#in terms of numerical rating i have no idea i can't answer that in any way shape or form

[bakerstreetbabble]

The Straight Dope on Sherlock Holmes

The Straight Dope  is a question and answers column that started in the Chicago Reader (a free weekly newspaper) in 1973.  The article below is copied from the Straight Dope's website, and is a pretty good, concise "Sherlock Holmes 101." The article originally was published in 2003.

I've been a fan of The Straight Dope since the mid 1980s, when I read the first collection of articles, published in 1984 (as pictured to the left).

Enjoy!

Did Sherlock Holmes really exist?  April 8, 2003

Dear Straight Dope:

An eccentric friend of mine claims to have read a book called The Seven-Per-Cent Solution about a meeting of two monumental figures in their respective fields: Sigmund Freud the famous psychologist, and Sherlock Holmes the British detective. The title referred to Holmes' alleged cocaine addiction, which he asked Freud to help him conquer. I was highly skeptical. Why would someone write a book mixing two outstanding and contrasting personalities for the sole reason of having them discuss cocaine?

My friend also claims that this encounter is based on a true story, which I doubted as well. I was previously led to believe that Sherlock Holmes was a fictitious character, possibly based on another real-life detective, but not an actual person. Internet research turned up numerous articles from both sides of the real/fictional argument, as well as several articles about clues to Holmes' coke addiction. But if I can't count on the Straight Dope to sift through the various arguments and emerge with the truth (or at least a plausible facsimile), on whom can I count?

— Julia Yeung, Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada

So, the Web seems to turn up evidence on both sides of the real/fiction argument, eh? A fine lesson in being careful about accepting information because it's "on the Internet." But this isn't the usual case of mistaking the ravings of online lunatics for fact. You've been taken in by a great game.

I'm going to break your question in two parts: (1) Who was Sherlock Holmes? and (2) What's with his cocaine addiction? Note: For any readers who are devoted Sherlockians, and who know that Sherlock was real, please skip ahead to Part 2. I wouldn't want you to be upset by any heresy that I might utter in Part 1.

Part 1. Was Sherlock real or fictional? Why are the websites confusing on this issue?

Sherlock Holmes is fictional. Let's get that straight once and for all. The book you mention, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution by Nicholas Meyer (1974), is also fictional.

If you've not read Sherlock Holmes in a long time, or have never had the pleasure, I heartily recommend him. I draw your attention to The Annotated Sherlock Holmes by William S. Baring-Gould (1967), which contains all the stories with ample footnotes (to explain terms no longer commonly known to us, among other things). I have used that work extensively in writing this Staff Report.

Sherlock Holmes was the creation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930). Doyle was an M.D., and not unsuccessful, but he preferred writing, and eventually abandoned his medical career. He had sold a few short stories when, in 1886, he decided to write a detective story.

Detective stories were in their infancy. Edgar Allen Poe had created what was arguably the first fictional detective, Auguste Dupin, more than 40 years earlier. Robert Louis Stevenson and others had used detective characters and the mystery story format. Most are now forgotten. It was the immense popularity of Doyle's Holmes that unleashed the flood of mystery and detection stories that has persisted to this day.

Late in 1887, the brilliant but eccentric detective Sherlock Holmes made his first appearance in a 200-page novel called A Study in Scarlet. Doyle was paid £25 (about $125 at the then-current exchange rate). The second Holmes novel, The Sign of Four, appeared in February 1890.

Then quickly followed a brand new (in England) idea: a series of short stories based on one central character. The first of the series of twelve Holmes stories was "A Scandal in Bohemia," published in the July 1891 issue of The Strand magazine.

Holmes was immensely popular from the first. The public demanded more stories. By 1892, Doyle received £1,000 ($5,000) for a series of dozen Sherlock Holmes short stories in "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes."

The financial success and popularity were pleasant, but Doyle began to feel that all his energies were devoted to writing Holmes stories, diverting him from writing serious fiction. At the conclusion of another series of twelve stories, Doyle decided to kill Sherlock Holmes. In "The Final Problem," published in December 1893 but set in 1891, Holmes encountered Professor Moriarty, the Napoleon of crime, in a mutually fatal showdown at Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland.

There was a huge public outcry--Doyle received letters from readers who wept and from men who went to work wearing black mourning bands; one letter began, "You brute!"

For the next eight years, Doyle devoted himself to his serious writings. But in 1901 he had an idea for a novel that needed a detective. Rather than invent a new character, he decided to use Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles, set before Holmes perished in Switzerland. It was a tremendous success and remains among the most popular of the Holmes stories today, with a new film or TV version every few years.

In 1903, Doyle surrendered to the public demand for more Holmes stories. He resurrected Holmes in "The Empty House," set in 1894, with an explanation of how Holmes hadn't really plunged off the waterfall after all.

Doyle continued to write Holmes stories through 1927. He died three years later. All in all, Doyle wrote four novels and 56 short stories (the latter collected into five volumes) about his fictional detective.

Doyle's other writings include The Lost World, about an expedition that discovers a hidden dinosaur enclave, which has been made into many motion pictures beginning with a silent special-effects extravaganza in 1921 and a new television production earlier this year. But his serious writings, such asThe White Company, are largely forgotten. His works and name live on because of Sherlock Holmes.

Holmes was extremely popular not just in England and the U.S. but throughout Europe and Latin America. My wife's grandmother told me that, as a teenager in Poland before WWI, she eagerly awaited the appearance of each Sherlock Holmes story. A century later Holmes remains as popular as ever.

Even in the early days, Doyle received letters from readers who believed Sherlock Holmes was real and wanted to hire him. It is a tribute to Doyle's writing that he could create such a believable hero.

The original books are still best sellers and have been translated into more than fifty languages. Every year brings new Sherlock Holmes movies, TV shows, or board games. He appears in parodies and pastiches, in television ads, and in Star Trek: The Next Generation. The current (2003) Jackie Chan movie Shanghai Knights includes an homage to Holmes. The Guinness Book of Movie Facts and Feats (1993) declares Sherlock Holmes the fictional character with the most film appearances, with over 200 as of 1993.

Parodies of Holmes have been written by people such as James M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan--this one was particularly admired by Doyle himself. Burlesques have been written by the likes of Mark Twain (not a very good one, alas), Bret Harte, and O. Henry. Doyle himself wrote two parodies. There is even a Martian counterpart to Holmes, written by the science fiction giant, Poul Anderson.

In London, the rooms that Holmes and Watson shared together at 221B Baker Street are now a museum. The rooms are pure fiction, of course. Although there is a Baker Street in London, there was no 221B; it was an address Doyle made up. But tourists had been searching Baker Street for so many years, trying to find the "actual house," that the street numbers were changed so that the museum could be established. The museum reproduces the rooms shared by Watson and Holmes as described in Doyle's stories. Every item of furniture or bric-a-brac mentioned in the stories can be found in the museum rooms, from the dark-lanterns to the Turkish slipper on the mantel filled with shag tobacco. For more information, see www.sherlock-holmes.co.uk/home.htm . 

Was Holmes based on another real-life detective, you ask? The answer is emphatically not. Doyle himself said that his inspiration was a former teacher, Dr. Joseph Bell, but Bell said that Holmes was a creation of Doyle's own gifts and training. Holmes scholars unanimously agree that the only resemblance between Bell and Holmes was Bell's remarkable power of deductive reasoning. In other respects Holmes is a completely original creation.

OK, so Doyle wrote these wonderful and immensely popular stories about a (fictional) detective. Most of the tales are narrated in the first person by Holmes's equally fictitious friend and companion, Dr. John H. Watson. While today's writers strive for consistency in their series characters, Doyle was always willing to ignore consistency or even facts for the sake of a good story. He wrote: "It has always seemed to me that so long as you produce your dramatic effect, accuracy of detail matters little. I have never striven for it and I have made some bad mistakes in consequence. What matter if I hold my readers?"

From those inaccuracies and inconsistencies, amazingly enough, a whole new literary discipline sprouted. As early as January, 1902, an "open letter" to Dr Watson [!!] was published in the Cambridge Review, criticizing the dates mentioned in The Hound of the Baskervilles. That same year, Arthur Maurice wrote an editorial comment, "Some Inconsistencies of Sherlock Holmes." The ball really got rolling in 1911, when Father (later Monsignor) Ronald Knox read a paper at Trinity College, Oxford, and created a highly specialized and possibly unique form of literary criticism. 

Let's call it the Game. The point is to pretend that Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson were real, that Watson wrote the stories reporting actual events, and that Conan Doyle was merely Watson's literary agent. Essentially, one applies Holmes's own methods to analyzing the stories, trying to explain the inconsistencies, fill the gaps, and identify the other characters and events.

To aficionados, the original stories are "the Canon" and "the Sacred Writings." There are volumes of writings about the Writings.

Dorothy L. Sayers, herself known for writing the Peter Wimsey mysteries, set forth the rules of the Game. "It must be played as solemnly as a county cricket match at Lord's; the slightest touch of extravagance or burlesque ruins the atmosphere."

There are journals that publish research and speculations and articles, all under the assumption that Holmes and Watson really existed. Societies of Sherlockiana have sprung up, the most famous being the Baker Street Irregulars (named after the gang of street urchins that Holmes employed for reconnaissance). There are biographies of Holmes. Authors have written "newly discovered" adventures of Holmes and Watson, including Nicholas Meyer's The Seven-Per-Cent Solution--perhaps the most famous of all Holmesian pastiches, of which more later.

