Another fantastic day for the Georgia Senate. They tabled a nasty secrecy bill. From what I understand, Democratic members were basically taunting Republican members that were wavering on how to vote, asking them if they really wanted to vote for the bill that would end their political careers. I talked to Senators Golden and Adelman later in the day, and both were giddy about the proceedings on the floor of the Senate. When you think about what these guys are able to do with 22 members, it makes you salivate over the prospect of 28, 26, even 24 Democrats in the Senate.
I have heard one thing that frustrates the Republican leadership, specifically Sen Eric Johnson, the presiding officer of the body, is the effectiveness of the Democratic caucus. I remember how focused and determined the Republicans were when they were in the minority with similar numbers, and these Democrats would do the old flag waiving Eric Johnson proud.
The AJC has a useless discussion featuring "prominent" black Republicans on their editorial page today. Among the thing we learn from these black Republicans is that the Democratic Party in Georgia took a turn for the worse with the elections of 1990 (obviously they are referring to Zell Miller's election and Sam Nunn's unopposed re-election), that Armstrong Williams is a conservative that other blacks should look up to because he owned up to his sins right away, and that Creflo Dollar, that avatar of moral certitude, considers George Bush a role model. Maybe that's because Bush has raised so much money...
Anyway, the thing that's really ridiculous about this article is that you have this phenomenon (or whatever you want to call it) where something like 88% of black voters in Georgia vote for Democratic candidates. So, instead of convening a panel of black conservatives who are not Republicans to talk about why they haven't switched, you get 6 oddballs out of the 12% (one a perennial black Republican candidate, imagine convening a panel with Mac Barber to talk about Democratic party conceptions among white voters) to basically just gush about why the Republican party is so great.
I mean, this is totally ridiculous. Imagine that the AJC looked at the exit poll numbers and saw that only 23% of white voters in Georgia voted for Kerry. And they decided to do a panel discussion about why white voters won't vote for Democrats, and instead of finding middle of the road white Republicans and asking them why they haven't embraced the Democrats and what it would take for them to do it, they put together a forum featuring Nan Orrock and 5 other white intown liberals to just talk for an hour about how great the Democratic party is.
What a useless piece of journalism.
Reading through the comment section of MyDD, specifically in regards to redistricting, it amazes me how little people actively involved in politics actually know about politics sometimes. First of all, let me say that this is not an implicit insult to those who are interested in politics and have gone to blogs to learn more. Many times you will see a very smart comment on the topic of redistricting from someone who doesn't have much experience with the topic...another way of saying that everybody's got something to add to the discussion.
No, my problem is when people will explicitly state something as a fact when clearly they don't know what they are talking about. Specifically, I refer to people who attack Common Cause or other like minded advocacy groups for trying to support Arnold'd redistricting reform because "HE IS A REPUBLICAN" or even worse (as someone wrote today) "Why should we start in a Democratic state? Texas or Florida will never do this."
Now, if someone is innocently asking Why progressives should try to start the ball rolling in a progressive state then I'm not opposed to that and there are a lot of good answers. The problem is that most people who ask this question phrase it rhetorically. And the problem with that is that even though California is a "blue" state, it does not have a Democratic gerrymander in the way that Texas has a Republican gerrymander. In fact, one could argue that the "blue" states of Pennsylvania and Michigan and the "purple" states of Florida and Ohio have much worse Republican gerrymanders than Texas does.
One could even argue that California has more of a Republican gerrymander than many "purple" states. The simple fact of the matter is that under a truly fair plan in California, Democrats could see a loss of one or two seats but could potentially pick up 4 or 5 seats. That alone should be enough of a "selfish" reason to support the reform, if you're a progressive, but getting the ball rolling in the hope that reform could unlock the Republican gerrymanders in states like the aforementioned (PA, OH, MI, FL, TX) is a non-selfish reason to do it.
The simple fact is that with the exception of a few Southern state legislative maps, partisan redistricting has not been kind of late to the Democratic party. If you assume that a blue state has a Democratic gerrymander then you're really showing your ignorance. California's plan, even if it is backed by Arnold, is worthy of a close look by common cause and progressives in general -- even if those progressives consider themselves hardline Democratic partisans.
