Ang buhay, parang life

Pag nag-away ang mag-nobyo or mag-asawa, nakarinig na ba kayo na ang isa sa kanila ay magsasabi,

“Sinira mo ang buhay ko!”
“Winasak mo ang future ko!”
”You are my frustration!”
or other variants.

Ang drama ano, parang tele-nobela sa sine or tv, hehehe. Ganito tingin ko dyan.

Kapag ang isang tao ay hindi naman nakakulong, may kalayaan maglakad kung saan nya gusto pumunta, may kalayaan mag-isip, either malungkot or masayang bagay, may kalayaan mag-facebook, may kalayaan magtrabaho or manatili sa bahay, etc., ang taong yan ang may control sa kanyang buhay. Kung papayag sya na masira or umunlad ang buhay nya, sa kanya yon. So theoretically, imposible ang kasabihang ”sinira mo ang buhay ko!”

(Ang bigat ng dinadala ko! :-) Picture ko nang una ako napunta ng NYC, May 2004)

Ngayon, kapag ang isang tao ay pinilit uminom ng druga, paulit-ulit, hanggang maging drug addict, ibig sabihon may external coercion sa buhay nya, ang kasabihang “sinira mo ang buhay ko” ay tama, di po ba?

Kapag self-inflicted ang kalungkutan or kahungkagan na buhay ng isang tao, madali kasi magturo ng sisisihin, to blame somebody else, kaya nauso yang “sinira mo ang buhay ko.” Kumbaga eh, “c/o” or pinapasa ang sisi sa ibang tao. Pwede rin may topak yong tao kaya naninisi ng iba.

Kapag naman masaya ang buhay ng isang tao, may naririnig ba tayo na

“Pinasaya mo ang buhay ko”
“Pinaganda mo ang future ko”
or other variants.

Meron din, paminsan-minsan. Pero ganon din ang sitwasyon nyan sa itaas. Ang indibidwal mismo ang nagpapasaya sa buhay nya, siguro natutulungan lang ng ibang tao, kaya lalong sumaya. More is preferred to less, di ba?

Maulan kasi at madilim masyado ang langit dahil kay bagyong si Egay, kaya kung ano-ano naisusulat ko, hahaha. Olrayt!

Weekend fun 19: Sic o Clock News

In the late 80s, there was a very popular political satire program on tv, the first of its kind in the Philippines I think. It was the Sic O'Clock News. It was shown on IBC Channel 13, then a government-sequestered tv network from the deposed dictatorship, starting 1987 or 1988.

This is the original cast -- so wild, so wacky, so funny. It was led by high-powered brains in movie and comedy, like Director Marilou Diaz-Abaya, chief writer Amado Lacuesta (+), news anchors Ces Quesada and Jimmy Fabregas. This picture includes the production and support staff, not just the cast.

This and next two photos came from Dina Padilla's camera, posted in our Sic O Clockers facebook group. Thanks Dins,

The program has produced some of the best natural comedians during that time, like Rene Requestas, Joji Isla, Manny Castaneda, Ching Arellano, Jon Achaval, Wilson Go, Khryss Adalia, Errol Dionisio, etc.

Another wacky pose by the group. Talagang wild ang mga ito, hahaha!

The men, from left to right: Manny, Joji, Wilson, Jimmy, Errol, Khryss, Ching, and Jon (kneeling, front). The ladies, from left, were Dina Padilla, Ces Quesada and Celeste Bueno.

Santa banana que barbaridad! I was also part of the gang! (standing, in shades) hehehe. Yep, I was drawn to the gang by Direk Marilou herself, but towards the latter part of the show, sometime in late 1989.

I was working with Prof. Randy David as one of his researchers-talent coordinators in his tv program, Public Forum, also shown in IBC-13 then. Direk Marilou was also the show's director. The Public Forum staff and Sic O'Clock would often have joint parties and planning because of Direk Marilou. Direk thought that I could be one of the cannon fodders in the political satire against the corrupt and thieves in the Cory Aquino government then.

Former dictator Marcos was referred by the show as "Marcurakus", President Cory was called "PresidenTita", her younger brother Peping Cojuangco was called "Peping Kuhako", the IMF was called "International Mother Effers", hahaha!