One of the more wonderful ideas is found in a science fiction story by H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire entitled "The Return," about an isolated community which had maintained a thriving society for two centuries after an atomic war. The heart of the community was the Sacred Books, which told of the eternal conflict between Holmes and Moriarty and tutored them in the use of deductive reasoning.

Many authors bring Holmes into contact with real-life contemporary people, such as Sigmund Freud or Oscar Wilde or Jack the Ripper or Harry Flashman, or even with fictional characters such as Tarzan, the Loch Ness monster, or Dracula.

That's why, when you do a Web search, you find many, many sites that are dedicated to the Game--to the assumption that these fictional characters were real. I suppose it can be confusing if you don't know what's afoot.

OK, having answered your first question, for the rest of this Staff Report we're going to enter into that world and pretend that Holmes and Watson were real, and that Watson wrote the stories based on their actual exploits.

Part 2. The Game's afoot: What's with Holmes and his cocaine addiction?

The heart of Sherlockiana arises from the inconsistencies in the stories themselves. Perhaps Watson was sometimes just a sloppy author, but sometimes he deliberately tried to conceal identities. From these inconsistencies and evasions has sprung a great body of literature: research, speculation, and whimsy. Christopher Morley wrote, "What other body of modern literature is esteemed as much for its errors as its felicities?"

What kinds of errors or inconsistencies are we talking about? For example, Watson said that "The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge" occurred in 1892--but in 1892 Holmes was believed to be dead at the bottom of Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland.

How could such an inconsistency or error arise?

Perhaps Watson's bad handwriting caused editing errors (this is an excuse Cecil Himself uses from time to time), and the printer got the date wrong.

Watson's memory was often faulty. In "The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger," Watson professes to have no recollection of an adventure that he shared with Holmes. So we have internal evidence that Watson may have misremembered the date.

Watson seems to have had a complete disregard for the calendar. This happens time and again in the Writings. As another example, in "The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist," Watson writes, "On referring to my notebook for the year 1895, I find that it was upon Saturday, April 23, that we first heard of Miss Violet Smith." The plot hinges upon the correctness of that recollection, because Miss Smith came into town every Saturday. But April 23, 1895 was a Tuesday.

Then there's Watson's "Victorian discretion and delicacy." Watson would deliberately conceal a name, a place, a date, or the exact nature of an event, to protect the innocent or to avert scandal. So perhaps he misdated "Wisteria Lodge" to hide the true events and spare the family embarrassment.

One further fact: Watson leaves us tantalizing references to cases that he never published, such as the Giant Rat of Sumatra or Wilson, the notorious canary trainer. The ground here is ripe for speculation, from the mundane to the outrageous.

Baring-Gould comments, "Half the fun in reading and rereading the Saga is that of catching [Watson] out as generations of his admirers have been discovering" for a century.

I said this lead to research, deduction, speculation and whimsy; let me provide an example of each.

RESEARCH

In "A Case of Identity," Holmes mentions he is doing some chemical experiments with "bisulphate of baryta." A sulphate (or sulfate) is a salt or ester of sulfuric acid, and "baryta" or barite is barium sulfate occurring as a mineral, but what is barium bisulfate? There is controversy, with some authorities saying here is no such thing and that Watson has misremembered. Other authorities conclude that barium hydrogen sulfate or hexasulphide of barium might have been called "bisulphate of baryta." Professional chemists who are also Sherlockians have leapt into debate.

Or, again from "A Case of Identity," Holmes remarks that "a single lady can get on very nicely upon an [annual] income of about sixty pounds." This has led to considerable investigation into the cost of living in London. Similarly there has been enormous research into the train schedules and the streets of London, trying to find locales mentioned in the Canon.

DEDUCTION

Sherlockians often apply Holmes's own reasoning and deductive techniques when trying to date an adventure.

Sticking with "A Case of Identity," we learn that Mr. Hosmer Angel disappeared "last Friday," "the 14th." So we look for a month, between March 1881 (when Holmes and Watson met) and September 1891 (when the case was published), when Friday was the 14th. The possibilities are October 1881, September 1883, October 1887, and September 1888. Baring-Gould eliminates 1881, 1883, and 1888 because Holmes was engaged on another case on the relevant days, and concludes that the disappearance was Friday, October 14, 1887. Next, Watson mentions that he opened the morning paper, so the date was not a Sunday; thus the case must have begun the next Monday through Thursday. The description of clothing implies mild weather, so he looks for two sequential warm clear days between Monday, October 17 and Thursday, October 20, 1887. Baring-Gould thus concludes that the case occurred Tuesday and Wednesday, October 18 and 19, 1887.

Other chronologies derive other dates for the story. We cite the reasoning as an example of the type of deduction, supported by research, employed in Holmesian analysis.

Your reaction might be: These people need a life. But you'd be missing the point. If that's your attitude, stop reading and go back to baseball statistics or Civil War trivia or whatever.

SPECULATION AND WHIMSY

Watson's inconsistencies have invited conjectures ranging from the logical and reasonable to the completely wacky.  For example, his name is clearly John H. Watson except once when his wife called him "James." Dorothy Sayers speculated that the middle initial "H" must stand for "Hamish," the Scottish form of James--a neat resolution of the inconsistency. Others, of course, make other suggestions, ranging from two Watson brothers (John and James) to a prior love affair on Mrs. Watson's part and an unfortunate lapse. (Baring-Gould notes that "Conan Doyle named Watson for his friend James Watson, [so] the slip of the pen is understandable.")

Other subjects of continuing speculation include: Who were the Baskervilles and where is their hall? Did Holmes attend Oxford or Cambridge? What did Holmes do during the three years that Watson thought him dead?

Finally we reach your question: How was Holmes cured of his cocaine addiction?

In the late 1800s, there was neither popular prejudice nor laws against drugs as there are today. Laudanum and cocaine, among others, were readily available. Watson suspects but dismisses the idea of cocaine use by Holmes in A Study in Scarlet, his first published work. By The Sign of Four, Watson reports that when Holmes was bored and his mind not challenged, he took cocaine in a "seven-per-cent solution." This was not a heavy dose, but it was clearly enough to be habit-forming. Again in "The Yellow Face," Watson says that Holmes had no vices, "save for the occasional use of cocaine."

Michael Harrison notes, "that Holmes had a serious addiction, all Watson's descriptions of Holmes nervous activity makes clear: the restlessness, the ability to work for days without adequate sleep, and even without rest at all; the abrupt changes of mood; and the equally abrupt collapse into a somnolence not far (if at all) removed from a torpor bordering on coma: these are the unmistakable evidence of heavy and prolonged indulgence in some powerful narcotic.""

And yet, after Holmes's encounter with Moriarty and supposed death at Reichenbach Falls, he never again uses cocaine. Or at least Watson doesn't mention it.

And so the question: how did he break the habit?

In 1974, Nicholas Meyer published The Seven-Per-Cent Solution. The forward describes how he found an unpublished, unedited manuscript of John H. Watson. The book jacket, in fact, says "Being a Reprint from the Reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D. as edited by Nicholas Meyer."

I shan't give away too much of the plot. Watson tricks Holmes into visiting Sigmund Freud and submitting himself to treatment. Freud cures him of the cocaine habit, and of a few paranoid cocaine-induced delusions along the way. This all happened (according to Meyer, according to Watson) during the period when Holmes was believed dead, 1891-1893. Watson simply invented the stories of Holmes' death and return to cover the fact that Holmes was in seclusion for medical treatment.

Holmes reciprocates, helping Dr. Freud solve a mystery regarding one of his patients. So Meyer's book is more than two great personalities getting together to "talk about cocaine"--it's a mystery story.

Many authorities, of course, doubt the authenticity of Meyer's manuscript, and proclaim it pure fiction.

Does that answer your question?

I'd like to conclude with another question: why does Sherlock Holmes endure?

Obviously, part of the answer is that Doyle--or Watson if you prefer--was a marvelous story-teller. The tales today have lost none of their charm or intrigue.

But there's more to it than that. From the introduction to the first volume (1998) of The Sherlock Holmes Reference Library: "The Sherlock Holmes stories fascinate. They transport readers of all ages, nationalities, and cultures into a world of their own. They challenge our imaginations."

In the 1940s Edgar W. Smith wrote, "We love the times in which he lived, of course, the half-remembered, half-forgotten times of snug Victorian illusion, of gaslit comfort and contentment, of perfect dignity and grace. And we love the place: the England of those times, fat with the fruits of her achievements, but strong and daring still with the spirit of imperial adventure. But there is more than time and space and the yearning of things gone by to account for what we feel toward Sherlock Holmes. Not only there and then, but here and now, he stands as a symbol, if you please, of all that we are not, but ever would be. We see him as the fine expression of our urge to trample evil and to set aright the wrongs with which the world is plagued. He is Galahad and Socrates, bringing high adventure to our dull existences and calm, judicial logic to our biased minds."

Vincent Starrett wrote of Holmes and Watson:

they still live for all that love them well:  in a romantic chamber of the heart:  in a nostalgic country of the mind:  where it is always 1895.

