Category Archives: Random Blogging

File Under “Be Careful What You Wish For”

All eyes are on the lawsuit Hobby Lobby has pending in the U.S. Supreme Court, and most of the commentary revolves around the question of a corporation’s right to disregard a law of general application if that law offends its “sincerely held” religious sensibilities.

The threshold issue is whether a corporation can have religious sensibilities, sincere or otherwise. And hidden in plain sight in that question is an enormous threat to American business. In short, if Hobby Lobby prevails, it is likely to be at the expense of limited liability–which is the whole purpose of incorporation.

As one amicus brief noted,

The essence of a corporation is its “separateness” from its shareholders. It is a distinct legal entity, with its own rights and obligations, different from the rights and obligations of its shareholders. This Court has repeatedly recognized this separateness.

Shareholders rely on the corporation’s separate existence to shield them from personal liability. When they voluntarily choose to incorporate a business, shareholders cannot then decide to ignore, either directly or indirectly, the distinct legal existence of the corporation when it serves their personal interests.

The brief goes on to point out that it is this very “separateness” between shareholders and the corporation that they own that promotes investment, innovation, job generation, and the orderly conduct of business.

Think about it. How likely would you be to buy stock in a company if you thereby ran the risk of being found personally liable for improper or negligent corporate behavior?

Several commentators have noted that Hobby Lobby is effectively asking for the best of both worlds.  Its owners want to benefit from the protection against personal liability, but they don’t want to recognize that the corporation is an artificial entity not entitled to personal individual rights.

Hobby Lobby and Conestoga argue that they should be exempt from federal law because of the religious values of their controlling shareholders, while seeking to maintain the benefits of corporate separateness for all other purposes. These corporations have benefited from their separateness in countless ways and their shareholders have been insulated from actual and potential corporate liabilities since inception. Yet now they ask this Court to disregard that separateness in connection with a government regulation applicable solely to the corporate entity.

If the Court rules in favor of Hobby Lobby–if it finds that a corporation can assert a religious right to discriminate–it will be the beginning of the end of limited liability and corporate immunity for shareholders.

It’s tempting to say “it would serve them right,” but the truth is, such a result would be a body blow to business and the American economy.

There’s a reason the business community has stayed out of this litigation.

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Civic Vandalism

One of the consequences of publishing a blog is that people send you information–sometimes to share, sometimes requesting comment, often just to commiserate about a particularly depressing bit of news.

The other day, a friend shared a particularly offensive comment by one of our less-enlightened politicians, and asked the recurring question: what is wrong with people like that? It is a question I am totally unable to answer.

I can understand differences of opinion among people trying to solve problems (people of good will trying to improve education can argue over the school reforms most likely to achieve that goal; people all of whom genuinely want to see the economy improve may disagree on the role of government debt, etc. ), but I simply can’t fathom what drives the naysayers and haters–the people who simply oppose efforts to provide healthcare to the uninsured, or reduce poverty, or insure that citizens are treated equally. It’s one thing to argue about the wisdom of the means being chosen, it’s another thing entirely to reject the legitimacy of the effort, to insist that nothing should be done.

It’s sort of like theft and vandalism: I “get” theft—it’s unacceptable, but I can understand the thief’s motive; he wants something he doesn’t have, so he steals it. It’s comprehensible. What I can’t understand, and have never understood, is vandalism—destruction for destruction’s sake.

Right now, we have people of good will who are arguing–as people have always done–over the best way to conduct the nation’s business. Citizens can and do disagree about policy, and are often disagreeable about it, but that sort of political conflict is unavoidable. And comprehensible.

What isn’t comprehensible (at least to me) is another contemporary phenomenon–one that is different in kind from the normal political fights of the past: behavior that can appropriately be described as civic vandalism. It’s as though a significant percentage of our political class is throwing a prolonged tantrum, with no purpose other than expressing rage and preventing the rest of us from conducting the nation’s business.

It’s beyond troubling–and beyond my feeble attempts at understanding.

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Home Again, Home Again…

If my blog posts have been somewhat erratic over the past three weeks, it is because my husband and I have been traveling in South America, a continent we had never before visited. We began in Buenos Aires—an absolutely delightful city—and proceeded via ship through the Chilean fjords, around Cape Horn and Ushuaia (the southern-most city in the world—self-proclaimed “City at the End of the World”) and along the Pacific Coast to Valparaiso, Chile.

Very few Hoosiers know that Valparaiso, Indiana, was named for Valparaiso, Chile—an intriguing bit of history shared with us by a very cheerful Assistant Pastor of the Lutheran Church in Valparaiso, Chile, when we wandered in off the street. Admiral Porter—for whom Indiana’s Porter County was named—changed the name of Porter County’s town, formerly Porterville, to Valparaiso in recognition of the only naval battle he ever lost—in Valparaiso, in the War of 1812. It was a classy gesture.

Our cruise concluded at Valparaiso, and most of those who disembarked went straight to Santiago and its international airport, approximately a two hour drive. We elected to stay a few days to explore the quirky, art-filled city that is now a World Heritage Site.

It was well worth the exploration. Valparaiso is unlike any city we’ve visited anywhere. Santiago, which we briefly toured on our last day, is a vibrant and beautiful metropolis, and Vina Del Mar (virtually next door) reminded us of Miami, with its high-rise condominiums and beachfront cafes, but  Valparaiso didn’t remind us of anywhere else; it’s one of a kind.

