should do but myself and that the process of trying to achieve whatever this new goal / plan / whatever is likely to annoy people, friends and colleagues, and be achieved over their dead body or at least without their knowledge and consent.

Like everyone else, I have successful friends and I have very smart friends. Some of the smart friends are successful, and some less so, but nevertheless I know a lot of talented people. These people are pretty much all very busy with their own problems, families, issues and so forth. They are not in any way obligated or should be obligated to help me or advise me or anything else. When they do, it is a gift, they are certainly not getting paid for it. They are just trying to help.

Obviously I am a victim of first-world underemployment and globalization and like so many others I am at a loss for what to do to make a living. Lets be honest here, I have also made some mistakes in the past. For example, I failed to get a trust fund. What was I thinking? Furthermore, it was I who chose to go into computer animation.  Me bad. And so I have reached out to friends to see if they have any ideas about how to best make use of the rest of my life, if you call this living.

For a moment we are going to ignore such fabulous advice as "do good work and dont worry about money". Although this is no doubt a good sentiment, I think it needs a little more elaboration before it can be implemented.

But of those ideas that have been suggested that are specific enough to consider, these are my three favorite: 

1. A NY filmmaker and pioneer of computer animation also had a line of original pornography in the BDSM genre.  He suggested that I might be able to help him market this creative work to various distributors. I have no trouble if consenting adults want to enjoy themselves by tying each other up and whacking each other but I dont really know too much about this subgenre of human behavior and would not be able to contribute much in the way of aesthetics or guidance, so I declined.

2. A good friend who has used computers and done computer animation for the last 30 years knows zero about computers and regularly would self destruct and lose all her work.  I would spend a lot of time helping her and trying to recover her data because I am a "nice guy".  She noticed how helpful I was at this and suggested that I make a career of selling my services as a PC repairman door to door. What a great idea.

3. A very successful friend of mine who has the burden of managing a giant research facility in the field of entertainment related technologies, suggests that trying to get a job in my field was too ambitious.  He recommends that I sell my programming services on the Internet through an anonymous jobbing service. Some sort of lowest-common-denominator programming exchange. He figures I might be able to make $6.00 an hour and that it is "easy money". 

I want to thank all my friends for thinking of me.

They really do mean well.

But what is really, really scary is that these are my friends.

Globalization and its Discontents Part 2/1

We will start the long-delayed second part of the “Globalization Review” here on Global Wahrman. These posts will dribble out over the next month or two.  I am not in a hurry and you should not be either. The whole issue is so far over my head (and presumably your head) that it isn't funny.

The point of these posts is to bring to your attention what a layperson can figure out about our government's globalization policies, what the results have been, what the future holds. Unfortunately there is a lot to these different issues of trade policy, taxation, employment, retraining, economic security and so forth. I will make every effort to be brief and to make suggestions for partial solutions or remedies. I think it will become very clear very quickly that our government has not done even a minimally acceptable job on these issues and is at best incompetent but probably worse.

I have no credibility in this area. There is no reason why anyone should listen to a word I say about this. I am not an economist, my degree in Economics is undergraduate and from UCLA. The world of international finance and trade policy is very, very complex. Anything I come up with is likely to be as silly as a layman trying to tell a physicist where really to look for dark matter. It will become clear that I think that there are some politically plausible, sometimes expensive, remedies which will alleviate some of the misery that many Americans are experiencing. But of course it is extremely doubtful that anyone who matters will care what I think, or what you think for that matter.

So why bother? Is this a good use of our time? Your time and my time? If it is, it is only because we are expected in a democracy to be informed citizens.Furthermore, the economic policies of this country have apparently caused a lot of misery and it is incumbent on us to understand where this misery came from, whether it was avoidable or at least predictable, and what might be done about it. In a sense, this is a form of what we used to call "civics".

I have another motivation here as well. There is every reason to think that the American visual effects community was mostly destroyed by foreign subsidies and that our Government did nothing. Is this story true, is it partially true? What was the role of the studios, the production companies, our representatives in Washington, our State Department?

When I started this investigation, I had not been paying much attention to this country's trade policy, or its tax policy, or the issues of labor organization, or to unemployment, or to so many of the issues that I have had to educate myself on.  I knew that unemployment existed and that I was a victim of it, in some sense of that word 'victim', but I did not believe that this was because of structural reasons that our government had put in place, either accidentally or deliberately.  The process of learning about the situation has changed my mind.

