A Good Step In Argentina

We’ve been reading Guide To The Perfect Latin American Idiot. It is instructive about all the socialists, fascists, and others that have come to power in Latin America. The idiots are the folks that tolerate, vote for, or recommend those in power. It is both hard to finish and hard to recommend the book because it is so damn depressing. It is a continent and a half where the voters and sometimes the gunmen put people in power that ruin countries economically. Argentina is an excellent example but there are many others. The Heritage 2023 index of Economic Freedom combines North and South America in one region. Check out this list. Faced with triple digit inflation and a 40 percent poverty rate, Argentina did the unexpected sensible thing: It elected pro-capitalist Javier Milei as president. Dominic Pino at NRO has posts here and here about Javier.

In the former, Dominic discusses why Javier is not The Donald. We think he leaves out two of the superficial connections between Javier and The Donald. As the picture at the start of this post from the Toronto Sun shows, Javier’s hair is not quite as carbon copy of The Donald but we find it strikingly similar to his. And his girlfriend certainly will remind folks of The Donald’s wife, Melania. Javier and The Donald have superficial similarities but are much closer to being political opposites.

Sidebar: It is hard to be sure of what policies The Donald favors. As somebody said, The Donald has moods rather than policies. The two things we can be relatively sure about The Donald is that he is in favor of tariffs and against immigration. Javier is the opposite. In fact, like MWG, he is in favor of unilateral reductions in tariffs. End Sidebar.

Javier faces daunting challenges to change Argentina to a functioning market economy. Peronism has run rampant in Argentina for almost 80 years. Javier has so much to fix and limited authority to do it. He is the president but he doesn’t control the parliament. And, as we remember with Reagan and Thatcher, the benefits of a market economy take time to manifest themselves. The idiots, perfect and imperfect, will ramp up the political pressure soon after Javier takes office. We wish him and the people of Argentina smooth sailing to a market economy but they face enormous headwinds from the idiots.

Priorities: Economic And Otherwise

We started to read a post from James Pethokoukis California Shows Decline And Degrowth Is A Choice, Not A Destiny but we didn’t think it was worth a subscription. A single observation (yes, we know the problem with those) confirmed our choice. We were discussing Social Security reform online and the other person suggested nationalizing the oil companies as a method to pay for reform. We think he was serious. Our point is that James in on the wrong track. Voters do make terrible economic choices but we don’t see them as intentional. They don’t think their choices will lead to bad economic outcomes. Sometimes the voters and the politicians they elect don’t care about economics and other times they are misinformed, mislead, or just foolish. Ruining the your own economy is common never, well at least rarely, intentional.

The next few paragraphs paint with a broad brush. There are lots of issues in elections besides economics. The point is that the voters were willing to swallow the economic proposals because of other priorities. There are also lots of other stuff that happens once folks are elected that are out of the reach of the voters. It might be said that our first example, the Nazis, came to leadership from voters but came to power by others means.

So we start with the Nazis. Hitler’s autarky for Germany and German families with Lebensraum (you can discuss amongst yourselves if autarky applies to families) were always a way to keep the growth fairy at bay. We’re not sure if Hitler was successful because of or in spite of his economics but he won the support of many voters.

After WWII the UK went all in with Clement Attlee and his version of the Labour Party:

To this end, [Clement’s government] undertook the nationalisation of public utilities and major industries, and implemented wide-ranging social reforms, including the passing of the National Insurance Act 1946 and National Assistance Act 1948, the formation of the National Health Service (NHS) in 1948, and the enlargement of public subsidies for council house building. His government also reformed trade union legislation, working practices and children’s services; it created the National Parks system, passed the New Towns Act 1946 and established the town and country planning system. The Attlee government proved itself to be a radical, reforming government. From 1945 to 1948, over 200 public Acts of Parliament were passed, with eight major pieces of legislation placed on the statute book in 1946 alone.^[1]

Nationalizing industries is an incredibly foolish idea yet Clement won a huge landslide in 1945 that allowed him to do almost anything he wanted. It would take years before Margaret Thatcher could undo even some of the damage.

The American version of Clement is in 1971 Richard Nixon foolishly, from an economic perspective, implemented wage price controls. Nixon then won a landslide of 520 electoral votes in 1972. Obviously, wage price controls were not the only issue in 1972. Our point is that voters don’t focus on such issues. America had to wait for Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan to start the path back to prosperity.