Only 3% of Valparaiso is on flat ground; the rest is built, haphazardly, on thirty-plus hills. Very, very steep hills that overlook the sparkling bay and ocean.

Virtually all of the structures in the city look like flimsy shacks. Most of the siding used is painted corrugated metal, of the kind commonly seen on shipping containers. When we saw our hotel (this is the upscale part of the city? It looks like a slum!), we wondered what we’d gotten ourselves into, but the ramshackle exterior was a shocking contrast with the sleek, modern interior. We soon found that this contrast between interior and exterior was common—that preservation of the original architecture is strictly enforced, and any “rebuilding” or modernization occurs inside.

Art and art galleries are everywhere, as are museums—far more than might be expected in a city of 300,000. There are murals on the retaining walls, flowers painted on the light fixture poles. Restaurants showcase art.

Everywhere, too, are impossibly long and steep staircases built into the hills–stairs that allow people to reach the homes and shops scattered willy-nilly on the steep slopes—many of which are accessible only by those stairs and through neighboring properties. (I can’t imagine what aged or disabled folks do…)

While we were there, the city was rebuilding the streets in two of the “Cerros”—neighborhoods, or hills. They completely dug up the original streets, poured concrete, then laid granite blocks in sand/mortar on top of the concrete. The rebuilt streets will last a century or more. (Not exactly the way we do it here in Hoosier-land….)

Everyone we met was helpful and friendly (few spoke much English, and of course, being the Ugly Americans we are, we spoke no Spanish. Why didn’t I pay attention in my college Spanish class!?) The weather reminded me of San Francisco’s micro-climates. We were told that the city is generally temperate—they get very little snow and ice, and summer highs rarely reach 80.

Politically, the current issue appears to be a debate between members of the City Council who want to allow construction of a shopping center on the waterfront and those who are—as we were told—philosophically opposed to the notion of shopping as entertainment (we saw no malls or shopping centers—just small shops, galleries, cafes and street markets).

Europe is closer to the U.S., both culturally and geographically, than South America, and that’s probably the major reason we had never previously traveled to our own Southern Hemisphere. This trip was a revelation, and well worth the ten-hour flight from Dallas-Ft. Worth. Admiral Porter was onto something.

Enough travelogue; tomorrow, I’ll return to our originally-scheduled programming.

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About that “Culture of Dependency”

There’s been a lot of discussion about Paul Ryan’s racially-tinged dismissal of inner-city poverty as evidence of a cultural deficit. As Timothy Egan’s recent column in the New York Times reminds us, there’s a particular irony in Ryan’s appropriation of an argument that used to be mounted against his own Irish forebears.

“We have this tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work.” In other words, these people are bred poor and lazy.

Where have I heard that before? Ah, yes — 19th-century England. The Irish national character, Trevelyan confided to a fellow aristocrat, was “defective.” The hungry millions were “a selfish, perverse, and turbulent” people, said the man in charge of relieving their plight.

You never hear Ryan make character judgments about generations of wealthy who live off their inheritance, or farmers who get paid not to grow anything. Nor, for that matter, does he target plutocrats like Romney who might be lulled into not taking risks because they pay an absurdly low tax rate simply by moving money around. Dependency is all one-way.

We humans evidently have a deep-seated need to distinguish the virtuous “us” from the undeserving “them.” As Egan demonstrates, however, the identity of “us” and “them” is anything but static. Many upstanding Americans can trace their roots back to a once-despised “them.”

Accordingly, a bit of humility might be in order.

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A Zero-Sum World

A couple of days ago, a friend sent me an email about recent remarks made by Georgia Governor Nathan Deal. Deal wants Congress to repeal the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act of 1986. That’s the law–approved and signed by President Reagan–that requires hospitals to treat anyone in an emergency, regardless of citizenship or ability to pay.

In other words, if you are shot, giving birth, having a heart attack–whatever–and you make it to the nearest emergency room, they have to stabilize you before they determine whether you can pay and if not, send you elsewhere. They can’t just turn you away to drop the baby on the pavement or die from the heart attack.

To most sane people, this seems pretty reasonable, and by all accounts, the Act has saved many lives since it was enacted. 

I spend a lot of electronic “ink” wondering what’s wrong with people like Governor Deal. Why are they so adamantly opposed to expansion of Medicaid, increased access to health insurance, or a modest raise in the minimum wage? I could understand it if they were arguing about the best way to provide healthcare or alleviate poverty,  if they were offering alternatives, but they clearly aren’t–they are opposed to the goals themselves. And that’s what I’ve had so much trouble understanding.

However, I think I may have figured it out. These people live in a zero-sum reality.

In the zero-sum worldview, every social good exists in a fixed amount. If you get X, I lose X or its equivalent.

Thankfully, the real world doesn’t work that way. In countries with single-payer systems, for example, healthcare costs less, and everyone benefits. Studies have also confirmed that raising the minimum wage puts more money in the economy, and actually increases employment (counter-intuitive as that may seem.)

It must be exhausting to live in a zero-sum reality, where you must constantly on guard to protect your personal fiefdom. I know I need to cultivate some compassion for the denizens of that world, but it’s hard to feel sympathy for mean-spirited people.

On the other hand, maybe there’s a fixed amount of human-kindness, and they didn’t get any?

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