There is nothing subtle about what I am going to review for you. It was also a surprise to me how little of it was even new as most of these issues were discussed in great detail in the 19th century. These policies have winners and losers and the results of these types of policies are very well known.

Furthermore, it will be clear that there are straightforward remedies that could certainly alleviate some of the misery experienced in this country. Now, I admit, these remedies will probably not solve all the issues of wealth and other inequality, or restore the lives destroyed by our government's incompetence or greed (whichever you think it is), but these suggestions would certainly make things better. There are those who think that a remedy has to solve all problems or not be tried. I dont agree. I think we can chip away at problems and make a difference now. Realistically of course there is no chance for these suggestions to be implemented, nor am I convinced that these are the best ideas out there, they are merely intended to be examples of the kind of remedies that do exist.

At one point, I had a list of topics that I was going to discuss, but the list was too long and too dreary. I did not want to scare you off.  I wish I could make this more fun. All I can do is make it as brief as possible, and even that wont be easy.

I do have one request. I am a little sensitive because of my station in life and I do not like to be called stupid. If I say something here that you disagree with, fine. Feel free to make a comment that lets me know why you disagree and give me a counterexample. Or just stop reading. That is just fine with me, nobody gives a fuck what I think anyway.

Globalization and Its Discontents (1/2)

Many people in Washington and in business pretend to be surprised at the backlash against Globalization, which is sometimes presented with the code words “free trade”.  If the politicians are genuinely surprised at a backlash then they are genuinely stupid.  But I do not believe that they are that stupid, I think that one more time they are lying to steal the money.

Globalization has a very clear historical track record at least here in the West.  What is human slavery but an economic alternative to having to pay one's fellow citizens a living wage?  One can just "requisition" labor from the "dark continent" and use them on your sugar plantations without having to pay benefits or for that matter salary. Just a little room and board. And no unions either! Just imagine how much profits were improved for the shareholders. It was a good system until a bunch of do-gooders got involved and ruined everything, making business pay good hard money to the workers.

Globalization serves a similar purpose: increase profits through lowering costs of labor by sending the work to a part of the world where labor laws do not exist. And if it has a result of impoverishing Americans, well who cares? They are not shareholders and the poor have no impact on the political process, as we all know so well. 

Does this mean that I do not want America to be part of the “Global Economy”? No of course not. What I want is for the burden that Globalization imposes on the citizens of this country to be shared with the people who make the profits, and to see that there are legal restraints on their power.  And I believe that the Government can do many things to bring Globalization and its negative side effects under control.  I believe that they are morally obligated to do so.

Why does our government believe that they can put that many Americans out of work and not do something to help them find new work?  If these workers need to be retrained for another job, they are not likely to be able to afford it. The money they would have spent in the local economy, all that money that is being sent overseas, is now not spent in the local, American economy, causing other business to go out and release even more workers. And the improved profits go to the top 1 percent who already had enough money, so the average American sees none of this. The corporations and the rich do not even pay their fair share of taxes, putting even more burden on the middle and lower classes.  How can our government think for even one second that this is fair?

Of course the profits that remain do not just go to the 1 percent, some of that is shared with the politicians that enabled these activities with legislation that impoverished so many of their constituents. Payment for services received, as it were.

So now Americans are finally waking up to what has been done to them. It is reasonable to ask when does unintended consequences become merely the 800 pound chicken that comes home to roost? When is it merely the greed and stupidity of our business and political elite at the expense of any responsibility to long term consequences?  Long term consequences? What long term consequences, you may ask.

Here is one. Even the most shallow observer of recent history is aware that when the United States won World War 2, it was in large part because they had the manufacturing power to win it.  Now that we have destroyed our manufacturing in order to increase the profits of the rich, it makes it unlikely that we will be able to win another World War, should one happen. Do I believe that the United States has a strategic economic plan to see that this does not happen?  Thats a joke, right? 

Here is another.  A generation of young and old Americans who can not achieve financial security or their goals in life because they and their families were impoverished by this economic policy. When will Washington get it through their heads that enriching the 1 percent is not the same as providing economic security to Americans?

But the worst part of this is that our elected representatives lied through their teeth about the results of Globalization and do so to this day, but do nothing to help the disenfranchised or impoverished.  Their job is to represent the interests of the American people, and to tell them the truth about the policies that they are proposing.  And Clinton, Bush and Obama lied to the American people on an issue that is vital to the well being of their constituents.