When there was a coup d'etat, led again by Gringo Honasan I think, in 1990, December that year, we sang this in one of the program's episodes:

Nag coup na naman, o kay tulin ng araw
Ang coup nagdaan, tila ba kung kailan lang... :-)

Here are some of the guys now in their facebook profile. From top left, clockwise: Direk Marilou, Ces, Manny, Jimmy, Jon, Joji. The cartoon in the middle is the profile picture of Wilson Go, hohoho.

Joji created the Sic O'Clockers group in facebook only recently, and that's how I got reconnected with some of the gang. Sad to hear that about 12 of our friends in the cast and support staff have already met our creator. Many of us now are also working abroad.

Direk Marilou is a good friend in fb. She has the big C though, a breast C, discovered in 2007. She gives regular update about her chemo and related treatment. Haaaa, Direk is a cheerful and brave warrior. She goes scuba diving in between her treatment :-) and I think also has some teaching load on acting and directing. Her latest movie directed is "Ikaw ang Pag-ibig" shown January this year. See what kind of a warrior she is?

Cheers Direk. Cheers to the Sic gang. Olrayt!
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Update, 22 June 2011

I posted this story in my facebook wall, here are the comments from some friends:

Eddie de Vega: My favorite was the episode about the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and you were pretending to be a Kuwaiti sheik distressed over the burning of your oil fields, and then these English, French and US arms dealers were playing payabang as to which country sold the weapons which Iraq was using to invade Kuwait. And then you were mad at them, and they asked, "sino ba ang nagpareham ng pera sa Iraq para makabili sila ng weapons?!" HAHAHAHAHA.

I was also amazed with Jaime Fabregas' excellent Tagalog. Tisoy na tisoy but 100% Filipino in spirit.

Luie Guia: My favorite when I was still in UP

Elizabeth Cueva: Sumikat si Rene Requiestas dahil sa Si O'Clock News and because of dat, siya ang naging first screen kiss of Kristeta in Fido Dida. :)
Was Manny Castaneda also in Sic O'Clock news? He is also funny.

Claire Pinawin: Noy, tagal na nun pero pinapanood ka namin talaga.

Nonoy Oplas: @Ed, hahaha, nice Ed. I dont remember that episode anymore. Jimmy is half Pinoy, half mestizo. Si Erap, half Pinoy, half alcohol. Si Gloria, half lang.
@Beth, yep, Sic din si Manny C. That guy is really crazy, in the positive sense of the word.
@Tita Claire, ayoko nga ng image ko ngayon, kontrabida na di nakakatawa. Sa Sic, kontrabida pero nakakatawa, haha.

Sic created a small storm in showbiz during that time because of guys like Rene, Ces, Jimmy, Joji, ang dami talaga. Pero ako +1 or 2 others, nasali ng Sic when Rene was no longer showing up in Sic shooting.

Eddie: You mean they thought you resembled Rene Requiestas?!?!

Nonoy: No. They wanted someone to be worse-looking than Rene R! :-)

Eddie: Don't know about that, but funnier, yes! :)
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Related stories:

1. Weekend fun 12: Marcos corruption, February 25, 2011
2. Weekend fun 22: Gloria Arroyo cartoons, June 11, 2011

Inequality 7: Roger Federer, Manny Pacquiao and Free Market

Sports Illustrated recently released its "Fortunate 50" richest athletes around the world. Here is their 20 highest-earning international athletes. The Philippines' most famous person and athlete, Manny Pacquiao, is no. 2!

The amount stated is for salary/ winnings + endorsements. In the Top 20 richest international atheletes outside the US), Paquiao is the only boxer. He earns bigger than the heavyweight or super-heavyweight champions. Two are tennis superstars (Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal), three are F1 drivers (Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher, yey, Schumi!).

Soccer has the most number of rich superstars, there are 8 of them in the top 20: (Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Kaka, David Beckham, Ronaldinho, Carlos Tevez, Frank Lampard).
NBA superstars are 3 (Yao Ming, Dirk Nowitzki, Pau Gasol), baseball has 2 (Ichiro Suzuki, Miguel Cabrera), and motorcycle racing has 1 (Valentino Rossi).

Meanwhile, here is SI's 50 highest-earning American athletes this year.

Money in golf does not come much from winnings, but from endorsements.

A friend in facebook, a self-confessed Marxist-socialist, posted the earlier link in his wall. I commented that it just shows one beauty of capitalism (hehe, alam ko dami galit sa mga friends ni bonn just to mention the "virtue of capitalism"). Those who really excel in their field are super-compensated. And here's another virtue of capitalism: those "super-compensated" are also super-solicited by so many charities, foundations, friends, relatives, clans, etc. And that diffuses the wealth of the super-compensated. Bill Gates for instance did not spend all his money for himself, he put up a super-huge foundation that grants money sometimes bigger than the grants by USAID or WB. Warren Buffet also gives several billion $ of his own money to the Gates Foundation.

