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Jail overcrowding and sentence reductions in Hillsdale County

The Collegian reports:

“When I look into [county jail] overcrowding, I check the out dates,” Hillsdale Circuit Court Judge Michael Smith said. “If I don’t see any projected releases that’s when I go through and say, ‘Let’s let so-and-so out.’”

Smith does not arbitrarily choose whose sentence to lessen. He said he looks at the amount of time served and severity of the crime. He said will reduce sentences for property or child support crimes, but sentences for violent criminals and drug and sex offenders are the last to be reduced.

If I understand this correctly, what has been implied is that using drugs is more severe than depriving someone of property or neglecting one’s responsibility to their children. I would argue that this is not true. If national trends hold true for the county, the majority of drug offenders in the Hillsdale County jail are serving time for possession or use of a small amount of a controlled substance, not for felonies such as sale or manufacture, or drug-related violent crime. State prisons typically house persons convicted of more serious drug crimes and, like federal prisons, have a higher ratio of trafficking offenses to possession offenses than county jails.

Hillsdale County would be better off to release petty drug criminals who do not have a record of violent crime, or better yet, abstain from prosecuting such offenses in the first place or substitute, where necessary, inmate-paid substance abuse treatment for incarceration.

Who said it?

Who said this:

If these conditions do not hold — if nobody outside Washington is really paying attention to the substance of the bill, if the true costs . . . are buried in phony accounting and understated by a trillion dollars or so — the majority party can begin every negotiation by asking for 100% of what it wants, go on to concede 10%, and then accuse any member of the minority party who fails to support this ‘compromise’ of being ‘obstructionist.’

That was Senator Barack Obama in 2006. He made this nightmare a reality in 2009.

Over-mighty governors are not the only problem

An article in the January 31 Economist outlined some recent gubernatorial appointments to the U.S. Senate which were controversial and scandalous in nature and offered some analysis:

Many would argue that gubernatorial appointments give too much power to one person and too little to voters. Since 1913 more than 180 senators have been appointed by governors, according to Fair Vote, a voting-rights advocacy group. Only four states—Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Oregon and Wisconsin—fill vacancies purely by special election.

David Segal of Fair Vote says there is no reason why a speedy election could not be held when Senate vacancies occur. Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin senator, is trying to amend the constitution to require just that. House vacancies, after all, are filled in that manner. No fewer than 26 candidates are now vying for voters’ attention in the race for the seat vacated by Rahm Emanuel when he became White House chief of staff. Recent events show that the Senate needs to bury this relic of the past.

Why not repeal the entire 17th Amendment? Prior to 1913, each state legislature was responsible for choosing who would represent the state in the U.S. Senate. Some states considered this less than ideal, but they were free to delegate this duty to voters by amending their state constitutions accordingly.

Throughout U.S. history as populist sentiment has (with good intentions) continually increased the direct influence of “the people,” the popular vote has taken on a life of its own. The reduction of the people’s sentiment to a mere tally has neutered the nuanced representation designed by this country’s architects of constitutional representative government. Having depersonalized the people’s sentiments and consolidated the paths through which those sentiments influence government, it has become easy to characterize and dismiss entire states as either liberal or conservative strongholds, doing much to undermine bipartisan efforts.

Perhaps the strongest case for repealing the direct election of U.S. senators would be that of a re-balancing of political power in states where a single party dominates that state’s representative posts at the federal level. Take Michigan, for example: except for Spencer Abraham’s single term in the Senate, Michigan has seated only Democrats in the U.S. Senate for the past 30 years and has voted for Democratic presidential candidates since 1992. However, no single party has dominated the Michigan Legislature or governorship in the same fashion. This is because while a majority of persons in the state lean Democrat, many political districts in the state lean Republican. Currently, control of the upper and lower houses of the Michigan Legislature is split between Republicans and Democrats, and we have a Democratic governor.