Can anything be done about this? Isn't it all just water under the bridge by now? The answer to that is no, not even a little bit. Yes, 20 years of people's lives have been destroyed but there is a lot that our elected officials can do to improve the situation and return some wealth to the other 99 or so percent that they have "inconvenienced".

This will be the topic of part two of this post.

John Hughes, the Doolittle Raid and Globalization

[My sources in Korea tell me that the first project for Mr Hughes in his new studio will be a Bruce Beresford film about the aftermath of the Doolittle Raid in China].

It has been announced that John Hughes is forming an effects studio in Beijing with Chinese money. The first project will probably be one that dramatizes the support the Chinese people gave to the allied war effort in World War 2, in particular the support that the Chinese gave to the Doolittle Raid of Tokyo, and the Japanese response which was severe.

Its an interesting choice of topic for a first project and I wonder who came up with it. My guess is that it was not the visual effects people, as we have learned that to have an opinion in such matters is not our place, and any enthusiasm or intelligence just makes the clients afraid (this is my personal experience). So we must assume that the choice of subject was made by the Chinese and is just a coincidence that it is on such a relevant topic in US / China relations. 

For those who are not aware of their own history, the Doolittle Raid was an improbable surprise attack by Mitchell B 25B medium bombers on Tokyo relatively early in the war.  They were launched by the Hornet, an aircraft carrier which had made a daring and dangerous approach to the Japanese coast.  The bombing itself was of minimal impact. The US had no way to retrieve the bombers or their pilots so the plan was for the bombers to fly on to China and land (or bail out) there.  Then with the help of the Chinese on the ground, the pilots would make their way back to America.  That did work up to a point.  The raid had minimal direct military impact, but it was a giant morale builder for the American people.  What was perhaps not completely thought out was how the Japanese were going to respond to the Chinese support for this activity.

From the article Aftermath: Doolittle Raid Reexamined on www.history.net: 

But the raiders’ choice of haven revealed coastal China as another dangerous gap in the empire’s defense. Japan already had many troops in China. Within weeks, the Imperial General Headquarters sent the main force of the Thirteenth Army and elements of the Eleventh Army and the North China Area Army—a total force that would swell to 53 infantry battalions and as many as 16 artillery battalions—to destroy the airfields the Americans had hoped to use in the provinces of Chekiang and Kiangsi. “Airfields, military installations, and important lines of communication will be totally destroyed,” the order read. The unwritten command was to make the Chinese pay dearly for their part in the empire’s humiliation. 

Details of the destruction emerged from previously unpublished records on file at Chicago’s DePaul University. Father Wendelin Dunker, a priest based in the village of Ihwang, fled the Japanese advance along with other clergy, teachers, and orphans under the church’s care, hiding in the mountains. He returned to find packs of dogs feasting on the dead. “What a scene of destruction and smells met us as we entered the city!” he wrote in an unpublished memoir.

The Japanese returned to Ihwang, forcing Dunker out again. Troops torched the town. “They shot any man, woman, child, cow, hog, or just about anything that moved,” Dunker wrote. “They raped any woman from the ages of 10–65.”

B25B Mitchell medium bombers preparing to take off from the USS Hornet

So it is fair to say that a movie the celebrates the long suppressed or just ignored history of our alliances in WW2 and the sacrifices of the Chinese people on our behalf is to be welcomed.

An article in the Smithsonian Magazine about the aftermath of the Doolittle raid

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/untold-story-vengeful-japanese-attack-doolittle-raid-180955001/?no-ist

Wikipedia page on the Doolittle Raid

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doolittle_Raid

"America and the Global Economy" in Foreign Affairs

[needs to be rewritten with examples from article]

If you go to the following link, you will be able to read an article in Foreign Affairs by Jacob J Lew entitled “America and the Global Economy”. Mr. Lew was director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the Clinton and Obama administrations.

If you register with Foreign Affairs, you will be permitted to read one article a month. Isnt that nice of them? I think that is mighty white of them, myself.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2016-04-11/america-and-global-economy

When you read this essay you may notice some entertaining little details. Pretty much every paragraph is either a lie or a threat except in the cases where it is both. What Mr. Lew is saying is that you had better do it our way or you will be sorry.  And literally the subtext is that putting Americans out of work is always good. And paying for insanity at the UN is just the price we have to pay if we want the UN to be around to do things we want now and again. Its our way or the highway.