Hugo Chavez was elected in president Venezuela. Here is the Wikipedia summary (footnotes deleted):

Chávez received support from different sectors: the lower class felt identified with Chávez, that he cared about their needs and would offer a solution to their problems; part of the middle class also supported, feeling frustrated with corruption and wishing for a strong-handed government; Chávez also received support from members of the old left, as well as the members of the militarist right wing^. By May 1998, Chávez’s support had risen to 30% in polls, and by August he was registering 39%. Voter turnout was 63%, and Chávez won the election with 56.2% of the vote.

Hugo’s plans didn’t turn out well for voters. In fact, you can get a 2001 book, Guide To The Perfect Latin American Idiot to see the mostly economic challenges of that continent and a half. Venezuela is still waiting for the voters and the leaders to return to prosperity. Well, no wait, they are looking to survive. And if you look at the Heritage Economic Freedom map you will see that all the continents are suffering.

We can add Detroit in the second half of the 20th century and San Francisco in the first quarter of the 21st century to the litany of bad voter choices. To get back to James, the voters weren’t trying to flatline the economy. Decline wasn’t the choice. The choice was bad economics and bad leadership with a measure of bad luck.

There is good and bad news. The bad news, as the Heritage map shows, is that economic freedom and the prosperity it brings is relatively rare on our planet. The good news is that Ronald Reagan was wrong. Even if a country (or a city or a state) loses economic or political freedom it can still get it back. Much of Eastern Europe did it and Detroit seems to be coming back. Iowa is on a roll. If only the candidates for president in 2024 cared as much about inviting the growth fairy as they did about all the other fairies.

Two Reminders On Tariff Stupidity

Our two reminders on tariffs come from Scott Lincicome in his Capitolism newsletter at The Dispatch. We usually eschew the S word in favor of foolish but tariffs fully merit being called stupid. Tariffs are not the most important policy issue in the 2024 campaign but surely we deserve at least one candidate that isn’t on the stupid side. The two reminders are first that tariffs are stupid and second that both our current president, The Frontrunner, and our former president, The Donald, foolishly favor raising tariffs.

You should read all of Scott’s post (paywall alert) and most everything he writes. His work is worth subscribing to The Dispatch. Scott starts out with the terrible news:

[M]ultiple news outlets reported last week that [The Donald] is actively considering a “universal baseline tariff”: a 10 percent “ring around the U.S. economy” that would automatically apply to all imports, regardless of source—and, presumably, above and beyond all the current tariffs already in place. The plan’s details are unsurprisingly non-existent, but [The Donald] did gleefully confirm the idea in a subsequent interview.

We are gobsmacked that anyone in the GOP is even considering such stupidity. Even worse, Scott notes that none of The Donald’s opponents seem to be taking advantage of his stupidity so Scott starts by reminding us of the facts. First, China is a big trading partner but is only involved in 10-20 percent of our trade. Second, tariffs were a bad idea for Calvin Coolidge a hundred years ago and a necessary evil for Alexander Hamilton over two hundred years ago (because there were few other taxes to support government) but they are even more stupid now because of changes like global supply chains.

Then Scott runs through the data on the self-harm from US tariffs and concludes with a study on The Donald’s proposal:

Adding up these harms, the Tax Foundation’s Erica York calculates that [The Donald’s] tariff “ring” would amount to a $300 billion annual tax hike, reducing the size of the U.S. economy by 0.7 percent and eliminating 505,000 jobs. She notes that—again consistent with plenty of research and recent history—these harms would occur through a combination of higher prices for companies and consumers and a stronger dollar (which would offset some consumer pain but in the process make U.S. exports less competitive abroad). And if the rest of the world retaliated in kind (as most of them would), U.S. GDP would shrink by another 0.4 percent, and an additional 322,000 jobs would be lost. 