RESOURCES:

Baring-Gould, William S.; The Annotated Sherlock Holmes, Clarkson N. Potter, Inc, New York, 1967.

Harrison, Michael, In the Footsteps of Sherlock Holmes, Cassel & Co. Ltd, London, 1958

Klinger, Leslie S. (editor), The Sherlock Holmes Reference Library, Gasogene Books, Indianapolis, currently being published in separate volumes, beginning in 1998

Starrett, Vincent, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (revised), University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1960

and, of course, the Canon:

A Study in Scarlet  The Sign of Four  The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes  The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes  The Hound of the Baskervilles  The Return of Sherlock Holmes  His Last Bow  The Valley of Fear  The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes

— Dex

STAFF REPORTS ARE WRITTEN BY THE STRAIGHT DOPE SCIENCE ADVISORY BOARD, CECIL'S ONLINE AUXILIARY. THOUGH THE SDSAB DOES ITS BEST, THESE COLUMNS ARE EDITED BY ED ZOTTI, NOT CECIL, SO ACCURACYWISE YOU'D BETTER KEEP YOUR FINGERS CROSSED.

[deadciv]

i’ll put this under a cut, last jedi spoilers below; this is basically just me working through the movie. unlike tfa which i left in silent emotional meltdown i feel like i have a solid hold on this movie even after one viewing so here we fuckin go

overall, as said before: not a tremendous disappointment, as i feared. it avoided some of the pitfalls i was most afraid of and it did some interesting things, while definitely having a few things i found entirely unconvincing, unnecessary, or downright bad

caveat: both some of the things i like and dislike here could be changed or muddled in a heartbeat depending on their choices in episode 9. things could be pulled in a lot of different directions

things i liked:

- the first scene of the movie. honestly, it was fucking electric; the action was heartpounding, i fell in love with (then mourned) paige in just a couple minutes, good development for poe. it started off the movie really well and it left a good taste in my mouth that helped me treat the rest of the movie more optimistically. also i did cry. in fact i cried several times but here first

- no reylo. the reylos can pretend all they like, but frankly, it’s just not real and to me that was obvious.

- imo, interesting development between kylo ren and rey. it had some moments i disliked which i’ll touch on later but overall i thought it was well done; the parallels to return of the jedi, then the realization that this is /not that/ and that these are different people and different times with different solutions and outcomes, was good

- in general, and people can disagree, i appreciate the more specific, granular, less archetypal character focus. clumsy at times, but still

- tying into, i am so glad snoke is dead. the false palpatine, the false emperor, the pretender. soon as i saw his ship arrive in person i knew he was dead, and soon as rey aimed towards his ship i /knew/ he was dead. i want a little more detail of how he got where he is, but honestly i wouldn’t mind if it came in a throwaway line or in the eu. it just hit, strongly, that this is a different story with a different ending that still mirrors the old; but distorted and new

- speaking of, scene with the royal guards (force sensitive somewhat, certainly) was neat

- hitting on this again but from a different angle, the clear separation (and yet hearkening back to; books in the falcon) between old and new was refreshing. i’m not surprised they didn’t go full ‘the jedi must truly end’ even though i kind of wanted it, but the very clear signal and clear choices made to show that things are going to be different from hereon out was necessary and good

- like yet again, it definitely parallels both esb and rotj, but the details of the plot struck different chords and the setting of the battlestar galactica type chase was i think a good one

- speaking of, though imo he came off too snarky one too many times, luke was convincing to me, and his arc made a lot of sense, all in all (talk about the ending of all that in a bit)

- moving back a bit, poe’s arc was. surprisingly good? interesting, made sense with what we knew about him, they didn’t just make Holdo wrong and stupid; he clearly learned, and it made perfect sense imo

- loved seeing the rich, capitalist, war profiteering assholes composing ‘the worst place in the galaxy in contrast to what we’ve seen before; loved seeing their shitty city get shat on

- maz’s scene was lit

- leia like. used the force? rad. weird way of shooting the scene but i’ll give it a pass

- acting good; more billie lourd good

- at least some steps towards background diversity

- i actually felt like kylo ren’s emotional arc made sense and i feel like he’s going to die in the next film. once again, new problems, new solutions, even if we are playing some of the same melodies. him as essentially the main bad guy in the next movie will be fascinating one way or another

things i /didn’t/ like:

- Finn’s story arc. he didn’t end up accomplishing anything; they didn’t hit his growth hard enough, didn’t interact with rey or poe enough, didn’t get enough emotional pay off. just generally there wasn’t enough and it pissed me off; he’s a centerpiece for these movies and he needs to remain one for them to really work. the whole ‘protect what you love not destroy what you hate’ is not bad but it needed to be hit way harder and invole poe and rey directly

- specific related quibble: why the fuck didn’t finn and rey get a single scene in which they fucking talked

- i loved rose and i don’t think it really implies that Finn like, likes her, but the kiss was vaguely annoying and unnecessary.

- the way luke ‘died’ and did that whole fight sequence was not terrible, but it didn’t quite do it. i feel like we need more out of him in ep 9 to finish that off for real

- speaking of? yoda never got enough character development to realize that like, moving on and making a new world and blowing up that tree was necessary. yoda is a hidebound, set-in-his-ways dude and i wasn‘t convinced by that; it was a cheap way to accelerate luke’s development and choices

- moving ever further back, rey’s whole flirting with the dark side thing either needed to genuinely not be hit much at all or be hit harder. it had potential but then just kinda got dropped. the throne room scene and the mirror scene were both undercut by not having delved into her psyche better and more deeply. i might change my view somewhat here on a second viewing but

- like thor: ragnarok, i felt like the use of humor to that extent undercut emotional weight and muddled the tone.

- wish it didn’t feel so much like different directors; the fact that the background cast--including temmin wexley, who is important in the new eu stuff--from tfa basically disappeared was a little jolting, esp after having watch tfa last night

- speaking of. porgs. hmmm.

- ice foxes? cute but a cheap way out for that last bit. finn should have used the force that he definitely should have to find the way out. or leia

- some weird cutting that felt kinda disjointed with the scene changes

- i have other quibbles, but two main, big things left that are separate from other stuff in significant ways

- one: a technical quibble. or more like a MASSIVE FUCKING HYPERSPACE SIZED HOLE IN AN ENTIRE FLEET HOLY SHIT YOU REALIZE THIS RUINS TACTICS THROUGHOUT ALL STAR WARS RIGHT. RIGHT. I GET THAT THAT’S WHAT HAPPENING BUT MAKING US SEE IT MEANS WE HAVE TO THINK ABOUT IT AND THAT IS VERY, VERY BAD. like seriously. how many times could that fucking tactic have changed entire battles? wars? like??? please give me some dumb reason why that usually wouldn’t work i dearly need it for my sanity here. in fairness though? cool as shit. but like, not worth the grief it’s causing me and will continue to cause me through all future star wars properties

- lastly, and debatably most importantly. and i’ll start small and specific. that very last scene, the one with the little kid, is emblematic of the fundamental cowardice of disney, lucasfilm, rian, whomever. the opportunity to have our little force-wielding kid be literally anything but a white person (and a white boy)? so fucking there. begging to be brought to life. an alien? focus on the little black boy instead? anything else?? like, not only does it frustrate me from a sheer rep perspective--as in, it’s basically canon that only white humans can do anything meaningful with the force, which is shit--but it also fundamentally undercuts the themes of the film, cheapening the concept (still unproven, admittedly) of having rey be not a legacy kid to a fucking massive degree. it left a terrible taste in my mouth.

- and relatedly? the general lack of aliens in resistance roles? the sidelining of finn? combined with those themes? dumb. stupid. bad. cowardly. and the lack of any lbgt stuff of any kind? no real interaction between poe and finn for the most part? related, and bad.

stuff i’m ambivalent about (incomplete list)

rey random. i kind of like that it’s not a legacy, though i get why some disagree. still not convinced that’s like, real though. i think the theming of rey needing to accept that she’s here on her own power not on that of legacy, and of anyone having the potential to great ill or good regardless of their bloodline, has potential, but it heavily depends on what they do with it in episode 9. glad i never go invested in any of those theories tbh

overall. not bad, definitely flawed. i feel pretty confident about where i’m at with it except with the rey flirting the dark side arc; i need to see it again to determine whether i’ve missed something. anyway i’m sure no one will read this but at least it helps to put it down somewhere

[foursproutwealth-blog]

When 43% Of Americans Can't Pay For Food And Rent, We Can Say Economic Collapse Is Here

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/wealth/when-43-of-americans-cant-pay-for-food-and-rent-we-can-say-economic-collapse-is-here/

When 43% Of Americans Can't Pay For Food And Rent, We Can Say Economic Collapse Is Here

Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

You know all those reports about how lots of Americans can’t afford a $1000 surprise expense like a medical bill or a car repair? Well, forget additional expenses. It turns out that nearly half of the families in America are struggling to pay for food and rent. And that means that the economic collapse isn’t just “coming.” It’s HERE.

United Way has done a study on a group of Americans they call ALICE: Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. The study found that this group does not make the money needed “to survive in the modern economy.”