He commented that capitalism "is the system that is causing suffering, impoverishment, and misery of billions and billions of people in the world", but that "there is a way to organise capitalism - its production and distribution - to improve the lot of billions of people in the world." And finally added, "we have an experience of modifying capitalism just like the Keynesian welfare state which is far more acceptable to my values than the Hayekian-Friedmanian life of misery and selfish individualism."

Imagine that statement, "billions and billions of people", including the billion plus in China, another billion plus under near-socialist India. I reminded him that facebook is also a product of capitalism, does fb also causes lots of capitalist exploitation?

And the reference to ‎"Keynesian welfare state", like Denmark where he currently works that he's beginning to criticize more ofen now. That welfare state of 4 or 5 million people which does not want to open its border to people victimized by socialism or other statist capitalism somewhere. A welfare Keynesian state will always be allergic, even paranoid, to open its economy to "billions of people" that socialists and welfare statists wish to help.

Another friend commented about small or micro capitalism. I also like "people's capitalism" or micro capitalism. If being an employee forever sucks, then employees who are ambitious and hard-working enough should start becoming an entrepreneur, to become job creator themselves. But look at how the governments of the Philippines and other countries treat entrepreneurship with lots of bureaucracies and taxes to pay even before one can start a business. Statism and envy of entrepreneurship are the cousins of socialism.

Global capitalism, or nation-based capitalism, or even micro-capitalism aka people's capitalism, will always result in inequality. Even among siblings raised in the same house by the same parents and went to the same school, etc., will have inequality in performance someday -- academically, financially, economically. And this leads us to individual freedom, individual ambition and responsibility, vs. its other side, individual irresponsibility, dependence and lack of high personal ambition. And that explains why some guys are super-rich while others are super-poor.

If you is too focused on equality, then good examples will be N. Korea, Myanmar, Congo, Zimbabwe, etc. People there are generally equal, equally poor, except the leaders of their socialist or near-socialist state.

If one will focus on greater wealth creation, then one must accept inequality as one inevitable result. Give three people one hecare of land each, contiguous to each other. One may develop an organic farm (no tractor, no factory, environment preserved, yeah). One may develop it as housing for the squatters. One will develop it into a compound of high-rise condo buildings. See the huuuuge inequality later.

By writing the inevitable result of inequality in a free society, I was mistaken for advocating or valuing inequality per se. Wrong. I value individual freedom or liberty, period. The individual's freedom to ambition soooo high, freedom to work so hard to realize that ambition, and that individual will soon become a super-rich entrepreneur or capitalist. The freedom to move across islands, across countries and continents, is part of that individual freedom.

(These pictures of airplanes I took while inside various international airports in some my recent foreign trips). Incidentally, it is those global multinational capitalist enterprises that allow such international mobility -- the multinational airlines, hotels, and those huge capitalist enterprises like facebook, google, youtube, yahoo, facilitate information gathering by people before and during their international mobility. Inequality is an outcome, not advocacy, of individual freedom. Government coercion like socialism and big statism is the main enemy of individual freedom.
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See also:
Inequality 1: Rich Getting Richer is Good, August 29, 2009
Inequality 2: To Each According to his Needs... September 01, 2010
Inequality 3: Freedom, Free Market and Inequality, February 14, 2011
Inequality 4: Why Inequality is Good, May 10, 2011
Inequality 5: Comments to Why Inequality is Good, May 11, 2011
Inequality 6: On Social and Class Dominance, May 13, 2011
Hayek 3: Inequality and Progress, May 19, 2009

World liberty day, June 17

A friend in Germany, Pierre Gosselin, who owns the popular climate (skeptical) blog, No Tricks Zone, pointed to a new freedom day, the World Liberty Day, June 17 each year. It's the first time that I have heard or read about this day.

If we have "Independence day" for various countries, a world statism day aka "UN day", it's good to have a freedom day for people who believe in more individual freedom, more personal responsibility, and less government coercion.

Here is the website of the World liberty day.

Pierre put this quote from Ronald Reagan,

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.

That's nice. But my favorite quote from Reagan is this:

If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it.

Yeah!