A repeal of the 17th Amendment may ensure that a state’s representation in Washington protects the power of minority political parties and regions whose sentiments are not represented by a simple majority. It’s also worth mentioning that a show of hands in a state capital will be far less costly than a special election which involves all voting citizens. The country would also take a step forward with respect to state’s rights, which is always a welcome bit of progress.

Don’t expand the bottle deposit law

State Senator Mike Switalski (D-Roseville) of Michigan has reintroduced legislation which would expand the state’s bottle deposit system to include non-carbonated beverage containers.

Having worked in grocery stores for six years during high school and college, I witnessed some of the effects of Michigan’s bottle return laws first hand. Under this system of incentivized recycling, the state directly burdens retailers, who must bear the labor costs of sorting and storing the materials, the purchase and maintenance costs of reverse vending equipment, and the responsibility for waste management and sanitation expenses for additional non-returnable matter brought into the store.

In the summer months, many out-of-state visitors would attempt to return all of their empty plastic containers, indifferent to whether the containers were recyclable or not. A surprising number of Michiganders did the same because they were simply too lazy to sort their own waste and were happy to let a minimum-wage-earning 16-year-old do it for free.

None of the stores I worked for had reverse vending machines, so the returnable items had to be sorted by brand and type, all by hand. Often, the same workers who handled a customer’s sticky half-full Gatorade bottles with spent cigarettes floating inside are the same ones stocking shelves, bagging groceries, or ringing up items at the register.

These laws are especially harmful to struggling businesses and individuals. Mom-and-pop stores rarely have the floor space or business capital to accommodate the required equipment. Also, because the cost of maintaining this equipment drives up operating expenses, this in turn raises the final price of groceries, which hurts Michigan’s struggling families most.

If a bottle return law is truly for the common good of Michigan, the state should be prepared to fund and operate its own bottle return centers instead of mandating that retailers provide free recycling equipment and labor for the public’s use.

Many well-intentioned people who favor deposit-based recycling speak of responsibility. But if we want to encourage responsibility in waste management, we should not force another party to bear the costs, because this is the opposite of responsibility.

Encourage rent-seeking: “Buy American!”

I’m glad this protectionist nonsense is getting exposed for the ignorance and arrogance that it is. Thank you, Mitch McConnell.

Barack Obama, albeit somewhat missing the point, was also hesitant about the “Buy American” clause:

“I think that would be a mistake right now,” he told ABC News. “That is a potential source of trade wars that we can’t afford at a time when trade is sinking all across the globe.”

He could have said, “We can’t afford to funnel money to lobbyists in industries for which the United States has a comparative disadvantage,” but that doesn’t have the same rhetorical ring that “trade wars” has.

Warranty registration, circa 1996

Among other splendid gifts, I received a new vacuum cleaner for Christmas. In accordance with my personal household inventorying policies, I immediately filled out Hoover’s mail-in warranty registration card. In addition to wanting to know my age range, income level, and how obsessive I am about cleaning house, they also wanted to know if I own, or plan to purchase within the next six months:

• a CD-ROM drive?
• a compact disc player?
• a subscription to an online service (AOL, CompuServe)?

Cute, but a bit behind the times.

Personal finance, year 2008 in review

Goals

1. Allocate 20% of gross income for debt reduction. This ended up being 14%.
2. Allocate 15% of gross income for retirement savings. This ended up being 20%. (Because #1 and #2 both increase net worth, I am not concerned that these turned out differently, because I still devoted 34% to net worth increasing activities, only 1% short of the goal. Also, I know why it happened–when the stock market took a turn for the worse, I chose to invest more heavily.)
3. Reduce tax liability by saving in tax-deferred and tax-advantaged accounts, donating money and services to charity, and maximizing tax credits and deductions.