The Reapportionment committee in the Georgia House will meet tomorrow at 1 o'clock, or upon adjournment (I believe) in room 605 of the LOB/Coverdell building. I wonder what they're up to?
UPDATE (Feb 16): The meeting was a total bust. They passed a meaningless resolution on to the Rules committee and then after I left the Capitol, on the way home, I hear about the Bobby Franklin map and then later in the AJC I saw the Senate map. I will comment on these proposals soon.
Dear Wingnuts: Did you know that the Coalition Provisional Authority, handing out US taxpayer money, in only two years of existence, has already "misplaced" an amount equal to 90% of the money that Saddam allegedly pocketed in the ten years of the oil-for-food program. Might want to feign some outrage over that, too.
You can get some background from my below post, but I decided to open up Excel and run some numbers for an "average" employee, born in 1938, that started working in 1954 and retired in 2003 at the age of 65. For his wages, I used the Social Security Administration's National Average Wage Index. In his first year of employment he made $2,800 and in 2003 he took in $34K. Very average.
According to the Social Security administration, his monthly retirement benefit is $1,142. How does that compare? Well, if he had invested his entire payroll tax in the S&P 500 once a month and was never charged any commissions or fees (unlikely!) he might have enough money to purchase an annuity worth $1,899. That's better, but he should have retired in 1999, when he could have pocketed $2,421 a month -- live and learn.
If he had just invested his money in an account that paid the same interest rate as the federal funds rate, he'd be collecting an annuity of $1,292. This is the safest option, of course, and the value of the annuity that he could purchase never goes down, just up a little every year. If he invested in stocks every month and then, twice a year balanced his portfolio so that 2/3 would be in stocks and 1/3 would be in treasuries, he'd be looking at a $1,620 / month annuity.
Of course, one thing to remember is that unlike Elrod's social security, the annuity above runs out of money in 25 years. In the unlikely but possible event that he lives to age 91 it is unlikely he will make it to 92 under the private scenario -- he'll have no money.
Now, Elrod was lucky that he wasn't disabled or killed -- where would his heirs have been? It depends a lot on when it happened. Most of the growth in his private account occured in the last years he was working, and actually if he had died in 1999, at the top of the market, his heirs would be better off having purchased an annuity then than now.
Remember, though, that Social Security is not merely a retirement portfolio but also a disability insurance program and a survivor's benefits program. I assume that Elrod would need to divert about 3% of his 12.5% payroll taxes into some sort of disability/survivors insurance in order to fully protect his family and purchase the type of insurance that social security already provides.
So what happens when he's just investing 9.5% of his salary instead of 12.5%? This is more realistic, assuming that any government privitization plan will mandate that workers either still be part of the current system or they will be forced to purchase this supplemental insurance.
Now the S&P 500 retirement portfolio purchases a $1,443 annuity -- a little better than social security. The safe treasury option produces $982 -- worse than social security, and the balanced fund (which given the limited choice you will actually get in your "private" account is probably similar to the type of investment you'll end up making) is $1,231 -- which is slightly better than what social security is doing.
But, pick your retirement date carefully. Retire in September instead of December and the S&P plan only pays $1,289 while the balanced fund goes down to $1,138 -- $4 less than Social Security. What if Elrod decided that volunteering for Saxby Chambliss's Senate campaign was his mission in life and he retired a year early in September 2002 to devote his life to politics? Oops! Now the S&P 500 annuity pays only $1,044 and the balanced fund pays $981 -- only $30 more than the treasury retirement plan pays at this point. All three retirement plan options would pay less than social security at this point -- retiring at age 64 gets him $1,047 a month.
In summary, if Elrod chooses to strictly invest in stocks and is very disciplined about it -- contributing once a month and never trying to play the market, he could retire with $300 more a month than social security or $3 less, depending on the date he chooses. If he sticks with treasuries that pay the fed funds overnight rate, he's out of luck, making less. And if he sticks with a highly disciplined balanced approach he could come out about $100 ahead or $100 behind, depending on his luck.