We can count on Jack Lew to make the point that putting Americans out of work and supporting the worst kind of racism and anti-semitism at the UN is all in a days work for a Washington bureaucrat.  I have no doubt that he is a big supporter of Hillary Clinton and vice versa.

Wikipedia page for Jack Lew

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Lew

The TransPacific Partnership and the Inalienable Rights of the Corporation

draft

When will American's wake up and realize that it is the noble corporation, the keeper of all that is right and just, that must be the focus of all our laws and institutions? By enabling and encouraging the large corporation, mere freedom and liberty is transcended by providing greater profits to the shareholders. America is based on this fundamental principle in spite of the whining of little groups of failed so-called upholders of liberty. They should realize that the only liberty that matters is the liberty of the large corporation.  It is from these corporations that all the good in our world originates.  Our entire political system is dedicated to empowering the large corporation.

As the movie, Network (1976), so presciently puts it, in putting words into the mouth of the Chairman of the Board of the eponymous network,

A lecture on Globalization

"You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear? You think you've merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today."

And so, with this so clearly expressed back in 1976, why do we have to listen to mere Noble prize winning economists like this Joseph Stiglitz who is running down the Trans Pacific Partnership? Who is he to say that this is the "worst treaty every negotiated"?  President Obama had the interests of all Americans at heart when he tried to steamroller this treaty through congress without discussion.  Sure this treaty was negotiated in secret without the input of the citizens of the various nations but so what?  Look at what Globalization has brought to all the citizens of this great nation: poverty, the destruction of organized labor, the exploitation of enslaved people around the world.  Shouldn't that be enough to establish a little trust here?

Joseph Stiglitz going on and on about economic inequity again

In America, our entire political system is dedicated to empowering the large corporation. As it has always been. As it will always be.

Its for our own good.

You can read about Dr. Stiglitz's rant here:

http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/business/joseph-stiglitz-tpp-1.3515452

The IMDB page for Network (1976) is here:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074958/?ref_=ttqt_qt_tt

The Evil Chinese Conspiracy to Cripple American Wine Appreciation

It is the nature of the rise and fall of civilizations that the elites of the rising civilization by their very nature impose their aesthetics on the world. And that the aesthetics of the elites of the fading power must accommodate themselves to their new and impoverished position. That is the way of the world.

Therefore it is not a surprise that China's influence in the world in a variety of different areas of culture becomes more manifest as the years go by. Independent of that, America's influence could be predicted to decline, at least as far as its former middle class goes. The American elite will still go forward buying their racecars and whores, but the former middle class, now impoverished, must scale back its ambitions to consume to fit its new role in the globalized economy.

I am aware of four specific examples of this rise in Chinese influence, but two of these I only heard about in the last week. The four are: the impact of Chinese purchases for investment on real estate prices in North America, the role of the Chinese in the final extinction of the various remaining species of elephant, and the two surprises are the role of the Chinese in certain bizarre changes in elite car design in Germany and the spectacular changes in the prices of certain genre of French wine, in particular certain name brands from Bordeaux.

To get the first three out of the way so we can concentrate on wine, the following seems to be true. First, that the purchase of real estate for investment purposes and for bragging rights is resulting in a sustained demand and increased prices for real estate in certain prestige areas such as Manhattan, already expensive, and results in properties owned by the Chinese but not lived in. Second, and most unfortunate, Chinese traditional medicine has always made use of the ground up body parts of various endangered species. One in particular, the elephant, is being targetted for its ivory and this is leading to a catastrophic decrease in the remaining populations. The Chinese will probably be responsible for the final extinction of this wonderful animal after centuries of abuse by other cultures. The third, and actually quite odd, example is that (of course) the demand for elite automobiles has exploded in the Worker's Paradise and Mercedes in particular has been catering to this demand by changing their formerly understated and discreet design and making it wildly tacky, ostentatious, and even stupid in order to pander to the nouveau riche of Communist China.

Two of these examples are trivial, but the extinction of the elephant is a tragedy.

The fourth example was also a surprise to me because I have not been able to indulge my taste in French wine for many years. But I was going to a friend's house on Thanksgiving and I thought that this would be an opportunity to do so. What a surprise! Oh my!