PhilHealth Watch 6: Bogus claims and robbery

I am re-posting this investigative article from Newsbreak. The gory details of robbery in PhilHealth are discussed here.
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Bogus claims haunt Philhealth

PUBLISHED ON MAY 25, 2011
By EDWIN ESPEJO
Maggie De Pano Fellow

Conniving hospitals and doctors defraud the state-run health insurer

MANILA, Philippines—For many years you’ve been paying your Philhealth dues, and so has your company. But that money may have been misused to finance bankrupt hospitals and fatten doctors’ salaries.

As early as four years ago, a scandal hit the Philippine Health Insurance Corp., which confirmed allegations that some private hospitals and doctors have been defrauding the state-run health insurer.

In her testimony before a 2007 congressional hearing, Dr. Madeleine Valera, Philhealth vice president for health finance policy, said that since 1995, Philhealth had lost as much as P4 billion due to fraudulent claims.

The anecdotes behind these claims are both tragic and true. In Iloilo, one eye doctor claimed to have performed 2, 071 eye surgeries in one year, for a total of P16 million in professional fees that he collected from Philhealth in 2006. When a Philhealth inspection team visited a hospital in Davao City, it caught janitors in hospital beds pretending to be Philhealth-accredited patients.

Today, various estimates show that Philhealth is still losing up to P500 million annually due to bogus claims. This amount can already cover additional 500,000 indigent families under a sponsored program scheme.

The continued abuse of the funds is also behind the limited coverage for new entrants to the labor force, since a new employee will have to contribute for at least nine months within the year of confinement before he or she could be entitled to benefits.
The problem persists because of government’s failure to prosecute any of the players involved in the scam.

While some hospitals, such as the Our Lady of Mercy Specialty Hospital in Bacolod and the General Santos Doctors Hospital in General Santos City, had been fined or suspended, the truth is no one has been jailed for the crime. Weighed down by manpower problems and lack of political will, Philhealth could only implement stop-gap measures to stop the bleeding, such as random inspections and a stricter evaluation of claims.

This special report focuses on the health insurance anomalies in Central Mindanao, covering the provinces of North and South Cotabato, Sarangani and Sultan Kudarat, and some areas in Mindanao.
Do you have other information on fraudulent Philhealth claims in your areas? Click here to send details to Newsbreak

Hospitals’ role

With its billions in funds, now at P69.5 billion, Philhealth is seen as a source of income for many provincial hospitals. In the General Santos Doctors Hospital, at least 20 percent of its estimated P120-million annual budget is derived from Philhealth reimbursements.
The percentage of Philhealth-sourced revenue is higher in accredited private hospitals, since the latter usually don’t set aside a budget for salaries and allowances of its resident doctors. And on the average, doctors claim about one-third of the total hospital bills of Philhealth-accredited patients.
What further motivates unscrupulous hospitals and doctors in padding their bills is the so-called “cost of money,” or the delay in Philhealth reimbursements, which take about 60 days to process.

In 2010, Philhealth released a total of P27.6 billion in benefit payments for a health insurance service that has 22.4 million members. That same year, it collected P26.4 billion in premium contributions.

The billions that Philhealth issued as benefit claims could not all be traced legally. In Central Mindanao, for example, the agency discovered that cheats had employed all tricks in the trade to access the Philhealth fund.

Ramon Aristoza, Philhealth vice president for Central Mindanao, cites an instance when they monitored a drastic rise in hospital confinement in the region. He soon found out that some hospitals were encouraging Philhealth members to confine their dependents in the hospitals as well. There was also a time when hospital confinements during weekends rose. Philhealth eventually learned that doctors had asked their patients to have executive check-ups and get confined during weekends, claiming higher benefits in the process. “As a matter of policy, we do not allow executive check-ups,” Aristoza tells Newsbreak.

Eye surgeries

Philhealth was given the opportunity to address this problem in 2007, when it discovered a scheme that defrauded the agency of a lot of money. Between January 2004 to June 2007, or in a span of 42 months, Philhealth paid 19,145 cataract-related claims in Western Visayas hospitals alone. The claims totaled over P390 million.

The numbers meant that these hospitals performed an eye-popping 15 eye surgeries daily for about four years—non-stop.

In one year alone, 10 doctors from Western Visayas were reported to have made claims amounting to P48,491,030 for eye-related operations.

One of these doctors from Iloilo performed a record-breaking 2,071 operations in one year, and claimed almost P16 million in professional fees in 2006.