To summarize: taxes up, economy down, jobs down. Brilliant! How can anyone be surprised that raising taxes is bad for the economy? And it would anger our allies too and their reaction will make all of the problems worse. The second part of Scott’s post is about how The Frontrunner has supported The Donald’s tariff increases and the administrative mechanisms used to increase them. Here is a summary:

As we’ve discussed, for example, [The Frontrunner] administration has barely touched [The Donald’s] Section 232 and Section 301 tariffs, even though the president could remove them all with the stroke of a pen. The White House has also doubled down on protectionist Buy America rules, the Jones Act, and new domestic content mandates and subsidies for federally funded renewable energy and infrastructure projects—none of which target just China, by the way. And, far from being embarrassed about these actions, the administration—even Biden’s trade representative!—is bragging about them in advance of the 2024 election

As one of the commenters says, it is a race to the bottom on tariffs. Part of the reason to defeat The Donald is to remove his toxicity and give the GOP a chance to survive but we also need to remove his stupidity from the GOP. We need to make economically stupid politically stupid. And now we hope we shall retire the S word for some time.

Infamy Indeed

David Henderson at EconLog says that August 15, 1971 is a day that should live in infamy. Of course, that phrase is from FDR’s speech on Pearl Harbor so it is definitely over the top but we are with David on his connection. For those of you that weren’t there, it was the day that Richard Nixon, with the blessing of Congress, froze wages and prices in the USA. You should read all David has to say to see the connection of Nixon’s wage price freeze to other bad economic policies that followed.

As we see Nixon’s actions it was important for us to graduate from college and the return of a bad political trend. Why were Nixon’s actions important for us to graduate from college? Because Nixon’s action came just before the beginning of our senior year. The Economics Department at our school had a senior oral exam and Nixon’s actions were part of our oral exam. One question was why freeze prices and wages but not profits. Our answer was basic micro: if you control wages and prices you can control profits too. The mostly leftist faculty didn’t seem to expect an economic answer and let us graduate.

Sidebar: Of course it is not a simple as our answer suggested. We have three points about that. First, we were only twenty-one. Second, we didn’t know any of the questions in advance. Third, we think, and our evaluation for the oral supports, the mostly leftist faculty ate up the idea that the government could control profits by controlling wages and prices. End Sidebar.

Nixon’s actions were the restart (or near the restart) of a bad political trend that the government has to do something in the wake of some problem. David’s list of the 55 MPH speed limit, CAFE, and appliance energy efficiency are three examples. Rather than let a temporary crisis subside, the government gets involved long term. Here is a great example of FDR’s sugar quota from George Will that predates Nixon but the problems linger on:

The [sugar] quotas are a residue of “temporary” commodity supports instituted during the Great Depression. Not even the New Deal’s measures that were intended to end the Depression could make that calamity last forever, so it ended. Some purportedly ameliorative measures did not.

George reminds us that FDR and probably Hoover, Wilson, and the first Roosevelt, were the progenitors of Nixon’s political policy that it is better to do something about a crisis even if it is wrong. Now we never let a crisis go to waste. Yes, let the date be added to the infamy list.

The Joys Of Capitalism: TV Edition

Earlier this week we bought a new TV. Being old we don’t buy new technology often but we have been buying it for a long time. Well, and some would argue that a four K TV isn’t even new tech. It is a 55 inch smart TV.

Sidebar: These are all anecdotes so there are two problems. First, they are anecdotes so you really need to gather more data. Second, human memory is subject to error. You shouldn’t ever trust human memory. In this case, however, you could look up stuff on TVs if you are unconvinced. End Sidebar.

It is amazing what capitalism has wrought. Being a child of the fifties we were brought up on black and white TV. Somewhere in our childhood our family got our first color TV. Perhaps it was to watch Bonanza. Because we lived close to a major metro area we got all three commercial stations (ABC, CBS, and NBC) plus public TV. The first TV we remember owning was a twenty something inch color luggable we bought around 1975. It had a handle so they called it a portable but even for a young version of us it was a challenge to carry. We don’t know the exact price of the luggable but the new TV would cost about $130 in 1975 dollars. We would guess that we paid at least twice that in 1975 for a TV that was cable ready.

Sometime later, at least 1988, we bought a really nice TV. It was about a 33 inch analog TV. It was not portable. If you wanted to move it you really needed three people although two could do it. Because of the depth of the TV you needed a really big place to put it. We don’t remember exactly when we bought it or what we paid for the TV, a guess would be $800, but we paid more than $1,000 for the place to put it. You could connect it to cable and a VCR!