ALICE is your child care worker, your parent on Social Security, the cashier at your supermarket, the gas attendant, the salesperson at your big box store, your waitress, a home health aide, an office clerk. ALICE cannot always pay the bills, has little or nothing in savings, and is forced to make tough choices such as deciding between quality child care or paying the rent. One unexpected car repair or medical bill can push these financially strapped families over the edge.

ALICE is a hardworking member of the community who is employed yet does not earn enough to afford the basic necessities of life.

ALICE earns above the federal poverty level but does not earn enough to afford a bare-bones household budget of housing, child care, food, transportation, and healthcare. (source)

Between families living below the poverty line due to unemployment or disability and ALICEs, the study discovered that 43% of Americans were struggling to cover basic necessities like rent and food.

Where are families struggling the most?

Some states have more families living in ALICE levels than others. The 3 states with the most families barely surviving paycheck to paycheck are California, New Mexico, and Hawaii. Each of these states saw 49% of families struggling. North Dakota had the lowest ALICE percentage with 32%. You can check how your state fares right here. Despite the lowest unemployment rate since 2000, families all over the country are barely getting by.

The media page of the ALICE website is jammed with headlines that are all too familiar for many Americans:

Report: Michigan makes little progress in lifting working poor to financial stability

After a decade of tax cuts — Ohioans in financial hardship

Louisiana families work hard, but still can’t cover necessities

44 percent of Florida households, mostly working poor, struggling to meet basic needs

Third of New Jersey households can’t afford basic necessities

42 percent of Wisconsin households struggle to pay bills

And on and on and on…

The economic collapse of America is here.

While many families are still doing okay, the specter of poverty looms over many of us. Many of us know that we’re one personal financial catastrophe away from disaster. I wrote recently about my own family’s struggle with a large medical bill.

Obviously, I’m not telling you about our financial saga to make myself look bad. I’m telling you because I want you to know that no matter how much you try to do everything right, financial problems can happen to anyone, at any time. Whether you have $100 in the bank or $100,000 in the bank, something can happen that wipes out your emergency fund just like it did mine.

This doesn’t mean that you failed financially – it means that circumstances can affect you, just like they do everyone else, no matter how careful you are.

Before my daughter’s illness, I was doing everything “right.”

I had enough money in my emergency fund to carry me through 3 lean months

I had numerous credit cards with zero balances

My only debt was my car

My kids are going to school without student loans

I opted out of health insurance because it was more financially practical to pay cash (and I still agree with that decision)

Everything was great.

Until it wasn’t. (source)

This is a story that probably rings true to more and more familiar to a growing number of families every week.

While my income hasn’t dropped – it’s grown – I am still struggling to pay off those bills and recover. I’ve taken on a significant amount of extra work to get things back under control, and still, I worry it won’t be enough.

Sound familiar?

If it does, it’s because – and of this, I am quite certain – the long-heralded economic collapse of America is upon us. When hard-working families who should be “middle class” can barely afford to eat and keep a roof over their heads, things are only going to devolve further.

Look at other examples of economic collapse

This is just the beginning of a looming collapse in America.

Remember back when Greece began to collapse? It was the same thing – no one could afford the basics and things went downhill pretty quickly from there. It really hit the papers when a strict austerity program was instituted and culminated when a “bank holiday” shut down the financial system for an entire week.

There are similar stories in the UK (where the taxpayers can still fund a 45 million dollar wedding but poor families can’t afford to eat every day), Argentina, and Cyprus.

Jose wrote for us about the warning signs that the collapse of Venezuela was approaching and they’re eerily familiar. Food rationing began, the cost of medical care became prohibitive, the health insurance system began to fail, and people began to make difficult choices about rent versus food.

I don’t know how it could be any more clear than the fact that nearly half of the American population is also making that decision each month.

What’s the answer?

While the United Way hopes to boost the minimum wage, I don’t feel that is the answer because it will drive businesses to let employees go when they can’t afford to pay them. We have seen this happen in fast food establishments in which humans are on their way to being replaced by self-service kiosks and burger-flipping robots.

I believe the only answer is to begin to produce more than we consume. Currently, Americans are like a horde of locusts, working at jobs that produce nothing, but consuming rabidly the imports that feed us, clothe us, and entertain us. We’re looking at economic tariffs on imports that may increase their price up to 40% and our own exports will be subject to tariffs in return.

If you find yourself in a tough spot, these tips from The Cheapskate’s Guide to the Galaxy may help.

Audit your situation. See where all your money is going, see how much debt you’re in, and see what the most immediate ramifications will be.

Take care of the most important things first. In most situations, keeping your home paid for (rent or mortgage), paying utilities, and making your auto and insurance payments should come first. Take care of the things that will have the most immediate ramifications first.

You may have to make some late payments on less vital things. If so, communicate with those to whom you owe money and try to make arrangements. This may affect your credit, but by communicating with them, you can keep damage to a minimum.

Cut your expenses. When you audit your situation, you may find some places that you can slash your regular expenses. Don’t hesitate to reduce services that are unnecessary or to whittle down your monthly obligations. (More ideas here)

Put a little money back into your emergency fund as soon as possible. This may sound counterintuitive but having a bit of money for minor emergencies means that you won’t need to rely on credit cards for these things, putting you even further in the hole.

Pay off your debts. Use the snowball method to attack your debts. Start paying these off AFTER you pay for the things I recommended in step 2.

Use the things you have on hand. Delay a trip to the store for as long as possible by planning a menu using the food in your pantry and freezer. (Think about the stockpile challenge we did and use those strategies. Get some ideas for meals from your stockpile in this article) Use the shampoo, soap, and personal hygiene products that you have already instead of buying new products.

Raise extra money. This may come from selling things you don’t need, taking on some extra work, or by creating a product or service to sell. However you do this, use the extra revenue wisely to get out of debt and to rebuild your emergency fund. There are more ideas for making money quickly in this issue.

And to harden yourself against the collapse that will only get worse, make these changes to help your family survive.

What can you store?” is not the right question to ask.

“What can you make?” – that’s the right question.

Your focus has to be on long-term sustainability, frugality, and self-reliance.  Don’t get me wrong – a stockpile is sensible and an essential course of action. It should definitely be part of your preparedness plan.

However, you need to also be ready for the time when the supplies in your well-stocked pantry are no longer available.  You need to be able to meet as many of your own needs as possible or you’ll end up being one of those people wearing dirty clothes because you can’t find laundry soap or going hungry because you can’t find any food at the stores – or can’t afford it if you can find it. You need to be ready for the end of a consumer-driven lifestyle, because quite frankly, there may soon come a day when there are no consumer goods to be had. Here are some ways to work on your

Here are some ways to work on your self-reliance:

Looking for the thrifty answer using things you have on hand, instead of purchasing a solution to every problem

Fixing things that are broken instead of replacing them

Eating simple food you prepare from scratch

Producing as much of your own food as possible

Learning to forage

Using “old-fashioned” alternatives for disposable things like diapers, wipes, feminine hygiene supplies, paper towels, and the like

Learning to make cleaning supplies and soaps, especially from accessible supplies (like vinegar, ash, and foraged natural ingredients)

Learning to make pantry basics like vinegar, sourdough, and cultured dairy products

Learning to preserve your harvests to see you through the lean days of winter

Providing your own services like heat, garbage disposal, and water

Learning about natural remedies from accessible sources

Learning to protect your family and property

It’s only by reducing your need for the things sold in stores that you can exempt yourself from the chaos and desperation that will erupt when everyone realizes that an economic collapse has occurred.

[foursprout-blog]

When 43% Of Americans Can't Pay For Food And Rent, We Can Say Economic Collapse Is Here

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/wealth/when-43-of-americans-cant-pay-for-food-and-rent-we-can-say-economic-collapse-is-here/

When 43% Of Americans Can't Pay For Food And Rent, We Can Say Economic Collapse Is Here

Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

You know all those reports about how lots of Americans can’t afford a $1000 surprise expense like a medical bill or a car repair? Well, forget additional expenses. It turns out that nearly half of the families in America are struggling to pay for food and rent. And that means that the economic collapse isn’t just “coming.” It’s HERE.

United Way has done a study on a group of Americans they call ALICE: Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. The study found that this group does not make the money needed “to survive in the modern economy.”

ALICE is your child care worker, your parent on Social Security, the cashier at your supermarket, the gas attendant, the salesperson at your big box store, your waitress, a home health aide, an office clerk. ALICE cannot always pay the bills, has little or nothing in savings, and is forced to make tough choices such as deciding between quality child care or paying the rent. One unexpected car repair or medical bill can push these financially strapped families over the edge.

ALICE is a hardworking member of the community who is employed yet does not earn enough to afford the basic necessities of life.

ALICE earns above the federal poverty level but does not earn enough to afford a bare-bones household budget of housing, child care, food, transportation, and healthcare. (source)

Between families living below the poverty line due to unemployment or disability and ALICEs, the study discovered that 43% of Americans were struggling to cover basic necessities like rent and food.

Where are families struggling the most?

Some states have more families living in ALICE levels than others. The 3 states with the most families barely surviving paycheck to paycheck are California, New Mexico, and Hawaii. Each of these states saw 49% of families struggling. North Dakota had the lowest ALICE percentage with 32%. You can check how your state fares right here. Despite the lowest unemployment rate since 2000, families all over the country are barely getting by.

