The SUV phenomenon

A lot of people buy SUVs. They explain that they need it for the size, or the all-wheel drive, or the safety, or ...
Problem is, a lot of the rationalizations don't really bear out. I'll leave this highly anecdotal since the point is not to pick on or do a deep dive into SUVs. The point is that people feel the need to rationalize their choices. Probably they want to be able to justify their purchase to others.

None of this is necessary. Just say you got an SUV because you wanted to feel cool. Or you like how it looks. Whatever. Be honest about your motivations. Be honest with yourself and others.

This concept is highly visible in the world of guns. I saw a great quote the other day, something like:

Birth control? Ban it.
Abortions? Ban it.
Gay marriage? Ban it.
Guns? Well, see, people will still get guns so ...

And to all the escalationists who justify more guns in order to stop the bad guys, here's the epitome of a good guy with a gun. And now he's dead. And he never had a chance.

Gun nuts: please just admit that you like your toys because they make you feel cool. At least that's something we can't argue with.

Does Norway scale?

Many people point to places like Norway as an example society. A society built on socialism that works. Why can't we just follow their model? Bernie Sanders and lots of others want to know!

First things first: does Norway work? While it's hard to say definitively, we can use various metrics to support the claim:

1. Norway is 2nd in the world in nominal GDP per capita behind only Luxembourg.

   a. And maintains the 6th position in purchasing power parity GDP per capita behind only Luxembourg, Singapore and a handful of OPEC countries.

2. Norway is, by a wide margin, tops in Human Development Index (an aggregate of life expectancy, education and income).

   a. and is tops by an even wider margin in inequality-adjusted HDI (same link).

3. Norway has among the lowest rates of poverty, at 4.3% (compared to 14.5% in the USA), in the world.

4. Norway has historically among the lowest murder rates, at 0.6 per 100,000 (compared to 4.7 in the USA)

5. It is one of the few countries in the world with a 100% literacy rate.

6. It ranks 2nd in Press Freedom Index.

7. Top-ranked universal health care. For everyone.

I'm sure there are many other pieces of data I could look at, but I've yet to find one that paints Norway as a bad place to live (unless you're a fan of warm weather ... but then you probably have plenty of money and time to take trips to Greece).

So the question is: can we adopt their model? I think the answer is "not really" or at least "not yet".

To answer the question, I think we have to look at why Norway works. I believe that the socialist model works because the entire population buys into the notion that everyone should have a good quality of life, and that they all win together. First and foremost, they are able to put money behind this belief. Their extremely high GDP per capita means they have a lot of funds, per capita, to spread around (via taxes or whatever mechanism). While much of their wealth comes from oil, they have also been good stewards of their fortunes. They have invested heavily in renewable energy, and they even have the world's largest pension fund to provide for their aging citizens! In short, a pragmatic, level-headed government has made the most of their assets.

On a technical level, Norway has large land area to support renewable energy (primarily hydro, with available space for wind). A higher density population may have a hard time achieving enough energy through just these means, and a poorer population may not be able to afford the infrastructure.

Furthermore, I think the population buys into the socialist approach because they are comfortable with the idea that everyone else in the country should be taken care of. This comes, I think, because of a very homogeneous society. 86% of the population (only 5 million total) is ethnic Norwegian. 80% of the population identifies as Lutheran. In other words, it's easy to love thy neighbor when thy neighbor is just like you.

Contrasting this with America, I think the bases upon which this socialist goodwill is built are not present. The population is too large (both in count and in distance from each other - really, what do I know about someone in Virginia or Florida or somewhere else far away) and too diverse. Many are weary of our immigrants from countries and backgrounds we don't understand. Many question their motives. Many fear their lifestyles. All this has to change before our society can band together and agree that we all can, and should, win. We have the money, sure, but we don't have the will.

 

This gun has cost me everything. Everything but my precious gun.

It certainly feels like a non-trivial segment of the population is so obsessed with their guns that they'll make any apology for the rampant issues we see as a result of them.

Too many gun deaths? People need more guns to protect themselves.
Let's just get rid of them? The "bad guys" will get guns and go on hunting sprees.
And so on it goes.

While the above can be true in some instances, over an entire population they will not bear out. There is clear proof of this from every other developed country where guns are heavily regulated. And, I think it's pretty likely that guns lead to several other problems.

There are some additional costs that no one really talks about (at least that I've heard of):

Police brutality:
Say what you will about bad cops, mean cops, power-hungry cops, I refuse to believe that shooting civilians is on their agenda. Sure, there will be a _few_ sociopaths in there, but I believe the seemingly steady stream of unarmed civilians killed by cops is a reaction tied to the cops' fear that the civilian might harm them. The very real possibility that a civilian has a gun on them can only increase this fear, and I think must increase it by a significant factor.

Financial cost:
This data is a little hard to parse, but using Washington as the example, it takes about $50-70k to try a murder case , and almost $500,000 to try a death-penalty murder case. Add to that the cost of street police, medical examiner, detective, and so on, and we have to be adding a few $10k to it. Most cases don't seek the death penalty, so let's actually ignore that case for the moment. If we use a range of $50k to $100k as the cost of investigating and trying a murder, multiply that by about 3/4 of the roughly 10k yearly murders that would be eliminated by removing guns, we get a range of $375-750M. Rounding to a number in the middle, let's call this $500M. These 7000 people (allowing for some multiple homicides in the 7500 deaths) will then spend 20+ years in prison** at a cost of about $30k per year, adding another roughly $4B to the yearly tab. Some states are less, some are more, but overall I think we're within a factor of 2. So, the real cost of these murders is between $3B and $10B per year. That's real money we can spend on so many other things.

** - it's fair to point out that someone who commits murder may end up in prison for other reasons as well, but we're just estimating here.

Opportunity cost:
In addition to the 7500 people who will no longer be killed each year, we can take the $3-10B savings and deploy it in any of the following ways (and many others):

1. Cover the treatment of breast cancer for ~50,000 women per year.
2. Support ~200,000 homeless people in staying off the street.
3. Weekly personal training and monthly nutritionist support for ~1,000,000 people (or even families, most providers will do group sessions at marginally higher cost)
1. Which may take a significant chunk out of the yearly $200B we spend on obesity-related illness ...
4. Give every teacher in America a $1000-$3000 raise.
5. Build out fiber internet to every home over the next 2 decades.
6. Lift ~500,000 people out of poverty.
7. Go finish that wall between US and Mexico this decade, then pick other options afterwards
8. Add a few hundred miles of electric rail to urban populations each year to displace gas-powered options.
1. In a place like Seattle, 200 miles of well-placed rail could eliminate tremendous amounts of car use. My very rough guess is well in excess of a million driven miles per day.
9. Make a condom available every time someone might want to use one.

The above list is aligned with many of the most common American concerns.




Resources are finite, and we have to choose how we spend our money. Our guns are costing us some of these, and they don't need to.