We replaced the behemoth with a 26 inch flat screen that led to a 31 inch flat screen. There were VCRs and DVD players and eventually a Fire Stick to make it semi-smart. The new TV is bigger, smarter, lighter, thinner, and has a way better picture than all of the predecessors. And, in real terms, it is the cheapest of all the TVs we have bought.

You can go here and check how much TV prices have declined over the years. The data show that TV prices have gone down by almost 99 percent since 1975 but that massively understates the change because the quality has gone up by at least as much as the prices have gone down. Our new TV was not at available at any price in 1975. And we don’t need a VCR or DVD to record shows because the TV can do it.

Thank you capitalism. The new TV with amazing capabilities and a price that is hard to believe in our living room.

Hooray For Warren Harding

Michael Walsh at the Pipeline is going through Constitutional amendments with an eye to eliminating ones he doesn’t like. The probability for success with his new post: To Save America, Repeal The 17th Amendment is the same as the sixteenth. It approaches zero. We, however, just want to take issue with two sentences in the post. After the seventeenth amendment lots of senators became president while, Micheal says, that didn’t happen much before. He starts with an example that almost all conservatives should disagree with. We have added the phrase in bold below:

The first senator to go directly to the White House was Warren G. Harding, elected in 1920 after the passage of the 17th amendment. Widely viewed [by Progressives] as one of the worst presidents, Harding got the Senate-to-Oval Office express off to an inauspicious start. [Words added in bold]

We should think that Michael would be delighted by Warren’s presidency. It was only two plus years but if you read Coolidge, it is clear that Warren picked Calvin because they agreed on policy so Warren has partial responsibility for the Roaring Twenties. Remember, presidents don’t run the country. They are responsible for running the federal government. Here is a graph on maximum income tax rates. Check out 1921-1928. Do the same for federal spending. Warren became president as the economy was in turmoil after a recession in 1918-19 and a depression in 1920-21. Here is one analysis from Wikipedia:

The year 1920 was the single most deflationary year in American history; production, however, did not fall as much as might be expected from the deflation. GNP may have declined between 2.5 and 7 percent, even as wholesale prices declined by 36.8%.^[31] The economy had a strong recovery following the recession.^[32]

So Warren was solid on economic freedom and had the results to prove it. Anything else? Yes, after the notorious bigot Woodrow Wilson, he was strong on civli rights as shown by going to Birmingham Alabama and giving the speech that shocked the nation. Here is a summary (with a paragraph deleted):

[Warren] concluded by discussing education and labor, proclaiming that Birmingham’s next fifty years could be even more glorious if the city’s legislators and citizens had “the courage to be right.” As he finished there was almost no applause from the white audience, and a thunderous response from the blacks. Reaction to the speech in the following days was about as divided as the crowd.

It took great courage to challenge Birmingham, AL in Birmingham to have the courage to be right on racial matters in 1921.

Warren wasn’t perfect as he supported tariffs and prohibition and there were scandals during his administration. But he was about as good as presidents get from a conservative perspective. He also defeated FDR who was the Democrat candidate for vice-president in 1920. Michael should know better than to disrespect Warren Harding, one of our greatest American presidents.

Who Is Running The Country?

In today’s Morning Jolt Jim Geraghty is discussing all the talk about The Donald this election season despite him not being on or anywhere near the ballot. Jim says: “But Biden [The Frontrunner], Harris, Pelosi, Schumer etc. are currently running the country. [Italics in original]” Yes you should read it all and subscribe to the National Review and the Morning Jolt. And, yes we are going to be a little unfair to Jim but he is the paid professional writer and we are not.

The problem with the quote is that The Frontrunner et al. are not running the country. They are elected to run the federal government. Our freedoms ensure that nobody, not Amazon, The Frontrunner, or Schmidty’s where we are going for lunch this weekend is running the country. The questions of whether those folks are actually running the federal government and whether they are doing an adequate job is left for you to discuss amongst your selves.

It used to be an axiom that the United States was a free country. Now the 2022 Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom ranks the US as “mostly free,” 25th out of 177 ranked countries. We don’t know of any comprehensive freedom ranking but our judgement is the US is mostly free beyond economics. On the other hand, Putin and many other dictators actually try to run their countries. They often get concussions from running into the knowledge problem but they try.