To digress, I am a wine snob. When living in NY, one of my roommates was a Flamenco guitarist, and since you can not make a living at that, he also worked in the wine trade. I had him teach a class in the wines of Europe, and while we ventured into Italy and Spain, we mostly concentrated on red wine from the Bordeaux area. Wines in this area are highly esteemed by many groups and have been for many hundreds of years. But in one year in particular, the French government worked with industry to bring order out of chaos in conjunction with the planning for the Exposition of 1855, and at the request of Napoleon III, and as a result created the famous Classification of 1855 which ranked French wine from the Bordeaux region into five classes: the so called first growth wines through the fifth growth.

This classification has been very stable over the years with very few changes since 1855 and has in a sense become a self-fulfilling prophecy. A first and second growth winery will by definition be worth more, get more investment, and therefore be able to afford to make the changes necessary to maintain or increase the quality of their product.

Among the wines of this classification are some of the most famous wines in the world, including the wines of Chateau Lafite Rothschid, Chateau Mouton, Chateau Margaux and so forth. These wines of course commanded a premium price.

But there were some good deals among these classified Bordeaux and not all the great wines of France were out of reach of even the most modest of middle class American as long as they did a little homework to understand which vintages were worth buying and could plan a bit in advance. The more willing one was to plan in advance and make a modest investment, the better one would do.

Well those days are over, at least for certain name Chateau, and it is all because the Chinese have gone a little nutty, so some say, over certain of these wines.

For example, a well known and esteemed wine was the third wine of the Chateau Lafite Rothchild. This wine, the Carraudes de Lafite, was deliberately styled to be a well balanced, very drinkable wine, ready to drink as soon as it was on the market. Made from the vines that were not yet ready to contribute to the great vines of the estate, this wine was a fabulous wine that did not have to be kept for decades to be drinkable, would never be the very best wine, but was better than nearly any other red wine at a reasonable price. In the absence of the availability of something that has been around 20 years and commanding a high price at the last minute, one could pick up this wine of nearly any vintage and be very happy and pay no more than $35.00 a bottle.

So I look this wine up on the Internet and find it listed for $350.00 or so. I am confused. I wonder, maybe this is for a case (12 bottles) and not a single bottle?

No, the Chinese have gone nutty for Lafite and several other name brands and prices have gone up a factor of 10 or 20 in just the last few years.  A better bottle of wine which formerly went for a few hundred dollars, still expensive by any measure, will now sell for over $1,000 or even $2,000 a bottle.

Not all wines have exploded this much in price, but in general the wines of the Bordeaux region are for the most part, out of reach.

I just want to thank the Chinese for this little exercise in free market economics in the service of the rich and hope that they find the opportunity to choke on their wine and die.

Thanks again guys for reminding me how little I count for in the world.

I appreciate it.

____________________________________________________

Classification of 1855

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bordeaux_Wine_Official_Classification_of_1855

Chateau Lafite Rothschild

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_Lafite_Rothschild

The Free Market in Political Economy

Unfortunately this is one of those dreary, serious posts that has very little humor.  In fact, I see very little to cheer about in our economy in spite of what I read in the managed press.   Very little humor and almost no sarcasm.   We will return to our more traditional and shallow programming shortly.

A good friend of mine, who is far smarter than I am and infinitely more successful, has, with all sincerity, pointed out that the distress in the employment market in this country, or rather the unemployment market, is just the free market at work and the free market is the best system that we, the larger “we”, have for organizing our economic system. There may be some distress while people are repurposing themselves to other industries, but that is the way things go in our modern globalized society. 

I would describe this discussion as being similar to one between undergraduate freshmen late at night over beer discussing political economy. No one really cares what we think about the free market, but we care. So in the spirit of a good debating society, this post is here to support the following thesis:

Resolved: The free market has a track record of failure and disaster throughout history. Time and again, society has been forced to intervene and regulate the market in order to survive. Rather than create the best solution for society, it has produced arguably the very worst that could be imagined.

My argument goes as follows:

In America, the free market is holy. It is dogma that the free market produces the most efficient markets, the most fair results, the greatest prosperity for all. Many, many people in America believe that the free market, the so called laizzez faire, will both regulate itself and create a society that is acceptably fair for all without the need for government regulation of any sort.

