Response to "Turning Hustlers into Entrepreneurs"

·         Apr 27, 2010

Response to "Turning Hustlers into Entrepreneurs"

"Turning-Hustlers-into-..Entrepreneurs" discusses the possibility of increasing micro-credit in order to support independent "black market" business people.  As someone who has been running a successful off-the-books business for several years, I believe the major obstacle is not a lack of credit, but rather a government which is geared toward big business.

As the examples in the article illustrate, people are already doing what they are doing, without capital.  What they lack is official legitimacy.  Many entrepreneurs, such as myself, would love to "go legit", but it is not a realistic option.
I understand and support the idea that government regulate business to protect consumers.  The problem is that government does not take the size of a business into account in the requirements it imposes on operating legally.

For example, a single guy with a pick-up truck doing local deliveries pays the exact same state license fee as a company with a fleet of semi trucks.  The  least insurance available to him is a million dollars of coverage with a 1-2 thousand dollar annual premium, even if he never comes close to transporting a million dollars worth of goods.   Every city he works in requires its own separate business license.  If he needs to hire a subcontractor on occasion, he needs to buy worker's comp insurance at a minimum, and possibly more.  Being self-employed, he pays an additional tax (which an employer would otherwise cover).  And of course by staying underground, he avoids paying any income tax on his business revenue.

All of this can easily add up to thousands of dollars.  That sum may be inconsequential to a corporation with annual sales in the millions of dollars, but to a small independent, going legit would cost me about 20% of my entire net revenue, more than two months income.

The solution to this is not to finance small business to help them pay for theses fees - these fees are annual, and taking loans only increases risk.  The solution is to have license fees proportional to net revenue, instead of being fixed amounts, requiring insurance companies to offer a full range of coverage options, including (potentially less profitable) low limit policies, and restructuring tax code so there isn't a penalty to being self-employed. Similarly, laws making it difficult or illegal to run certain types of business from home could be relaxed, (for example, allowing small scale retail in otherwise residential districts), eliminating the need for a dedicated store-front, a major on-going expense.

Reducing the government imposed costs of running an independent business legally would, without the additional risk incurred (for both the investor and the entrepreneur) by accepting loans or the costs incurred by providing grants.  It would also increase tax revenue, by encouraging existing underground businesses to come above the radar and join the mainstream economy.

Global Warming Revisited

• Apr 26, 2010

Global Warming Revisited

(The following was a "letter to the editor" I submitted to a progressive magazine in response to articles on global warming)

In "American Psychosis" you point to the many people who acknowledge global warming, but do not change much, if anything about their destructive lifestyles, and in "Hot Air" talk about the point of view of skeptics and deniers.

I run a certified green hauling business. I modified my delivery truck to get 30mpg (from 15mpg) and run it on 100% biodiesel made from recycled veggie oil.  I also work part time supporting people who bicycle to work  (at a business which runs at a loss because our main service is free).  I live in a 250square foot home and use less than $5 worth of electricity most months.
I also have some background in science, including degrees in earth science and biology, and generally track down sources for claims I read.

Having read arguments on both sides, I am not convinced that humans are significantly contributing to climate change.  While I admit I haven't kept up with the latest research, I have yet to see several points addressed:



1 The climate naturally goes through cycles of extremes.  The current climate reflects roughly where it is expected to be.  Our methods of determining past temperatures are not precise enough to tell us the rate of change over small periods of time in the past, and so it is difficult to determine if what we see today is abnormal.
2 Geologic data suggests that in past periods of climate change, temperature has always changed first, with CO2 levels changing as a result of temperature change, not the other way around.  This does not necessarily indicate it is what is happening this time, but it could account for what we are seeing.
3 Climate predictions are only as good as the models they are built on, which in turn are only as good as the computers that run them.  We simply do not have computers powerful enough to accurately model something as complex as the earth's climate.  Last I heard, in order to reduce complexity to a manageable level, most models omit details such as water vapor (arguably the single most important variable) all together.
4 Human caused climate change is frequently referred to (particularly in liberal media sources) as having "scientific consensus".  According to Pew Research center 86% of scientists concur.  While 86% is clearly an overwhelming majority in a democracy, in science 14% is too large a minority to simply ignore.

But here's the thing:
It doesn't make one bit of difference if humans are contributing to global warming or not.
Whether we are causing it or not, its happening (that doesn't take predictions, just measurements - its happening)
Therefor we should prepare for it.
Even more important: independent of global warming, our lifestyles are harming the ecology of our planet. Even if an individual feels no moral reason to care about life other than humanity, it is undeniable that we are totally dependent on the environment for our own survival.