If you accept that the current program is not in trouble and doesn't need drastic cuts to fix it -- which I do and which the facts clearly demonstrate, then why would you want to mess with a program that is working to guarantee a non-poverty retirement for all able bodied and disabled working Americans? It must be because you hate the idea of government helping its citizens, that's the only reason I can think of.
As you can see, a highly disciplined employee, sometimes comes out a little ahead, sometimes a little behind. This example also assumes that investing is free -- no commissions, no annual fees, no fund management expenses -- which is true in Microsoft Excel but not in the real world.
The fact is, however, that this example, as neutral outcome as it sounds, is unlikely. What happens when Elrod freaks out and puts all of his money into bonds when the market dips and does the reverse when it's going up? Decreased return. And what about that $10,000 he took out to purchase a house or pay for college for his kids? That also decreased greatly his return. If you're a conservative economist, you're familiar with risk and return. In the no risk world of Excel, there's very little return as an incentive for changing the system. When you introduce real risk to the equation, equal returns don't justify the expense. Why bother?
When talking about Social Security, you don't see much detailed example analysis in the blogosphere because it is pretty labor intensive. From the left, you get a lot of cries of ENRON! (can we retire that already?) and a lot of misinformed comment about the inability to purchase the "average stock." I saw one blogger say that it was unrealistic to look at the return of the Dow Jones Industrial Average because the stocks that make it up aren't the same as the ones that were in it last year or ten years ago or in 1960, or whatever.
Most people that know anything about investing know that there are market vehicles like mutual funds or index funds that track broad baskets of stocks, in the case of index funds they will track the exact stocks that make up the Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq, whatever you want, and the funds rebalance when the index rebalances. So if you bought a fund that tracked the S&P 500 in 1980, you'd start out with those 500 stocks but today you'd have the same 500 stocks that are currently in the index and you wouldn't have to do anything save pay a small fee each year for a manager to buy and sell accordingly.
In fact, one thing that should be reinforced is that the existence of the stock market is a good thing, and on a whole if you understand the risks involved and invest wisely it has been and should continue to be a good creator of wealth.
The misinformation from the right is worse than the "scare tactics" of the left, because the people on the right really should know better, since many of them fancy themselves economists. One thing you'll commonly hear is an average rate of return being used. Be wary. In December 2003, the 50 year average return of the S&P 500 was 7.9%. But the average 30 year return that same month was 8.4%. How could they be different? Well, timing is important. In September 2002, the average 50 year return was only 7.2%, the average 30 year return was 6.9%.
Be wary of people that promise you certainty when a quick tallying of numbers will show that no such certainty exists. The market is fluid, and so are rates of returns.
The Democrats in the Senate, especially the new leadership team of minority leader Robert Brown (Macon), Tim Golden (Valdosta) and David Adelman (Druid Hills) had their best day yet of the new session.
Early in the day, they managed to keep their caucus together (losing one vote + one absent member) for the faith based amendment. Doug Stoner (Smyrna) along with Golden have been offering an alternative amendment that largely does exactly what Governor Perdue claims he wants done -- namely to officially legalize the relationship that the state and many relgious service providers already have -- but prohibits making vouchers legal.
Now, Perdue doesn't say anything about vouchers -- yet the Republicans refusal to consider (so far) the alternative proposal offered by Stoner and Golden should tell you all you need to know about where Perdue and his party actually stand.
The Democrats in the Senate understand that despite their minority status, there is still a role for an opposition party to play, perhaps most crucially when it comes to amending the state Constitution. Today, by sticking together they were able to block a wolf in sheep's clothing from passing into our state's Constitution. And because they've offered an attractive alternative, reasonable Georgians looking for an alternative to Republican one party rule will recognize that they are offering a constructive and non-obstructionist vision for this state compatible with the values of its citizens.