The media page of the ALICE website is jammed with headlines that are all too familiar for many Americans:

Report: Michigan makes little progress in lifting working poor to financial stability

After a decade of tax cuts — Ohioans in financial hardship

Louisiana families work hard, but still can’t cover necessities

44 percent of Florida households, mostly working poor, struggling to meet basic needs

Third of New Jersey households can’t afford basic necessities

42 percent of Wisconsin households struggle to pay bills

And on and on and on…

The economic collapse of America is here.

While many families are still doing okay, the specter of poverty looms over many of us. Many of us know that we’re one personal financial catastrophe away from disaster. I wrote recently about my own family’s struggle with a large medical bill.

Obviously, I’m not telling you about our financial saga to make myself look bad. I’m telling you because I want you to know that no matter how much you try to do everything right, financial problems can happen to anyone, at any time. Whether you have $100 in the bank or $100,000 in the bank, something can happen that wipes out your emergency fund just like it did mine.

This doesn’t mean that you failed financially – it means that circumstances can affect you, just like they do everyone else, no matter how careful you are.

Before my daughter’s illness, I was doing everything “right.”

I had enough money in my emergency fund to carry me through 3 lean months

I had numerous credit cards with zero balances

My only debt was my car

My kids are going to school without student loans

I opted out of health insurance because it was more financially practical to pay cash (and I still agree with that decision)

Everything was great.

Until it wasn’t. (source)

This is a story that probably rings true to more and more familiar to a growing number of families every week.

While my income hasn’t dropped – it’s grown – I am still struggling to pay off those bills and recover. I’ve taken on a significant amount of extra work to get things back under control, and still, I worry it won’t be enough.

Sound familiar?

If it does, it’s because – and of this, I am quite certain – the long-heralded economic collapse of America is upon us. When hard-working families who should be “middle class” can barely afford to eat and keep a roof over their heads, things are only going to devolve further.

Look at other examples of economic collapse

This is just the beginning of a looming collapse in America.

Remember back when Greece began to collapse? It was the same thing – no one could afford the basics and things went downhill pretty quickly from there. It really hit the papers when a strict austerity program was instituted and culminated when a “bank holiday” shut down the financial system for an entire week.

There are similar stories in the UK (where the taxpayers can still fund a 45 million dollar wedding but poor families can’t afford to eat every day), Argentina, and Cyprus.

Jose wrote for us about the warning signs that the collapse of Venezuela was approaching and they’re eerily familiar. Food rationing began, the cost of medical care became prohibitive, the health insurance system began to fail, and people began to make difficult choices about rent versus food.

I don’t know how it could be any more clear than the fact that nearly half of the American population is also making that decision each month.

What’s the answer?

While the United Way hopes to boost the minimum wage, I don’t feel that is the answer because it will drive businesses to let employees go when they can’t afford to pay them. We have seen this happen in fast food establishments in which humans are on their way to being replaced by self-service kiosks and burger-flipping robots.

I believe the only answer is to begin to produce more than we consume. Currently, Americans are like a horde of locusts, working at jobs that produce nothing, but consuming rabidly the imports that feed us, clothe us, and entertain us. We’re looking at economic tariffs on imports that may increase their price up to 40% and our own exports will be subject to tariffs in return.

If you find yourself in a tough spot, these tips from The Cheapskate’s Guide to the Galaxy may help.

Audit your situation. See where all your money is going, see how much debt you’re in, and see what the most immediate ramifications will be.

Take care of the most important things first. In most situations, keeping your home paid for (rent or mortgage), paying utilities, and making your auto and insurance payments should come first. Take care of the things that will have the most immediate ramifications first.

You may have to make some late payments on less vital things. If so, communicate with those to whom you owe money and try to make arrangements. This may affect your credit, but by communicating with them, you can keep damage to a minimum.

Cut your expenses. When you audit your situation, you may find some places that you can slash your regular expenses. Don’t hesitate to reduce services that are unnecessary or to whittle down your monthly obligations. (More ideas here)

Put a little money back into your emergency fund as soon as possible. This may sound counterintuitive but having a bit of money for minor emergencies means that you won’t need to rely on credit cards for these things, putting you even further in the hole.

Pay off your debts. Use the snowball method to attack your debts. Start paying these off AFTER you pay for the things I recommended in step 2.

Use the things you have on hand. Delay a trip to the store for as long as possible by planning a menu using the food in your pantry and freezer. (Think about the stockpile challenge we did and use those strategies. Get some ideas for meals from your stockpile in this article) Use the shampoo, soap, and personal hygiene products that you have already instead of buying new products.

Raise extra money. This may come from selling things you don’t need, taking on some extra work, or by creating a product or service to sell. However you do this, use the extra revenue wisely to get out of debt and to rebuild your emergency fund. There are more ideas for making money quickly in this issue.

And to harden yourself against the collapse that will only get worse, make these changes to help your family survive.

What can you store?” is not the right question to ask.

“What can you make?” – that’s the right question.

Your focus has to be on long-term sustainability, frugality, and self-reliance.  Don’t get me wrong – a stockpile is sensible and an essential course of action. It should definitely be part of your preparedness plan.

However, you need to also be ready for the time when the supplies in your well-stocked pantry are no longer available.  You need to be able to meet as many of your own needs as possible or you’ll end up being one of those people wearing dirty clothes because you can’t find laundry soap or going hungry because you can’t find any food at the stores – or can’t afford it if you can find it. You need to be ready for the end of a consumer-driven lifestyle, because quite frankly, there may soon come a day when there are no consumer goods to be had. Here are some ways to work on your

Here are some ways to work on your self-reliance:

Looking for the thrifty answer using things you have on hand, instead of purchasing a solution to every problem

Fixing things that are broken instead of replacing them

Eating simple food you prepare from scratch

Producing as much of your own food as possible

Learning to forage

Using “old-fashioned” alternatives for disposable things like diapers, wipes, feminine hygiene supplies, paper towels, and the like

Learning to make cleaning supplies and soaps, especially from accessible supplies (like vinegar, ash, and foraged natural ingredients)

Learning to make pantry basics like vinegar, sourdough, and cultured dairy products

Learning to preserve your harvests to see you through the lean days of winter

Providing your own services like heat, garbage disposal, and water

Learning about natural remedies from accessible sources

Learning to protect your family and property

It’s only by reducing your need for the things sold in stores that you can exempt yourself from the chaos and desperation that will erupt when everyone realizes that an economic collapse has occurred.

[stopkingobama]

Here are 10 ways free markets can do what socialism can't

From time to time, I see lists on the internet that propose to solve the problems of intergenerational poverty in America.

Unfortunately, most of the time, these lists recommend massive transfers of wealth from rich people to poorer people, or suggest the creation of new “poverty-fighting” government bureaucracies, in spite of the fact that neither of these approaches is likely to solve the underlying problems.

The Decline and Flatline of Poverty

The fact is that in the 25 years before Lyndon Johnson’s  “War on Poverty” began, the poverty rate in America was on the decline.

But now, decades after we’ve created numerous Federal bureaucracies formally dedicated to eradicating the problem for good and over $22 trillion spent, our poverty rates have flat-lined instead. Worse, many of the programs designed to benefit the poorest members of our society have actually created dependency traps that make it nearly impossible for people who grow up in impoverished conditions to escape.

And as for the idea that the problem of poverty could be solved if only rich people were forced to give their wealth to poorer people? That sounds plausible enough until you realize that it wouldn’t make a significant difference to poverty anyway.

For example, if you combine the entire net worth of Forbes’ list of the world’s 400 richest people, you’d come out with about $2.4 trillion. Yes, it’s an enormous number, but it’s not exactly what you might think.

This is not money all piled up in a grain silo somewhere, waiting for some rich guy to dive in and roll around. Instead, it’s the estimated monetary value of all the assets they own. That means all the office buildings, furniture, computers, telephone lines and other capital infrastructure of their various businesses; the value of their employee salaries, payroll, and pensions; and the on-paper economic value of the businesses themselves.

For example, Amazon reportedly holds $83.4 billion in assets. That includes all their warehouses, trucks, servers, and the actual stuff they keep in stock for people to purchase. And that money is what’s rolled into Jeff Bezos’ supposedly $89 billion net worth. Bezos can’t just cash out to the tune of tens of billions of dollars without liquidating the inventory his company holds, selling all of his buildings, and divesting himself from Amazon entirely – and he could only do that in a world where there are other rich guys ready to buy.

So, that $2.4 trillion isn’t a real number in any sense that can be converted into a transfer of income.

But let’s imagine that it was, even if we could just magically grab $2.4 trillion in cash from the world’s billionaires, when divided amongst the rest of us 99%ers in the United States (about 319,000,000 people), we’d all walk away with a one-time-payment of just $7,500.

Even if we just limited the transfer from the richest 1% to the bottom 20%; each person would get $37,151.70 – or basically a one-time payment of considerably less than the median salary in the US.

Not that we wouldn’t all like the extra cash, but let’s be honest… After that money is gone and we’ve sent a clear signal to the most successful businessmen & women in the world that the reward for building a company like Google or Apple is to have all your assets taken from you and your business destroyed, then what?

Neither long-term government dependency or wrecking the economy for a short-term payout is the answer.

So what should we do instead?