Regardless of climate change, our driving and electricity generation cause air pollution, which in turn causes cancer, asthma, acid rain and many other air quality issues.  Drilling for oil and mining for coal (or uranium) causes massive destruction - when things are running as they should - never mind the occasional catastrophic accident.  Vehicle manufacture itself takes an enormous amount of raw material (as well as energy) all of which must be mined/refined/transported and which carries an ecological price tag. Auto accidents are the number one killer of all Americans below 40 and remains one of the top causes of death and injury at all ages.  Their is evidence that the lack of exercise associated with driving is the number one factor in the obesity epidemic.  The fact that we consume far more energy than we can produce domestically puts us at risk, both politically, economically, and militarily.

All of these problems would remain if we switched to electric (or fuel cell) cars.  Most would remain even if we discovered cold-fusion or some other unlimited supply of cheap energy. 
And of-course all would also remain if humanity decided to combat global warming with a grand geo-engineering project.

The exclusive focus on "human-caused climate change" makes it easy for people to write off environmentalism, because the science is not, in fact, conclusive (as of yet).  It also encourages the idea of using technology to "solve" the issue, with potentially unintended consequences.  And it completely ignores all of the other real, urgent, indisputable problems that our lifestyle has created.

Whether it turns out humans are accelerating climate change or not, our course of action needs to be the same:
One way or another, the earth will eventually get warmer, and people need to be ready to adapt.
One way or another, the American lifestyle is destructive and unsustainable, and we need desperately to downsize our extravagances: give up the car, stop flying, eat vegetarian / organic / local, cut electricity use, buy less stuff, shop locally (when buying is necessary), waste less water, and live in locales that are naturally hospitable to humans (i.e. not the desert)

We can either focus on gradually changing those things now, voluntarily, or we can ignore them and have them changed for us in the future, in which case the change will be very unpleasant, and likely include violence.
Addressing climate change does little to address any of those issues, and where it does it is only incidental.
While I understand the good intention behind keeping environmental issues on the forefront of everyone's minds, I believe that the single-minded focus on global warming is actually counter-productive - even if it does turn out to be true.

3 letters to Utne

• Dec 14, 2007

3 letters to Utne

I got a free copy of the Utne Reader at the SF Green festival.
First one I had ever read, although I recognized the name as something Aileen had recommended years ago.

It was chock full of interesting articles on a wide variety of important issues, many of which are relevant to me.  I think I'll subscribe.

Three articles inspired letters to the editor, (two of which are available to read on their website).

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Salvage Beauty

I realize that the San Francisco Bay Area in CA is not necessarily representative of the rest of the country, but around here at least, this is not exactly news.

Our version of the "Loading Dock" - Urban Ore - in Berkeley, has been open for 25 years.
It opened originally with materials actually extracted from a landfill, and continues today with drop offs from haulers and donations from the public, as well as a recovery team at the nearby transfer station.
They are very profitable, employ a full time staff, and pay haulers and the public for high quality good condition items.
They have by now spawned a number of smaller copycat stores in the area, with somewhat more specialized focuses.

As a hauler myself, I face plenty of competition in this area from other haulers who, like myself, run their trucks on vegetable oil and donate / recycle / reuse and sell as much of what we pick up as possible.

Far from just making an incredible difference environmentally (both preventing landfill and reducing the need for new materials being made), it also makes great financial sense for everyone involved.
People shopping at a reuse store pay a fraction of what they would, many times for materials which are in excellent condition - sometimes never even used!
As a hauler, I pay much less in dump fees than I would if I simply disposed of everything in one place.
And that means that I in turn can afford to charge my customers a lot less.
Everyone wins.
I hope before long every city can take this concept as much for granted as we are able to here.
Until then, keep up the good work, reporting on stuff like this.

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Low Rent High Tech

One form of affordable and green housing which everyone always over looks is the RV park.

RVs as transportation are woefully inefficient, but keep one in one place...

RVs are designed to be able to run off of their own battery power and propane tanks off the grid for weeks or even months at a time.
Things like absorption cycle fridges and a tankless toilet (which have high premiums in home versions) come standard.

An RV uses less than 1/25th the electricity of the average American home, and around and 1/15th the average water.

At the same time, it is by far the least expensive (non-subsidized) form of housing. Both in the San Francisco Bay Area and 10 miles out of Manhattan (two of the most expensive areas in the country, where 1 bdrm apts can go for over $1500 a month) an RV space (with full hook-ups for water, electricity, phone, internet, cable, sewer, plus garbage and mail service) can be had for just over $400.

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America Incarcerated

I was very happy with my first ever issue of Utne, especially the unusually straight-forward and un-biased article on the issues surrounding the US prison system.  Expect a subscription after I finish this letter.