But the reality is completely different. There is ample evidence that the free market left to itself not only routinely comes up with suboptimal solutions, but that it is notorious for it. And that furthermore, the assumption that the free market will result in a solution that society will find acceptable in any given area without some sort of regulation or control is patently and obviously wrong and has been proven wrong time and again.

One definition of insanity is to repeat the same behavior but expect a different result. Here are five cases where an international free market either resulted in a disaster for our economy and the economy of the world, or at the very least, would result in a situation that we would not desire.

1. Human slavery is a market solution.

Throughout history, human slavery and specifically the slave trade in human beings, has been a profitable global activity.   Human slave labor was a solution provided by the free market to provide a source of labor less expensive than hiring workers. Although the specific price performance of a human slave was different depending on the society involved, and the value of a human slave changed through the centuries, the trade in human slaves was always profitable and it has existed in every ancient and modern society that I am aware of, to a lesser or greater degree, until up to about 200 years ago. Which is not to say that there were not individuals who protested the trade and treatment of slaves and there were societies that organized to protect their citizens from becoming slaves, but the trade itself continued. (See note 3) Pretty much everyone's hands were dirty in the slave trade, although the extent of use of slavery and participation in the slave trade was uneven. Some ethnic groups, kingdoms, and/or nation states did seem to specialize in this morally objectionable practice more than others, in other words, the benefits of Globalization were revealed far in advance of its modern instantiation. To this day, human slavery is a major business in the underground economy and, if left to the market, would still exist in this country.

Abolishing slavery was not a market solution, not at all. In fact, the struggle to abolish human slavery has resulted in grave dislocations of various economies and in at least one major case, a war that killed about 10% of the adult male population and impoverished about half of that country, which is of course, this country.   Many believe that this particular war could have been avoided if both sides had been willing to figure out how to solve the economic dislocation the freeing of the slaves, who certainly deserved to be freed, could be addressed. Failing to address this issue, caused entirely by the amoral behavior of the free market whose major beneficiaries absolved themselves of all responsibility for the situation they had created, resulted in death and destruction on a vast scale.

Furthermore, the free market, left to itself,  has never abolished human slavery anywhere to the best of my knowledge and has not to this day. Society has had to come in at great expensive of lives and treasure to destroy this abomination and we are not done yet.

2. The exploitation of children is a market solution.

Great Britain was the first to industrialize their factories and the free market immediately abused labor, vastly expanding the use of women and children in inhuman conditions for impossible hours and slave wages which resulted from day one in misery, damaged lives, mutilation and death in the pursuit of profits. The free market never solved this problem. It was solved by society passing laws that punished corporations for their morally reprehensible behavior which took advantage of vast poverty in society to increase the profits of the factory owners. Not only was minimum standards of morality forced on them at the time, but they have been complaining about it ever since.

3. The complete collapse of a major segment of the energy industry about a century ago and the near extermination of mammalian sea life was a result of the free market..

Over 100 years ago, before our economy based itself on petroleum and we developed the technologies necessary for its extraction and use, the primary sources of energy in Western civilization were wood, coal and various oils for lighting. Nearly all lighting in this country was produced from whale and seal oil as it produced a better flame and less smoke than the alternatives which had been used throughout history. The globalized energy industry, particularly Great Britain and the United States, would send ships to islands in the southern hemisphere where they would find 100,000 seals on a single island and slaughter them, melt down their bodies for the fat in factory ships, and stop when it was no longer worth the money to kill them. From 100,000 seals on an island, they might leave a few hundred. It was just too expensive to chase them down and kill the last ones or they would have. The energy industry's vast wisdom in managing this scarce resource, whales and seals, was to kill them until they became essentially extinct and then stop. When they had killed so many that it was no longer profitable to kill the rest, and the whales and seals were all but extinct, that industry simply collapsed.  If natural gas and electric power (generated from coal) had not replaced it, we would have been burning olive oil in lamps the way the Romans had.

4. Whenever the financial markets have been allowed a free market, they have self destructed and taken the economy with it.

The self regulation of finance by the market has a very clear history. Left to itself, the finance markets will always engage in obviously risky behavior in pursuit of profits that will result in an unstable situation that at some point collapses at vast cost to society and the world. The market would then slowly rebuild, the economy rebuild, and they would do it again. Repeat. Left to itself, the financial markets are guaranteed to self-destruct out of greed and a complete lack of responsibility to the society that it serves.