First, we should understand that poverty is the natural state of the world and the big mystery of human history is not how people become poor (that’s easy, do nothing), but how people get rich. Once we recognize that fact, we have to shift our way of thinking about poverty and start seeing growing wealth as a consequence of people’s ability to create and exchange goods and services with each other.

In the end, wealth is not just dollars in a bank account. It’s our very standard of living and quality of life. The money is just a measurement tool.

So what we need is to create a world where it’s incredibly easy for people from every conceivable starting point to enter the market and create their own success. To that end, I’d like to offer 10 actually effective ways to reduce poverty and inequality in America and around the world.

Here we go:

Eliminate most occupational licensing restrictions and lower barriers to entry to getting jobs and starting businesses.

It’s an issue that people often know little about, but roughly 1 in 3 occupations in the United States require a government-granted license before people can even begin to earn a living. And while it’s common to believe that these licenses are protecting the public from bad doctors, dentists, and lawyers, the truth is that most of these licenses are for barbers & hairdressers, florists, landscapers, and gym class instructors. The Institute for Justice maintains an annual report on the state of occupational licensing in America.

According to IJ:

“The report documents the license requirements for 102 low- and moderate-income occupations—such as barber, massage therapist and preschool teacher—across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It finds that occupational licensing is not only widespread, but also overly burdensome and frequently irrational.

On average, these licenses force aspiring workers to spend nine months in education or training, pass one exam and pay more than $200 in fees. One-third of the licenses take more than a year to earn. At least one exam is required for 79 of the occupations.”

These licenses are often insurmountable barriers to entry for low-income people not only to finding employment but also to starting their own businesses. In 2014, I made a documentary chronicling the story of one such entrepreneur, Melony Armstrong, and her battle against occupational licensing in Mississippi:

Eliminate current zoning rules in most cities, and allow for mixed use residential/commercial occupation (ie. let people run businesses from their homes and neighborhoods legally).

Zoning regulations have a long and sometimes shady history of pushing low-income people out of areas where opportunities are widely available, and into areas that concentrate poverty into specific sections of a city. Especially in urban areas like New York City, these regulations can make it impossible for poorer individuals to find employment or start their own businesses where they actually live, and as a result, they’re often forced to commute sometimes over two hours per day just to get to and from their place of employment.

The Brookings Institution calls zoning and land-use regulation a form of “Opportunity Hoarding“.

With these kinds of restrictions, children who grow up in impoverished conditions are surrounded exclusively by other poor people and often go their whole lives without ever interacting with middle class or even wealthier people. This can mean fewer opportunities to learn about financial literacy, entrepreneurship, the value of education, or get employment tips from middle class or wealthy role models. That can certainly contribute to a sense of hopelessness and prolong intergenerational poverty.

End welfare dependency by eliminating most social welfare programs and replace them with more charity and means-tested vouchers for specific services that phase out as people’s income increases.

This suggestion is much more politically challenging, but welfare dependency is an enormous problem in America, largely created by the War on Poverty itself. The way most social welfare programs have been constructed actually punishes people for working and increasing their income, creating a much stronger incentive to continue to collect welfare and avoid working (or at least, avoid legal employment) as long as possible.

For an in-depth look at what creates the Welfare Trap, check out Charles Hughes’ article: The Welfare Trap: Maze of Programs Punishes Work

Of course, we don’t want to leave people in desperate need without any help, so it may be the case that we still need some form of assistance to people who are in genuine need.

However, instead of creating a new government program with the same problems as the older ones, we should look at market-oriented solutions such as vouchers for food, transportation, child services, or health care (ie. WIC, Food Stamps, etc.) that the poorest members of our society can use to buy goods and services from providers of their own choosing. Access to these vouchers would need to be means-tested, and instead of dropping off the minute someone gets a job, the assistance should decrease gradually.

Eventually, along with the other reforms I propose here, we should be able to get to a point where private charity alone would be enough to care for those who were truly unable to earn an income, but in the meantime anything that reduces the Welfare Trap and dependency on the government is a step in the right direction.

End minimum wage restrictions that take out the bottom rungs of the economic ladder and prevent younger poor and frequently minority people from getting their first jobs and gaining necessary experience.

It may seem counter-intuitive to a lot of people, but the minimum wage isn’t actually a magic bullet that helps poor people get paid more.

To the contrary, most evidence actually suggests that significant increases in the minimum wage result in fewer hours worked and often higher unemployment rates – particularly among the lowest skilled or experienced parts of our society, which unfortunately tends to mean poor people and minorities. The Foundation for Economic Education has a fairly large archive of supporting articles and evidence for this problem which you can find HERE.

Nobel-prize-winning Economist, Milton Friedman called minimum wage laws the most “anti-black law in the land”:

55% of minimum wage workers are under 25. They are predominantly teenagers and college-aged students working in their first jobs, gaining experience that they will use throughout their lives. Minimum wage laws are effectively a barrier to those experiences, because they create incentives for employers to only ever hire people they are fairly certain in advance will be worth more than their wages.

And unfortunately, the labor of people with limited skills, limited education, and limited job experience isn’t likely to be valuable enough.

Allowing people to offer and accept jobs at whatever rates they voluntarily agree to would blow open the doors of opportunity to millions of people looking for employment. Once employed, those workers will gain more experience and skills. And as they become more specialized, more productive, and more valuable to employers, their incomes will go up.

My own story fits this pattern, as I suspect is true for most people.

When I was in college, I charmed my way into my first job in video production by offering to work for a day for free, and to work after that for just $6.00 an hour, which was below the local minimum wage at the time. It was probably illegal, but I worked for that company for almost a year and in that time developed a ton of skills and experience that I used to get my next job – which was also in video production.

That experience has led me to the position I’m in today, and without those first opportunities, I don’t think I could do what I do now.

End the drug war, which disproportionately affects impoverished and minority areas and often results in unnecessarily fatherless children and the multi-generational problems that flows from single-parent families.

This one would be huge. The American Civil Liberties Union calls the Drug War “The New Jim Crow“, and it’s easy to understand why.

It’s led to a boom in incarceration that has ended with around 2.2 million Americans in prison. It’s also eroded protections of property rights and civil liberties throughout the country. It’s given enormous powers to prosecutors and police, and that power has been used mainly against the poorest segments of our society.

One of the most soul-crushing stories I’ve encountered after many years of working with people pushing for reform is that of Barbra Scrivner.

In 1992, Barbra’s ex-husband was embroiled in a criminal drug investigation, and prosecutors used Barbra to get to him by accusing her of conspiracy. Barbra had no knowledge of the crime because she’d spent the previous 2 years separated from her ex-husband, getting sober and taking care of her infant daughter. In spite of little evidence, Barbra was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

After 20 years, two suicide attempts, and numerous appeals, she was eventually granted clemency by President Obama. Unfortunately, it was too late, and Barbra’s daughter Alannah – who Barbra originally left her husband to protect – grew up without a mother, ultimately continuing the cycle of substance abuse and poverty.

Yahoo featured Barbra in a video about the struggles she experienced after being released from prison, and I also produced a short video for Families Against Mandatory Minimums with her that gets to the heart of how these incarcerations can affect families.

Radically overhaul our prison system towards restorative justice as opposed to punishment, and end mandatory minimum sentencing.

Not only are we sending too many people to prison for offenses that shouldn’t be crimes, we’re also failing to create opportunities and incentives for people to turn their lives around once they’re in prison.

As a result, poor people go into prison with few opportunities and leave prison with even fewer, often leaving them with the options of either becoming homeless or turning back towards a life of crime. It’s no surprise that the recidivism rate for inmates within 5 years of release from state prisons are an average of 76.6%. This doesn’t help anyone.

Sending people to jail and building our prison system around punishing them for their crimes may be cathartic for some segments of the population, but it does little to improve the lives of the victims of those crimes. And evidence suggests that it may often make the perpetrators more likely to commit crimes in the future. Most of our criminal justice system should be focused on making sure that victims of crime are compensated for their losses, and prisons should mainly be reserved for people we’re actually afraid of – violent and dangerous criminals. Their focus should be on helping those people turn their lives around and become flourishing and productive members of society.

A couple years ago, I spent some time in a prison in Texas shooting a documentary on a program that does just that:

Radically overhaul our criminal code and eliminate any laws that create crimes where there are no actual victims.

Admittedly, this one is also going to be a little tricky, but we currently have a criminal code that is so complex and overly broad that even the people who write and enforce the laws have no clue what it says. The most disturbing consequence of overcriminalization is that it enables police and prosecutors to use the law as a weapon – to extract cash from citizens, make headlines, and support their election bids for Sheriff or DA.

No one is actually immune from this problem, but poor people – who lack the resources in money and time to defend themselves or hire competent attorneys – are particularly vulnerable.

According to noted criminal defense attorney Harvey Silverglate, because of the massive size and complexity of our criminal code, the average American is likely to commit as many as three felonies a day – often without knowing they’re doing anything wrong.

And as Radley Balko explains:

“…these sorts of laws give police more excuses to make pretext stops when profiling for drug couriers. Once they have you, they can take your cash, car, jewelry or other possessions based only on the flimsiest evidence that it might be connected to drugs. They’re opportunities for harassment. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that even a crime as petty as a seat belt violation is justification for an arrest — and all of the life disruptions that come with a trip to jail. (Don’t forget that no matter what the offense, a trip to jail can also include a strip search.) Heavy enforcement of these sorts of crimes can breed distrust between police and the communities they serve, and creates more interactions that carry the risk of escalation.