Jim knows that in our republic the elected officials are responsible for running the the government and that is not close to running the country. Nobody runs the country. Our freedoms, economic and otherwise, means that folks do as they choose. Obviously, there are folks that want to influence other folks and some of that is why we are mostly free. The good news is that influence waxes and wanes so nobody is ever really in charge. And that is a great thing because when nobody is running the country it means that the country has substantial freedom.

More Joys Of Federalism

Some years ago, the mayor of our fair capital proposed a nearly perfect motto for the leftist city: 77 square miles surrounded by reality. Sadly, the City Council that supported the plastic pink flamingo as the city bird rejected the mayor’s proposal.

The District of Columbia is only 67 square miles and we have known that reality rarely intrudes into the federal government located there but this story is about the District itself.

Sidebar: Our mental picture of federalism is the federal government not dominating the several states. So to make sure that the District was part of federalism we checked with Wikipedia:

Federalism is a mixed or compound mode of government that combines a general government (the central or “federal” government) with regional governments (provincial, state, cantonal, territorial, or other sub-unit governments) in a single political system, dividing the powers between the two.

So federalism is about the division of powers and the subunits can be varied. End Sidebar.

Federalism leads to experimentation. As is usually true, there are exciting and foolish things going on all around the country. We hope that the ratio of observations is an indication of direction.

The Week at NRO reports on a new requirement in the District:

The District of Columbia is now requiring child-care workers to have college degrees. Directors of day-care centers must have bachelor’s degrees, teachers must have associate’s degrees, and assistant teachers must have a child-development associate credential. There are no obvious reasons why a college degree is necessary to care for children. The task has been performed for millennia by people who lacked one. 

The District’s requirement is foolish for at least three reasons. First, there is a labor shortage and particularly as shortage of child care as we hear from our family. Where will the businesses in the District find these credentialed folks? Second, it amplifies the credential problems. Third, the District is only 67 square miles. As we see in the next section, states with tens of thousands of square miles are worried about citizens and business leaving. It is much easies to leave the District or just leave it for childcare than it is to leave most states.

Chris Edwards at NRO’s Capital Matters has the positive joys of federalism. Some of Chris’s findings was covered in our earlier post on federalism but good news is worth repeating. Chris tells us that several states are choosing to return money to taxpayers rather than spend it like the federal government:

But there is good news on fiscal policy. A wildfire of state income-tax cuts is sweeping the nation. Republicans are leading the reforms, but even Democratic states are offering some taxpayer relief. The dollar value of recent state tax cuts is the largest in at least four decades, made possible by overflowing coffers in most states. [Paragraph deleted]

Many states are feeling the need to compete for citizens and businesses. Part of the trend might be related to the increase in remote working. Chris says:

Interstate competition to reduce tax rates has been strengthened by the locational flexibility that remote work is providing. In addition, the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act magnified tax differences between the states by capping the federal deduction for state and local taxes.

What will the federal, state, and other governments learn from these experiments? They should already know that people and capital are mobile but another lesson might be be useful. And what will the national GOP do? Our suggestion is a modified Gratz Plan with a consumption tax (like a sales tax in most states) and an income tax that starts at no less than $100,000 that allows the elimination of the recently passed huge increase in the IRS. We await the learning to begin.

Market For Paul McCartney Concert Tickets

We have been writing about the wonders of markets and we used the NFL as an example. If you want to see Green Bay visit Tampa Bay it will cost you a bundle but if you want to see Washington visit Detroit the prices are much lower and often below face value. Price is how markets find out if a customer really wants something.

Like our friends in DC, (mostly on the Democrat side) Ryan Ritchie doesn’t like letting the market set prices. He has written an open letter to Paul McCartney begging for tickets. The pathetic subtitle is:

I should be able to see you at a reasonable price, especially from a mile away

Well, he is not going to be a mile away. SoFi stadium “only” seats 70,000 (Ryan says) and there are big screens that will allow most everyone to see closeups of Paul but that is not good enough for Ryan.

Sidebar: We hear performers complain about the black market all the time. They can solve the problem by offering more shows or increasing ticket prices. They are limited in the shows they can offer and they don’t want to take the risk on higher prices. Like Ryan, they don’t have an argument. End Sidebar.