The Unexpected

• Replacing my car. In June, the car I’ve owned since high school had became unusable due to problems with the brakes that I considered too expensive compared to the car’s overall worth. A month later, I bought a well-maintained 1997 Toyota Corolla from a retired family member for $2,500. (Blue book value is $3,200.) Another family member gave me a $3,000 three-year loan at 5%, I sold the old car for $500 on Craigslist, and a friend who lived on my couch during the 30 days in which I was without a car shared his car with me for commuting. The monthly payment on my new car is $96. However, now that I have a car that would take more than a week’s pay to replace, I must insure it fully rather than paying only for personal liability and property damage (PLPD). This costs $900 per year, or about 50% more than I was paying for PLPD.
• Poor stock market returns. I lost, literally, thousands of dollars in my Roth IRA and 401(k). I put $1,500 in a Roth IRA and poured the maximum ($7,500 for single taxpayer) into my 401(k). Unfortunately, I made most of these contributions before the market tanked in September. It would have been arguably a better idea to invest most of this money in debt reduction (student loans) instead, but given that the decision had been made, there wasn’t much I could do to avoid losses. I do consider it wise, however, that I continued investing steadily during the market’s worst moments this year. At any rate, my personal returns correlate with the returns of the major indices. The balances are too low for me to be able to do any advanced asset allocation, but that should change by March this year (I’m invested in an age-targeted fund for now.)
• Large purchases. In addition to my car, I made several large purchases: an electronic keyboard, a firearm, firearms training, three suits for three weddings, and brewing equipment. About $1,100 worth. Fortunately, all of these are very important to me, and I paid for them with savings, not credit.

Accomplishments

• Reduced my student loans by $4,400.
• Saved $6,000 in retirement accounts (plus my employer’s contributions, minus market losses).
• Invested $150 in individual stocks. Half the money was from signup bonuses for opening a brokerage account.
• Invested $200 in peer-to-peer / micro lending. Again, half the money was from signup bonuses for opening a lender account.
• Saved $1,900 for health expenses and $300 for graduate studies in tax-advantaged accounts (HSA and 529).
• Maintained my $1,000 emergency fund.
• Increased my credit score to the 700-750 range.

Not a bad year altogether. But I think 2009 will be a tighter year for recreational spending, and that I will allocate more funds to debt reduction in lieu of investing. Also, increasing emergency savings and consulting income will be critical hedges against further economic turbulence.

Dear Wired magazine

Dear Wired magazine:

I will not be renewing my subscription to Wired this year. Here is why.

I purchased a 12-month subscription in January 2008 for $10. Your billing department started sending me renewal notices in April or May. By September and October, I was sometimes receiving renewal notices on an almost weekly basis. Despite your warnings this past summer to subscribe now to lock in my low $10/year rate (which, as of January 2009, is still the going price), or to “increase my savings” by paying $30 for 36 issues (still $10/year!), please know that I will pay for a renewal when I feel the time is appropriate (i.e. November/December). If you wish to better please your customers, it would do you well to send a reasonable number (try three) of renewal notices at approximately that time.

Frankly, I find these tactics to be deceptive and offensive, not to mention a waste of my time and our planet’s natural resources.

Billing departments for periodicals use these tactics because their objective is to get subscribers to pay for as long a period as possible, for the sake of convenience or per-unit savings. Why? Because they don’t want to give you an opportunity once a year to stop giving them money. The probability I will go out of my way to cancel my subscription is much less than my probability of forgetting to pay or choosing not to re-subscribe.

Thanks to their aggressive stance, I am choosing not to subscribe. Thanks to my local library, it doesn’t affect me that much.

Somewhere in Michigan, n miles from Detroit

Being a Michigander who grew up in a part of Michigan which is a far cry from urban Detroit it bothers me–even though I like Detroit–when I read sentences like this (emphasis mine):

In southwestern Michigan, about 30 vehicles were involved in a deadly series of pileups on a six-mile stretch of Interstate 94 north of Stevensville, about 175 miles west of Detroit.

Stevensville is a village just off the shores of Lake Michigan. Being “175 miles west of Detroit” is neither relevant nor helpful in any description of this town’s approximate location within the state.

The report might as well have said:

1. “all the way across the state from Detroit,”
2. “near the Indiana border”,
3. or better yet, “70 miles east of Chicago.”