But even assuming that all of these stops, fines, and citations are always legitimate, they’re always going to have a disproportionate effect on the poor, because the poor are the people who can least afford to pay them.”

Solving our overcriminalization problem would go a very long way to reducing burdens on the poor and ending cycles of intergenerational poverty.

Stop subsidizing and encouraging university degrees at the expense of any other kind of education. It makes higher education considerably more expensive (thus taking it farther out of reach for many poor people) and is not a good fit for everyone; whereas many great careers and ways out of poverty do not come from a university program.

We know that Federal student loan programs have caused an enormous increase in the cost of higher education.

Even though most of these subsidies have been created with the idea that they would help low-income people gain access to college degrees, the reality is that they’re doing this at the expense of burdening people with extraordinary debts that can’t even be escaped through bankruptcy.

Fortunately, there are better alternatives available all over the country right now that offer a range of options for people with diverse interests and needs. Trade-schools, apprenticeships, affordable (or free!) online or distance learning courses, and programs like Praxis or Vocatio can be a positive way to skip college and succeed in life.

Everybody needs an education, but not everyone needs to get a four-year degree.

Making more options available and reducing the subsidies, incentives to take on unsustainable debts, and constant pressure to push everyone into a single educational box would benefit poor and low-income individuals most of all.

End corporate welfare across the board, allowing businesses to compete on a level playing field, based on the value they add to their customers not on their ability to benefit from political favoritism.

If it’s important to end the bad incentives created by costly welfare programs for poor people, it is equally, or perhaps even more important to end welfare for the rich.

Corporate welfare is a huge problem, and it pervades every city and state. Taxpayers are on the hook for professional football, basketball, or baseball stadiums; new opera houses; theme parks; shopping malls; pharmaceutical companies; and on and on. Poorer people are frequently forced to pay for direct subsidies to giant businesses that promise jobs and long-term tax revenue that never seem to materialize. And all of this happens at the expense of smaller businesses and local entrepreneurs.

I recently made a new documentary for the Beacon Center of Tennessee on this topic

Allow school choice as the norm. People should never be stuck in a terrible school district just because of their income bracket or because they were born in a certain part of town.

Finally, we must allow school choice.

Currently, low-income people In America – zoned into poorer and more dangerous areas, restricted from economic opportunities, and burdened by a criminal justice system that often treats them as cash machines with little recourse – are also unable to even move their children to better schools where they might have a chance at a decent education and high-quality educational role models.

There’s a reason why charter school lotteries are flooded with applicants from poor communities every year.

Parents are desperate for options, and an awful lot of the time, those options are much better than the existing alternatives.

Antony Davies & James R. Harrigan, hosts of FEE’s “Words & Numbers” Podcast recently tackled this issue and note that school choice is always an option to wealthy people who can afford to move to better school districts or even send their kids to private schools, so it shouldn’t be such a shocking or politicized struggle to expand those opportunities to the poor through tax-reductions and voucher programs:

Sean Malone

Sean Malone is the Director of Media at FEE. His films have been featured in the mainstream media and throughout the free-market educational community.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

[americanlibertypac]

Here are 10 ways free markets can do what socialism can't

From time to time, I see lists on the internet that propose to solve the problems of intergenerational poverty in America.

Unfortunately, most of the time, these lists recommend massive transfers of wealth from rich people to poorer people, or suggest the creation of new “poverty-fighting” government bureaucracies, in spite of the fact that neither of these approaches is likely to solve the underlying problems.

The Decline and Flatline of Poverty

The fact is that in the 25 years before Lyndon Johnson’s  “War on Poverty” began, the poverty rate in America was on the decline.

But now, decades after we’ve created numerous Federal bureaucracies formally dedicated to eradicating the problem for good and over $22 trillion spent, our poverty rates have flat-lined instead. Worse, many of the programs designed to benefit the poorest members of our society have actually created dependency traps that make it nearly impossible for people who grow up in impoverished conditions to escape.

And as for the idea that the problem of poverty could be solved if only rich people were forced to give their wealth to poorer people? That sounds plausible enough until you realize that it wouldn’t make a significant difference to poverty anyway.

For example, if you combine the entire net worth of Forbes’ list of the world’s 400 richest people, you’d come out with about $2.4 trillion. Yes, it’s an enormous number, but it’s not exactly what you might think.

This is not money all piled up in a grain silo somewhere, waiting for some rich guy to dive in and roll around. Instead, it’s the estimated monetary value of all the assets they own. That means all the office buildings, furniture, computers, telephone lines and other capital infrastructure of their various businesses; the value of their employee salaries, payroll, and pensions; and the on-paper economic value of the businesses themselves.

For example, Amazon reportedly holds $83.4 billion in assets. That includes all their warehouses, trucks, servers, and the actual stuff they keep in stock for people to purchase. And that money is what’s rolled into Jeff Bezos’ supposedly $89 billion net worth. Bezos can’t just cash out to the tune of tens of billions of dollars without liquidating the inventory his company holds, selling all of his buildings, and divesting himself from Amazon entirely – and he could only do that in a world where there are other rich guys ready to buy.

So, that $2.4 trillion isn’t a real number in any sense that can be converted into a transfer of income.

But let’s imagine that it was, even if we could just magically grab $2.4 trillion in cash from the world’s billionaires, when divided amongst the rest of us 99%ers in the United States (about 319,000,000 people), we’d all walk away with a one-time-payment of just $7,500.

Even if we just limited the transfer from the richest 1% to the bottom 20%; each person would get $37,151.70 – or basically a one-time payment of considerably less than the median salary in the US.

Not that we wouldn’t all like the extra cash, but let’s be honest… After that money is gone and we’ve sent a clear signal to the most successful businessmen & women in the world that the reward for building a company like Google or Apple is to have all your assets taken from you and your business destroyed, then what?

Neither long-term government dependency or wrecking the economy for a short-term payout is the answer.

So what should we do instead?

First, we should understand that poverty is the natural state of the world and the big mystery of human history is not how people become poor (that’s easy, do nothing), but how people get rich. Once we recognize that fact, we have to shift our way of thinking about poverty and start seeing growing wealth as a consequence of people’s ability to create and exchange goods and services with each other.

In the end, wealth is not just dollars in a bank account. It’s our very standard of living and quality of life. The money is just a measurement tool.

So what we need is to create a world where it’s incredibly easy for people from every conceivable starting point to enter the market and create their own success. To that end, I’d like to offer 10 actually effective ways to reduce poverty and inequality in America and around the world.

Here we go:

Eliminate most occupational licensing restrictions and lower barriers to entry to getting jobs and starting businesses.

It’s an issue that people often know little about, but roughly 1 in 3 occupations in the United States require a government-granted license before people can even begin to earn a living. And while it’s common to believe that these licenses are protecting the public from bad doctors, dentists, and lawyers, the truth is that most of these licenses are for barbers & hairdressers, florists, landscapers, and gym class instructors. The Institute for Justice maintains an annual report on the state of occupational licensing in America.

According to IJ:

“The report documents the license requirements for 102 low- and moderate-income occupations—such as barber, massage therapist and preschool teacher—across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It finds that occupational licensing is not only widespread, but also overly burdensome and frequently irrational.

On average, these licenses force aspiring workers to spend nine months in education or training, pass one exam and pay more than $200 in fees. One-third of the licenses take more than a year to earn. At least one exam is required for 79 of the occupations.”

These licenses are often insurmountable barriers to entry for low-income people not only to finding employment but also to starting their own businesses. In 2014, I made a documentary chronicling the story of one such entrepreneur, Melony Armstrong, and her battle against occupational licensing in Mississippi:

Eliminate current zoning rules in most cities, and allow for mixed use residential/commercial occupation (ie. let people run businesses from their homes and neighborhoods legally).

Zoning regulations have a long and sometimes shady history of pushing low-income people out of areas where opportunities are widely available, and into areas that concentrate poverty into specific sections of a city. Especially in urban areas like New York City, these regulations can make it impossible for poorer individuals to find employment or start their own businesses where they actually live, and as a result, they’re often forced to commute sometimes over two hours per day just to get to and from their place of employment.

The Brookings Institution calls zoning and land-use regulation a form of “Opportunity Hoarding“.

With these kinds of restrictions, children who grow up in impoverished conditions are surrounded exclusively by other poor people and often go their whole lives without ever interacting with middle class or even wealthier people. This can mean fewer opportunities to learn about financial literacy, entrepreneurship, the value of education, or get employment tips from middle class or wealthy role models. That can certainly contribute to a sense of hopelessness and prolong intergenerational poverty.

End welfare dependency by eliminating most social welfare programs and replace them with more charity and means-tested vouchers for specific services that phase out as people’s income increases.

This suggestion is much more politically challenging, but welfare dependency is an enormous problem in America, largely created by the War on Poverty itself. The way most social welfare programs have been constructed actually punishes people for working and increasing their income, creating a much stronger incentive to continue to collect welfare and avoid working (or at least, avoid legal employment) as long as possible.

For an in-depth look at what creates the Welfare Trap, check out Charles Hughes’ article: The Welfare Trap: Maze of Programs Punishes Work

Of course, we don’t want to leave people in desperate need without any help, so it may be the case that we still need some form of assistance to people who are in genuine need.