Unfortunately, it seems that some individual House Democratic members haven't grasped the new reality of their situation. Despite the fact that nearly 20% of the House Republicans voted for a Republican-sponsored amendment that would have raised caps on malpractice damages to $750,000, a number of old-line Democrats crossed the aisle to vote with the majority of the anti-justice Republicans.
The House barely amended the tort deform legislation at all, save a token sop by Speaker Glenn Richardson that raised caps to $350,000 (don't worry, lawyers still don't like you, Glenn). The bill was rushed back to the Senate to agree to the House changes, and thankfully enough Republicans agreed with a united Democratic caucus that an issue as important as medical malpractice reform should be subject to some debate before it is finally passed.
After debate was shamefully limited by Preston Smith (R - Rome) in the Senate Judiciary Committee, the same thing happened on the floor of the Senate, and then in the committees in the House and for the most part on the floor of that body. Now, in conference committee and then on the floor of each body afterwards there will finally be some debate on this very important issue.
For more insight on tort reform, and a unique perspective on the legislature check out David Adelman's blog. Adelman is, as far as I know, the first Georgia legislator to venture into the world of blogging.
I've been talking so much about Social Security that all of the Michael Moore Hates America ads seemed to have disappeared. Bad news for my Republican readers from North Georgia is apparently good news for those of you nearing retirement age!
This is a bad idea. A great many Americans don't consider themselves hard partisans, but will eventually decide on a particular candidate for the Presidency from one of the two parties. The path to the Presidency should ultimately be decided by voters working through the political parties, not voters working on behalf of the parties.
Ultimately, candidates are more popular than the political parties they generally represent and it takes a significant amount of support from people who are turned off by partisanship to be elected President, Governor, County Commissioner or State Senator from every state and all but the most partisan districts.
If someone decides they like a John McCain, Howard Dean, Mike Easley or Mitt Romney they should generally be allowed to support them in that candidate's primary -- independents lending their voice should be a good signal to activists that their candidate of choice not only appeals to ultra-partisans but also to the broader population as well.
Besides, if you look at the exit polls for Iowa and New Hampshire you'll see that independents and Democrats were pretty much on the same page.
In Iowa, it appears that some of the indies probably considered the Democratic Party a little too right wing -- Kucinich did 5 points better among indies than registered Dems and Gephardt did 5 points worse. And in NH indies were probably a little righter than the overall electorate -- Lieberman did much better than he did among all Democrats.
But Kerry, Edwards and Dean, the top 3 contenders for the nomination, experienced almost similar margins separating each other among Democrats and Independents. Kerry beat Dean by 11 among indies, 10 among Democrats in NH. In Iowa, Kerry beat Dean by 13 among indies and 16 among Democrats, he bested Edwards by 9 and 10 points respectively.
It is important that we expand our party, not just on the activist level but also among voters who believe in our ideas and candidates and are willing to vote for them but just aren't ready to make the leap and alter their own personal partisan perceptions. Sending the message that in order to support a candidate you like who happens to be a Democrat will require you to drink the kool aid (that's how they see it) is not the message we want to be sending as we're trying to reach majority status.
Something struck me tonight (11 o'clock-ish) at the Quick Trip about Bush's social security reform. Looking around, at the people working and shopping there, I can't imagine that anywhere near half of them will choose to monitor their investments in private accounts. And this is what is so unfair about Bush's plan -- if you decide that you're sticking with the current way of doing things it would lead to drastic benefit reductions.
That is, the average woman who gets off work at 10 PM, possibly from a second job, will never have the time to invest and worry about a private social security account. And because Bush and his party are hostile to any government intervention in people's financial lives (because it costs rich guys like Bush a few percentage points on his tax return) this hard working woman will retire with only 70% or less of the benefits that her counterpart from 20 years ago retires with.
And she'd get the drastic benefit reductions not because the current system is in trouble, but because it is a cruel way of bullying people out of a government program that works, possibly the most successful government program of all time, simply because George Bush and his cronies do not prefer to use the power of government to keep lower-income people from being worse off.