Ryan was looking to buy the tickets on Ticketmaster and we think it was the resale market although Ryan isn’t exactly clear about that. Paul, just like the NFL, has no control over the resale market so Ryan is really just begging because, fortunately, there is nothing Paul can do about the resale market. We are delighted that is the way it is. People are willing to not go to the concert (or never intended to) for a certain sum. They might not get it. We don’t think the end zone seats for Green Bay-Tampa Bay listed at $900 each will sell at that price. We picked a lower price. We shall see what buyers do.

We have some advice for Ryan. We don’t know if Paul is ever coming back to LA but if he does or if you see another concert you really want to go to (not The Eagles it appears) here is the plan. You have more time than money so find out when the primary sale is and be first online. Then buy five tickets, three for you and two to sell. If they limit you to four then our advice doesn’t work as pairs sell best. Then put the other pair on Ticketmaster at a reasonable but profitable price. It is a risk but that is exactly what all those sellers on Ticketmaster are taking. It might help you afford what you want.

The Ukraine And The Future

And we are back. We didn’t announce our vacation in advance because we thought we might find something of interest to post. As much fun as blogging is skiing in Vermont is more fun. And hard physical work that demands partying afterwards.

John Hillen at NRO has an interesting piece on How Russia’s War On Ukraine Will Change The World. It can fairly be described as wishy-washy and yet it is worth reading. We think the problem is that the headline over sold the post. John has eight points to make and, by our counting, only one is unequivocal, For aggressor states, being in the nuclear club is a must-have. Here is John’s run up to the eight points:

It is still possible that Russia “succeeds,” but painfully and slowly. And it is possible that Ukraine’s current counteroffensives could repulse the Russian incursion into much of the country. It is possible, too, that Vladimir Putin could escalate the war both inside and outside of Ukraine in a desperate attempt to achieve a better outcome or stronger position.

On the one hand it is wishy-washy. Yet it is a thoughtful review of possibilities. We like the post because it made us think and think you should read it all. We want to discuss two of John’s eight points: energy policy and globalization. We lean with him on energy policy and against him on globalization. See, we can be wishy-washy too.

John says that energy policy will be more firmly anchored to security policy. He gives the Germans as an example. The Germans are working on legislation. Now, as the WSJ reports, even some American Democrats in regulatory positions have moved an iota in that direction:

Federal regulators rarely backtrack, especially as quickly as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Yet on Thursday Democratic commissioners hit pause on a new policy requiring a greenhouse-gas analysis for natural gas pipelines and export projects. 

It is a tiny step but it could be particularly important because regulations and regulators are crucial to the accomplishment of the left’s goals in America. As the WSJ concludes, the action is only a reprieve. That’s why we only lean with John. We think that there will be lots of talk of a serious energy policy in America and elsewhere but we want to see (and this is not a comprehensive list) pipelines, electrical transmission lines, and LNG terminals approved, being built, and transmitting energy.

Sidebar: Politicians have created a real problem for themselves in energy policy. Because of the attempts of political management of energy production, e.g., mandates for inefficient energy production, and the attacks on carbon based energy, we reasonably see lots of cautious actors in energy production. It will be a rational decision for businesses not to trust any “new” policies. End Sidebar.

John is not a fan of globalization or as we would put it economic freedom. He says it is not the end of economic freedom but we can see it from here. Then he burns a straw man:

In its purest form, economic globalization would mean, among many other things, that no one really cares where his supply chain operates, just that it operates in the most economically efficient way. 

Everyone has always cared how the supply web works. Well, at the very least almost everyone as very few countries don’t have tariffs. Only us few capitalistic orphans prize economic efficiency. People like Marco Rubio will still try to argue that sugar tariffs are a matter of national security. Fighting for economic freedom and the resulting prosperity has always been a challenge because the concentrated benefits of regulation versus the dispersed benefits of prosperity. We see a continuing battle over economic freedom as rent seekers seek rents but there are security benefits from a supply web rather than a chain. An example of a global supply web is that Germany wants many sources of energy rather than just gas from Russia. We think that economic freedom will tend towards expansion despite the best efforts of the rent seekers.

John’s headline reflects that people want a Conan The Barbarian outcome:

“To crush your enemies — See them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women!“

There aren’t many Waterloos in battle and even fewer in politics. We should move towards energy security and economic freedom even as there are some conflicts between the two. These things are going to be wishy-washy in a constitutional republic. It is not satisfying but it is how it is.