It is as if engineers built bridges that collapse at tremendous loss of life because it was less expensive and more profitable to do so and they knew that this would kill people but they did not care. The latest example of this was the economic collapse of 2008 which was caused by gross malfeasance on the part of the finance industry in conjunction with congress and the regulatory agencies that abandoned their responsibilities to society.

Furthermore, we can say that whatever financial market we have today only exists because of government intervention, in other words, because of government interference with the free market. Left to the free market, there would be no finance market or industry. They had self destructed. It was gone, baby. All gone. The world economy was destroyed in 2008, repeat: destroyed, and the world entered the worst depression since the great Depression of 1929.  It was only because of government intervention in spite of the finance markets that the depression was not worse and they were careful to do so in ways that avoided the bad word "depression" as well as financially reward their guilty friends in the finance industries that had caused the problems.

5. Left to the free market, there would be no education for the poor.

It is true that by having mass public education, the rich get better workers, better soldiers, and more entertaining whores, but they have never wanted to pay for it. Public education has never been, now or ever, a solution that the market came up with.

So when I hear someone say, lets have the free market find the solution, I think to myself, are these people out of their fucking minds?

_____________________________________

1. By the way, for what it is worth, one of my degrees is in Economics from a famously free-market school, UCLA, and I worked with a billion economists at the RAND Corporation when I was very young. Maybe this background is part of the explanation for why the issue of the use or abuse of the free market in lieu of policy seems so important to me.

2.  The practice of slaving was not restricted to black Africans, by the way.  That was a development in the slave trade in the 15th century.  Before that, there were slaves of any color or race, so far as I know.  The specific racial theory to justify slavery of sub-Saharan Africans seems to come into existence to help justify the practice.  Before then, however, human slavery involved pretty much anyone who could be victimized. Slavers would often raid by sea, attack a town, enslave the citizens and escape by sea.  Its a long, diverse, and complicated story. 

3. You may read about laissez faire at the link below.  The Wikipedia version is somewhat different from how it was explained to me years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-faire

The Plausibility of Getting Medication in Mexico

In order to clear up a misunderstanding... the interest in getting medication in Mexico is not predicated on a desire to save money nor it is to avoid getting proper prescriptions.  It is because DEA and Ca. restrictions on certain medications make it impossible to get these medications under various circumstances (e.g. the pharmacy will not sell them to you) even with legitimate prescriptions.   

One function of the Internet which can be said to be socially neutral is to share information among people who have a common interest, whether that interest is sailing, jihadist terrorism or getting legitimate medical help in a region of the world. This feature is certainly of positive value some of the time, but it is also of (culturally dependent) negative value other times. Clearly we do not see advice on blowing people up as positive, but those who seek to right what they see as wrongs do.

In that spirit I am going to discuss what I think I know about getting the medications I need to treat ADHD in Mexico. One of the few advantages of living in Hell is that I am near the border of Mexico. Its an hour away.

This note is not intended to aid people figure out how to get recreational drugs or anything of the sort. It is intended to be a personal journal of my attempts to get legitimately prescribed medications for a disorder that for reasons known to the DEA are difficult to get in this country.

I also happen to believe that American adult citizens of good standing should be permitted to be able to choose what they take in their bodies without the consent of doctors or government as long as they are of proper age, and do not do stupid things like drive motor vehicles under the influence. Which of course they do every day of the week under the influence of the most dangerous drug of them all: alcohol. But that opinion of mine is not relevant to this and related posts. This post is solely about getting properly prescribed medications that are not disbursed in this country for a variety of regulatory stupidities.

There is a lot of misinformation about getting meds in Mexico on the Internet and I am probably adding to it. As time goes by I will add links to the useful sources I have found. So far, I have not tried any of this and I have not been to Mexico for years. This information comes entirely from reading dozens or hundreds of posts on the Internet and forming my own judgement. No doubt I will try some of what I discuss here if for no other reason to satisfy my curiosity. Repeat, none of the following is personal experience.  And I despise giving what appears as advice without direct personal experience, but here we are.  Any numbers quoted are numbers found on the Internet and are likely to be “internet numbers” which is to say not true, or only somewhat true.

First notes, and then tentative conclusions.