If you read this blog, then chances are you'd probably be able to figure out on your own how to make private accounts work to your advantage -- certainly if the proposed benefit cuts of between 30 and 50% were to accompany them. But, since Bush likes to quote Democratic presidents out of context to do his dirty work, I'd remind you of JFK's admonition to ask what you can do for your country.
The next time you're at the gas station, grocery store, McDonald's, wherever, ask yourself if you really think social security privitization will improve the lives of the average person shopping and working in these establishments. If not, then why alter the status quo to achieve the same results. And if you think (as I do) that it would make things worse, then why would you want to mess with a good thing even if doing so might potentially make your own existence marginally better off.
According to Jim Wooten in today's AJC, Social Security is a bad deal for young workers like myself.
Oh really? I went to the handy Social Security webpage and plugged in some data about someone exactly like me. Let's assume that when Jim Wooten is talking about the average young worker, he's talking literally about the average young worker, and not the average young Republican investment banker he talks to at Republican training seminars.
Say someone is born in 1980 and more or less gets into a serious job that pays $30,000 / year starting in the year 2004. Obviously, many people will make more than that later in life, but for assumptions sake lets keep it simple. If I follow this career path and then retire at age 65, my monthly social security benefit would be $1,008.
Ok, now compared to putting away 12.5% of my salary every year and getting an average return of 4% per year (and then purchasing an annuity based on the lump sum amount I'll have when I retire) I am looking at a benefit about $250 less per month with social security.
But, and this is a big but that people tend to overlook, what about disability and survivor benefits? Obviously when people are dreaming about retiring millionaires and thinking about the benefits of a private system where the money is all yours, they are usually plugging optimistic return numbers into a calculator and not worrying about getting disabled or dying and leaving behind a spouse and kids.
What else could I or my heirs conceivably get from the Social Security administration in the above scenario? Glad you asked. If I become disabled tomorrow, or any other time between now and 65, I would be entitled to receive $785 / month. Not bad. But if I were to die, my child and wife could each receive $872 / month, up to $2,177 / month depending on how many children we have.
Upon retirement, my spouse would be entitled to a pension of $1,163 / month. Now, I've done some calculations, and in order to get a return of $1,008 a month under the private system getting 4% returns per year, I'd need to only set aside about 9.7% of my salary. So, with the extra 2.8% ($70/month) I'd be responsible for purchasing some sort of life insurance/disability insurance benefit that will not only take care of myself and my children if I become disabled but also take care of my spouse if I die.
Obviously, I can't vouch for Jim Wooten. But when you see what all you get (and hopefully your heirs won't ever need to get your survivor's benefits) from Social Security, it seems like a pretty good deal for a risk-free retirement benefit. Another huge benefit of Social Security -- it's work and trouble free. For a decent return, there is no portfolio to manage and there is also no need to understand complicated life and disability insurance premiums in order to be able to purchase them separately.
Additionally, Social Security is free of human errors. Your accountant or life insurance agent is able to figure our how to account for something terrible happening to you, but most people would rather not think about that. That's something I'm personally comfortable with letting Social Security handle (at least while I only make $30K/year) and I'd bet many people who once *thought* private accounts/dismantling the system is a good idea are retroactively happy that Social Security exists in its exact form when something does happen that disrupts their lives.
I should clarify a little after having a talk with a colleague earlier. I believe that the government should provide workers with a no-risk retirment pension. On a whole, some people would be better served by a riskier personal approach and clearly some people will not be better served. The law of averaging is important, but try telling that to someone who has no money when they retire because they made bad investment choices when they were 35.
I read the WSJ article that some others have been talking about, and one of the amazing things to me was the very high payroll taxes in other countries that have privitization. The US payroll tax (employer+individual) is 12.5%. In many countries it was near 18% and in some it goes into the 30%'s.
Considering that, it more than makes sense for Democrats to be in favor of raising the payroll tax to some number, keeping the risk-free 12.5% portion intact, and having individuals funnel their money into IRAs or 401K account for the rest of their payroll taxes. IRAs and 401K's already exist, so this is an easy fix.