However, instead of creating a new government program with the same problems as the older ones, we should look at market-oriented solutions such as vouchers for food, transportation, child services, or health care (ie. WIC, Food Stamps, etc.) that the poorest members of our society can use to buy goods and services from providers of their own choosing. Access to these vouchers would need to be means-tested, and instead of dropping off the minute someone gets a job, the assistance should decrease gradually.

Eventually, along with the other reforms I propose here, we should be able to get to a point where private charity alone would be enough to care for those who were truly unable to earn an income, but in the meantime anything that reduces the Welfare Trap and dependency on the government is a step in the right direction.

End minimum wage restrictions that take out the bottom rungs of the economic ladder and prevent younger poor and frequently minority people from getting their first jobs and gaining necessary experience.

It may seem counter-intuitive to a lot of people, but the minimum wage isn’t actually a magic bullet that helps poor people get paid more.

To the contrary, most evidence actually suggests that significant increases in the minimum wage result in fewer hours worked and often higher unemployment rates – particularly among the lowest skilled or experienced parts of our society, which unfortunately tends to mean poor people and minorities. The Foundation for Economic Education has a fairly large archive of supporting articles and evidence for this problem which you can find HERE.

Nobel-prize-winning Economist, Milton Friedman called minimum wage laws the most “anti-black law in the land”:

55% of minimum wage workers are under 25. They are predominantly teenagers and college-aged students working in their first jobs, gaining experience that they will use throughout their lives. Minimum wage laws are effectively a barrier to those experiences, because they create incentives for employers to only ever hire people they are fairly certain in advance will be worth more than their wages.

And unfortunately, the labor of people with limited skills, limited education, and limited job experience isn’t likely to be valuable enough.

Allowing people to offer and accept jobs at whatever rates they voluntarily agree to would blow open the doors of opportunity to millions of people looking for employment. Once employed, those workers will gain more experience and skills. And as they become more specialized, more productive, and more valuable to employers, their incomes will go up.

My own story fits this pattern, as I suspect is true for most people.

When I was in college, I charmed my way into my first job in video production by offering to work for a day for free, and to work after that for just $6.00 an hour, which was below the local minimum wage at the time. It was probably illegal, but I worked for that company for almost a year and in that time developed a ton of skills and experience that I used to get my next job – which was also in video production.

That experience has led me to the position I’m in today, and without those first opportunities, I don’t think I could do what I do now.

End the drug war, which disproportionately affects impoverished and minority areas and often results in unnecessarily fatherless children and the multi-generational problems that flows from single-parent families.

This one would be huge. The American Civil Liberties Union calls the Drug War “The New Jim Crow“, and it’s easy to understand why.

It’s led to a boom in incarceration that has ended with around 2.2 million Americans in prison. It’s also eroded protections of property rights and civil liberties throughout the country. It’s given enormous powers to prosecutors and police, and that power has been used mainly against the poorest segments of our society.

One of the most soul-crushing stories I’ve encountered after many years of working with people pushing for reform is that of Barbra Scrivner.

In 1992, Barbra’s ex-husband was embroiled in a criminal drug investigation, and prosecutors used Barbra to get to him by accusing her of conspiracy. Barbra had no knowledge of the crime because she’d spent the previous 2 years separated from her ex-husband, getting sober and taking care of her infant daughter. In spite of little evidence, Barbra was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

After 20 years, two suicide attempts, and numerous appeals, she was eventually granted clemency by President Obama. Unfortunately, it was too late, and Barbra’s daughter Alannah – who Barbra originally left her husband to protect – grew up without a mother, ultimately continuing the cycle of substance abuse and poverty.

Yahoo featured Barbra in a video about the struggles she experienced after being released from prison, and I also produced a short video for Families Against Mandatory Minimums with her that gets to the heart of how these incarcerations can affect families.

Radically overhaul our prison system towards restorative justice as opposed to punishment, and end mandatory minimum sentencing.

Not only are we sending too many people to prison for offenses that shouldn’t be crimes, we’re also failing to create opportunities and incentives for people to turn their lives around once they’re in prison.

As a result, poor people go into prison with few opportunities and leave prison with even fewer, often leaving them with the options of either becoming homeless or turning back towards a life of crime. It’s no surprise that the recidivism rate for inmates within 5 years of release from state prisons are an average of 76.6%. This doesn’t help anyone.

Sending people to jail and building our prison system around punishing them for their crimes may be cathartic for some segments of the population, but it does little to improve the lives of the victims of those crimes. And evidence suggests that it may often make the perpetrators more likely to commit crimes in the future. Most of our criminal justice system should be focused on making sure that victims of crime are compensated for their losses, and prisons should mainly be reserved for people we’re actually afraid of – violent and dangerous criminals. Their focus should be on helping those people turn their lives around and become flourishing and productive members of society.

A couple years ago, I spent some time in a prison in Texas shooting a documentary on a program that does just that:

Radically overhaul our criminal code and eliminate any laws that create crimes where there are no actual victims.

Admittedly, this one is also going to be a little tricky, but we currently have a criminal code that is so complex and overly broad that even the people who write and enforce the laws have no clue what it says. The most disturbing consequence of overcriminalization is that it enables police and prosecutors to use the law as a weapon – to extract cash from citizens, make headlines, and support their election bids for Sheriff or DA.

No one is actually immune from this problem, but poor people – who lack the resources in money and time to defend themselves or hire competent attorneys – are particularly vulnerable.

According to noted criminal defense attorney Harvey Silverglate, because of the massive size and complexity of our criminal code, the average American is likely to commit as many as three felonies a day – often without knowing they’re doing anything wrong.

And as Radley Balko explains:

“…these sorts of laws give police more excuses to make pretext stops when profiling for drug couriers. Once they have you, they can take your cash, car, jewelry or other possessions based only on the flimsiest evidence that it might be connected to drugs. They’re opportunities for harassment. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that even a crime as petty as a seat belt violation is justification for an arrest — and all of the life disruptions that come with a trip to jail. (Don’t forget that no matter what the offense, a trip to jail can also include a strip search.) Heavy enforcement of these sorts of crimes can breed distrust between police and the communities they serve, and creates more interactions that carry the risk of escalation.

But even assuming that all of these stops, fines, and citations are always legitimate, they’re always going to have a disproportionate effect on the poor, because the poor are the people who can least afford to pay them.”

Solving our overcriminalization problem would go a very long way to reducing burdens on the poor and ending cycles of intergenerational poverty.

Stop subsidizing and encouraging university degrees at the expense of any other kind of education. It makes higher education considerably more expensive (thus taking it farther out of reach for many poor people) and is not a good fit for everyone; whereas many great careers and ways out of poverty do not come from a university program.

We know that Federal student loan programs have caused an enormous increase in the cost of higher education.

Even though most of these subsidies have been created with the idea that they would help low-income people gain access to college degrees, the reality is that they’re doing this at the expense of burdening people with extraordinary debts that can’t even be escaped through bankruptcy.

Fortunately, there are better alternatives available all over the country right now that offer a range of options for people with diverse interests and needs. Trade-schools, apprenticeships, affordable (or free!) online or distance learning courses, and programs like Praxis or Vocatio can be a positive way to skip college and succeed in life.

Everybody needs an education, but not everyone needs to get a four-year degree.

Making more options available and reducing the subsidies, incentives to take on unsustainable debts, and constant pressure to push everyone into a single educational box would benefit poor and low-income individuals most of all.

End corporate welfare across the board, allowing businesses to compete on a level playing field, based on the value they add to their customers not on their ability to benefit from political favoritism.

If it’s important to end the bad incentives created by costly welfare programs for poor people, it is equally, or perhaps even more important to end welfare for the rich.

Corporate welfare is a huge problem, and it pervades every city and state. Taxpayers are on the hook for professional football, basketball, or baseball stadiums; new opera houses; theme parks; shopping malls; pharmaceutical companies; and on and on. Poorer people are frequently forced to pay for direct subsidies to giant businesses that promise jobs and long-term tax revenue that never seem to materialize. And all of this happens at the expense of smaller businesses and local entrepreneurs.

I recently made a new documentary for the Beacon Center of Tennessee on this topic

Allow school choice as the norm. People should never be stuck in a terrible school district just because of their income bracket or because they were born in a certain part of town.

Finally, we must allow school choice.

Currently, low-income people In America – zoned into poorer and more dangerous areas, restricted from economic opportunities, and burdened by a criminal justice system that often treats them as cash machines with little recourse – are also unable to even move their children to better schools where they might have a chance at a decent education and high-quality educational role models.

There’s a reason why charter school lotteries are flooded with applicants from poor communities every year.

Parents are desperate for options, and an awful lot of the time, those options are much better than the existing alternatives.

Antony Davies & James R. Harrigan, hosts of FEE’s “Words & Numbers” Podcast recently tackled this issue and note that school choice is always an option to wealthy people who can afford to move to better school districts or even send their kids to private schools, so it shouldn’t be such a shocking or politicized struggle to expand those opportunities to the poor through tax-reductions and voucher programs:

Sean Malone

Sean Malone is the Director of Media at FEE. His films have been featured in the mainstream media and throughout the free-market educational community.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.