There were, however, a couple of points I wanted to add.
While it was, briefly, touched upon that everyone, regardless of circumstances, has personal choice and responsibility, it disturbed me how strong the implication was that certain circumstances "make" people commit crimes.  I am a black male, I grew up in a single parent home, on welfare and section 8 (subsidized housing), in a bad neighborhood where the sound of gun shots and police helicopters were only remarkable if they were actually on the same block as us. Not only have I not committed any violent crimes, I was never in any fights growing up, never been arrested, didn't drop out of school, etc. etc...
I don't think that anyone gets to use there living conditions as an excuse for their choices.  There is always something else a person could do to, say, make money to feed their children.

That being said, my larger issue is actually that the article did not go far enough in explaining society and history's role in creating the undeniable statistical trends which clearly parallel race lines.
While it was before any of our lifetimes, and we tend not to think of as real anything we can not personally remember, the truth is this is a very young country, and nothing in its time can be written off as ancient history. Slavery was incredibly recent: the civil war ended only 142 years ago.  (Contrast that to the time civilization has existed, around 5000 years).  That is in fact only about 2 lifetimes, or about 5 generations.
Meanwhile European Americans have had over 250 years to accumulate and pass down wealth.

In this country more than almost any other since the time of monarchies wealth is generated from already having wealth (which is literally the definition of capitalism), and inheritance is virtually unrestricted.

Most white families, (whether here from the beginning of the country, or immigrating here since then) started out with some amount of wealth (or had connections to someone here who did).  Freed slaves had literally nothing.  The reparations approved by congress never happened.  On top of that, Jim Crow and other discriminatory laws kept Blacks from accumulating any appreciable amount of wealth all the way up until the 1960s, a mere 47 years ago, less than a single lifetime.

That means that while white American families have been accumulating and passing down wealth for 10 generations, black American families are just getting started for the first time ever.

On top of that, our educational system is set up so that the primary source of funding is property and other local taxes, generally at the county level.  This means that wealthier areas are able to provide their kids with more and better equipment, computers, newer textbooks, and attract better teachers.  School which do poorly (largely due to under funding) are faced with having what federal funding is available cut - in other words, our system of penalizing under-performing schools means that the more a school needs money, the less it gets, while schools that are doing well (and therefore don't really need a bonus of federal money) gets more.

Between these two things, unrestricted inheritance and locally funded schools, is it any wonder how few people (of any color) break through the social class of their parents?  In this country we love to point out those rare success stories, such as Will Smith portraying the true story of a homeless stockbroker in The Pursuit of Happiness, but the reality is we have set up a social system that makes upward mobility all but completely unrealistic except in the rarest of cases.

The solution is actually pretty simple.  Although unfortunately I can't imagine anyone of influence daring to suggest either part any time soon given our current political climate.  One would be to essentially eliminate inheritance.  No one should be entitled to get money our resources they didn't earn.  Inheritance sets up a virtual caste system, where the luck of whom you are born to determines your chances in life.  It would be unrealistic to try to restrict it altogether, but a steeply progressive tax ranging from (say) 40% up to 75% seems to me reasonably appropriate and fair - for that matter, the same might be applied to all unearned income, which would also allow the tax rate on people who actually work and are productive to be reduced.
The second would be to make all public schools, K-12 as well as 2 years of college funded 100% on the federal level, with the same per-capita amount going to every school regardless of demographic, test scores, state, or whether it is rural or urban.

I also think that, as the author suggested, the use of drugs should be decriminalized (although the sale of many may be appropriate to remain illegal, use itself should be considered a disease) and given the current demographics this alone would go a long way to reducing the incarceration cycle in African American communities.  This may be more a symptom than a cause though. There are a myriad of other issues that relate to the social dynamics of race in this country as well.
However, I think if we were to change just those to things, a more reasonable distribution of un-earned wealth and an equal educational system, we would see major changes with in a generation or two with out having to do much further micro-management.

I am in Playboy magazine

• Oct 19, 2007

I am in Playboy magazine

 

November, 2007 Issue, page 46.

Its so fun to be published.  Now, not just my handful of blog readers, but Playboy's 3 million readers (well, ok, maybe half of them just look at the pictures.  I imagine with the availability of free hardcore internet porn a higher percentage actually reads it) have to hear my thoughts and opinions.

I remember writing the letter to the editor, but I hadn't realized I had ever sent it.  Guess I did.
They reversed my first and last names.  That's ok.  Trust me, "Kafele Bakari" is really me.

In answer to your question, no, there is no naked picture of me.  It is possible that I was naked when I wrote it, but not very likely. 

Incidentally, the first topic on that page, by Brett, I believe it is the first time I have ever heard anyone (besides myself) point out what he does.