Americans going to Mexico to get medication is a vast business. There are numbers like 40 million visitors per year just for this purpose. There are numbers such as $200M a year in pharmaceuticals bought by Americans and carried back across the border. Remember, these are internet numbers, taken with a grain of salt.

There are at least a thousand pharmacies in Tijuana that exist to service this business. These pharmacies fall into two classes. Only the much more rare first class handles what we would call controlled substances. The more common second class of pharmacies handles the more common and uncontrolled substances.

The vast majority of purchases fall into a few classes: older people seeking to save money on the medications they need to survive or not be in pain and who are looking to ease the appalling costs added to medications in American in order to extract more money from innocent victims. As you might imagine our government is outraged that sick and poor people would try to get the same deal that large corporations get by going offshore, and do anything to stop it. But for some reason the border guards will permit these prescription, but non-controlled or scheduled substances back across the border if they are carried by the person they are for and are for personal use. I know very little else about what is involved in getting these medications and they are of no interest to me, at least not yet. The other major group of purchasers are young men looking for Viagra at a discount or other appalling date rape drugs which are apparently easily available. There is also a big business in self medicated antibiotics and people stock up on these. This is the sort of behavior that makes doctors in this country and their paid servants, the politicians, mad with rage and they do whatever they can to stop it. There is another category of people who are seeking medications not yet available in this country but are available in Europe. Mexico seems to follow the European approvals.

Many of these medications are made directly in Mexico in factories run by the major pharmaceutical companies. There is a lot of discussion about what is and what is not of adequate quality. My feeling is that this should not be a major concern unless you are doing things like cancer drugs or heart disease drugs. In my case it is not a concern. The medication will work in the manner that I expect or I will not repeat the experience. If it doesnt work I am no worse off than I was before.

Generally speaking your American prescriptions are not good over there. Mexico has their own system of prescribing medications and if you are interested in so-called controlled substances you will need a Mexican doctor to write you one. This is apocryphally not too difficult it is said. See notes below. A photocopy of an American prescription or empty prescription bottles *may* be of use in demonstrating that you are of good will and it *may* be useful in talking to a licensed Mexican doctor in getting a prescription for what you need. On a personal note I plan to take with me photocopies of a relevant prescription and an empty bottle or two just in case they turn out to be useful.

It is apparently common for a person to go to a pharmacy, be directed to a doctor, and get a prescription for what they need for what we would consider a nominal sum, e.g. $20 or $30 US. Again take this all with a grain of salt.

The doctor may wish to break the prescription down to small amounts and suggest you go to separate pharmacies.

Coming back across the border seems to be the following. You are supposed to declare anything you buy of this type. If you do not, and they find them, you are guilty of a misdemeanor and what you bought are likely to be confiscated. If you do declare and they are for personal use, generally they let you through. If you are carrying so much that they think that you are going to resell them, then they will confiscate. It is not so clear to me that any of this applies to controlled substances, but if they are small amounts for personal use, and you have copies of legitimate prescriptions or American bottles, then it is believed they let you through. I consider this a major flaw in the whole scheme because it is very likely that the behavior may depend on who is manning the station and what the enforcement flavor of the month is.

You will need a passport.

Tentative conclusions:

For non-controlled substances that are not health critical, such as heart disease, this is likely to be a way to save substantial money and has no apparent risks.

Those who use medications that are health critical need to be more careful and you can find discussions on the internet of how to do so.

Carrying an American prescription and or empty bottles may be helpful in getting the medication or coming back across the border, or it may be totally a waste of time.

You will need a Mexican prescription for anything that is controlled in Mexico. This includes most but not all of the controlled substances in this country. For ADHD, anything useful is controlled in both countries.

Coming back across the border is a dubious activity that may be helped by the medication being for your personal use, and having proof of legitimate American and Mexican prescriptions. It is critical that this medication be for your own use and not for resale. Failing to declare these things is a crime, do not do it, it will get you into trouble.

You will need an American passport.

Plan to spend all day on this activity, at least the first time you try it.

In conclusion, I am leery of the whole process. It is an ambiguous venture, not quite tantamount to drug smuggling but perhaps one of those odd holes in the control of trade materials across the border. But we are told we live in a world of globalization and that it is ethical to destroy American livelihoods by using slave labor in China, a vicious dictatorship, so why shouldn't Americans try to get a little savings by going to Mexico.

The hypocrisy of our system is rampant, overt, and starting to get annoying.