An even better idea, though it is redistributive so I doubt the Bush administration would allow it, would be to eliminate the cap on payroll taxes for high income wage earners. Then, allow low income earners to retain the benefits of the current social security sytem but allow them to put 2% of their 12.5% contribution into a personal savings account or an IRA.
So, basically, someone that makes $500,000 currently only pays about $11,000 in payroll taxes, or 2.2% of their income. Someone that makes $50,000 pays $6,250 which is 12.5% of their income. I would propose making the person that makes $500,000 pay the full 12.5%, which would be $62,500. With that extra $51,500, you could not only shore up the current system but you could basically fund the guy who makes $50,000 to divert $1,000 a year into his IRA.
When the guy that makes $50,000 retires, he will have a social security pension that he has paid 84% of his payroll taxes towards and a private account that he has paid 16% of his payroll taxes towards. Upon retirement age, he would be responsible for purchasing an annuity that covers 16% of his benefit costs each month -- if his retirement account has the money. If not, Social Security would make up the difference so he still gets 100% of the benefits of the current system. If he does have the money, though, he purchases the annuity and gets two checks each month -- one for 84% from the Social Security administration and one for 16% of current benefits from his private annuity.
This worker could then do whatever he wants to with the remaining money in his retirement account (if his investments panned out and he made more than the old social security system -- if not he still gets 100% guaranteed so there is no loss to the individual worker). I would personally recommend just purchasing a larger annuity. In my plan, the worker's heirs or a charity of his choice (including the US government, if he chooses) would inherit the 16% annuity when he dies. Under Bush's plan, you must buy an annuity when you retire for the amount of benefits you foregoed when you diverted money into a private account, and then the government gets the annuity when you die! Some deal that is.
So that is my plan to both keep the current system solvent and to encourage a true ownership society. Either raise the payroll tax for everyone and force them to put that new tax revenue in an IRA/401K/savings account or eliminate the cap, ie make payroll taxes a true flat tax for everyone and use the extra revenue from wealthy Americans to finance partially private accounts while still guaranteeing the minimum benefit people currently get.
It's ultimately too bad that Bush will insist on a my way or the highway approach. Democrats would be wise not to enter into a "compromise" with Bush hoping to get a plan like this because he will just misconstrue their words of encouragement and support to solidify passage of his terrible plan, which lest we forget, in the end has a goal of eliminating risk-free guaranteed retirement pensions for the average American worker.
An important thing to remember about the social security debate, especially in the context of why many Republican congressman aren't exactly going along, is that Bush is basically proposing the following: The current promised benefit level I receive from social security is going to be cut by between 30-50%. I can choose to stick with social security as is (under Bush's plan), but I get a lot less. I can choose a private account, and probably do better than the 30% reduction, and maybe get close to what I currently get.
One problem with this is that all I have to do to keep getting 100% of what I'm currently promised is vote for enough Congressman who promise to eliminate the payroll tax cap. In other words, being middle income, I can be sure my social security promised benefits stay exactly like they have been since the program started by simply voting for someone that makes $200K a year wage earners pay the same flat percentage in payroll taxes that I pay.
If I was a Democrat that wanted to run for President, I'd think about how to turn what I just spent 2 paragraphs laying out into an elevator pitch.
The Georgia Senate, in its' infinite wisdom, engrossed SB 5, the tort reform bill AFTER it exited committee. Of course this sets a terrible precedent and is an unrivaled powergrab. One entity it really hurt, though, are Georgia's doctors. They've been whipped into a frenzy by their lobbying agents into supporting tort reform, with the promise that their medical malpractice premiums will be coming down.
Sen. David Adelman had an amendment that would do just that. It would mandate that in exchange for insurers getting tort reform, doctors would see their premiums go down by 10% by next year. Unfortunately for doctors, Adelman wasn't able to offer his amendment (the bill was already engrossed) and their premiums are now left up to the whims of their insurers.
So, to summarize, doctors agreed to carry the water of the insurance industry in order to lower their malpractice premiums. The insurance industry got their caps, everyday working Georgians got screwed, and doctors get no guarantee that their premiums will fall. For a group of people that go to college for 7 years, they sure don't seem to have learned much about politics.
The Medical Association of Georgia estimates that Tort reform, as passed by the Georgia Senate, will shave $20 million annually from MAG's malpractice premiums. Sounds like a lot of money, until you learn that in 2002 Georgia had 16,000 doctors, of which MAG insured about 70%. When you divide $20,000,000 by 11,000 doctors you learn that each doctor MAG covers will see their premiums drop by an amazing amount of a little under $1,800.
Somehow, when doctors (who have been majorly hoodwinked by this tort reform con) complained about the outrageous cost of practicing medicine, I don't think they meant $1,800 / year.
Thinking of tort reform's amazing potential (sarcastic!), remember that the money doctors will save on premiums could go towards insuring an additional 16,000 Georgia families, and that's a big maybe. Most family insurance probably costs more than $1,800 / year so lets say that 10,000 new Georgia families will get insured. Sounds great, until you realize that there are probably over 300,000 uninsured Georgia families (probably more).
So to sum up, all of Georgia traded their rights to seek remedies for MALPRACTICE -- we're not talking about frivolous cases. Nobody's pulling the frivolous lawsuit one-armed bandit and making any money. We are talking about serious MALPRACTICE, as in the doctor who operated on you was drunk or has a history of screwing up surgeries. So, we have all, thanks to the Georgia Senate and probably soon the House, traded our ability to seek remedy when a drunk doctor screws up an operation on us for doctors, on average to save about $1,800 a year on their insurance premiums.
To put it another way, everybody in Georgia signed away their rights so that, potentially, 3% of Georgia's uninsured families can maybe (but probably not) get insurance.
Oops. It looks like the CAN SPAM Act isn't working too well. I could have told you that. One clue from the NYT article: a spammer who sends out 200 million messages can expect about 2,000 people to bite. If they are buying $50 bottles of whatever pills, the spammer might get about $12.50 a bottle. That's $25,000.
So, doing the math, as long as you can send out 80 emails for less than $.01, a spammer will start making money. My guess is that it's more like 1000 emails for a penny, which means in the example above the spammer takes in $25,000 on expenses of maybe $2,000 for a whopping profit of $23,000 and a return of over 1,000%. I'm in the wrong line of work...
The problem with spam is that anyone can do it. That's one of the great things about the internet -- there isn't much barrier of entry for anything, but at a point someone else's freedom can infringe on your own. So what to do? I think the only true long term solution is to meter your email. Require postage, so to speak.
It's not my original idea (and I can't remember where I read it) but imagine being able to charge variable amounts to people that wanted to email you. For your friends and associates, you could set the meter to free. But for all other addresses you could pick your price. Maybe you like getting unsolicited "dumb" spam offers -- set it to free or even .0125 cents -- the break even price for the spammer in the NYT article linked above.
I don't like getting "dumb" offers, or offers where some spammer sends some product to every imaginable email, but the kind of "spammer" that is willing to spend 1 cent, 5 cents or maybe even $1 to reach me might actually have something I want to buy.
As much as we don't like telemarketers or junk mail, they're usually at least offering something we'd conceivably want to buy -- long distance service, magazine subscriptions, binoculars, etc. That's because those calls or direct mail cost more than $.000125 and they've done some research that suggests that their targets are interested in the product or service they are selling. Spam on the other hand is like being solicited on the street -- the person doesn't know anything about you and is just trying to get lucky. They figure if they ask enough people some sucker will bite. Telemarketers or junk mailers, on the other hand, figure if they mail enough binocular catalogues to people who have recently bought binoculars, someone will want to buy another pair. Big difference.
Of course, I suspect that many people will be violently against email metering, regardless of the details. But it's not that alien a concept, in fact most of the rest of the world treats cell phone calls the same way (buyer pays). Recently Earthlink and Sonny Perdue unveiled a law that allows Earthlink to go after spammers that send more than 10,000 emails. I'm not saying that's a bad idea, but why should Earthlink have to hunt down spammers when they could just let their customers charge those same guys postage to use their servers?