“Many have earned millions of pesos from Philhealth,” Dr. Madeleine Valera, Philhealth vice president for health finance policy, told a 2007 congressional probe.
Western Visayas was just the tip of the iceberg. In Mindanao, provincial hospitals ransacked the Philhealth fund through the same scheme.

Philhealth sent a legal team from its central office to conduct a similar investigation on the General Santos Doctors Hospital (GSDH) in General Santos City, after it discovered an unusually high number of cataract operations performed by a single doctor.

Aristoza says cataract operations, along with circumcision and toe nail operations, were among the common medical operation used in making fraudulent claims. He explains that eye surgeries and circumcision are quick and easy, and can be done en masse, especially during provincial medical missions and outreach programs.

These medical missions are however free, but doctors were charging professional fees against Philhealth. The agency has since banned the practice.

Former congressman and now South Cotabato Gov. Arthur Pinggoy, confirmed that some doctors have taken advantage of medical missions to claim professional fees from Philhealth Pinggoy and former congressman Rey Aquino, a medical doctor who is now CEO of Philhealth, led the probe on bogus claims in 2007. Pinggoy chaired the committee on health; his family also owns a hospital in South Cotabato.

In Central Mindanao, one of its 10 accredited eye doctors stood out for the unusual number of claims he filed before Philhealth and those field on his behalf by one hospital. Eye surgeries in the region dramatically rose when Dr. Isaac Villegas was accredited by the General Santos District Hospital but also dramatically dropped when Philhealth started its probe....
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I'm wondering, why do we have to expand a program where past wastes and robbery were not resolved yet, where no one went to jail yet even when caught flat footed, stealing millions of pesos? Next time, another round of thieves with new tricks, schemes and drama will come in. And we will say "no worries, so long as everyone should have PhilHelth cards"?

PhilHealth needs more than just "internal reforms". It should be coerced to reform by removing its monopoly over mandatory membership. If PhilHealth has competitors and membership to it is not mandatory, it will be forced to reform and become more sensitive to member-contributors.

See also
PhilHealth Watch 4: P110 B excess money, November 04, 2010.

Energy rationing 6: FEF on the RE racket

The Foundation for Economic Freedom (FEF) has produced a new statement, Manifesto Against Increases in Power Rates to Subsidize Solar and Wind Energy Producers and to Guarantee their Superprofits. Portions of it below. Click to get a larger image.

I am not exactly a fan of the FEF, but on certain issues, I support their campaigns. Like this one, to expose the racket and legalized robbery in the Renewable Energy (RE) law, where we, ordinary energy consumers in the Philippines, will be forced to pay even higher electricity rates to the already high rates, to subsidize the RE power plants of the new energy cronies.

Towards the closing paragraphs of the statement, the FEF says,

We believe that the subsidy in the form of Feed-in-Tariff rates should NOT be given to existing power producers as this will mean a tremendous windfall for them. These producers are already enjoying tax and duty free incentives and will not add to the nation's power supply.

I think it's already late for the FEF and the public to complain about the Feed-in-Tariff (FIT) system. It's already in the law. The strong RE lobby, led then by the World Wide Fund (WWF), Greenpeace and other climate alarmist groups, made sure that the new energy cronies will get such incentive in order to help "save the planet." Those lobbyists for RE cronyism will insist that the law should be implemented.

But if public pressure to set aside the FIT provision will be strong as it will mean even more expensive electricity rates, perhaps the RE producers and cronies will be ashamed to push for it. It's a good fight worth pursuing.

Once people fall for climate alarmism and the various racket and rent-seeking provisions, regulations and taxation that the alarmists and governments want, they're trapped. It just happened that a number of the FEF Fellows and members are part of the climate alarmism movement.

Meanwhile, here's another article from Boo Chanco today. This should be a continuation to Energy rationing 5: Boo Chanco on the RE racket

Renewable energy

Beyond the subsidy called Feed-in Tariff, there are other things that ought to be looked at before we agree to allow them to put additional burdens on our power users. For instance, it is not clear, the position paper of the Foundation for Economic Freedom (FEF) observes, what is it exactly that the envisioned FIT program is supposed to buy us?

“Is it to lower our carbon emissions in order to help arrest global warming? Our carbon footprint is a rounding error vs. the large and more industrialized countries, and our RE component, at 30 to 40 percent of installed capacity, is already five times the global average.”

Romy Bernardo who spearheaded the paper’s drafting illustrates: The subsidy cost for solar per kWh is over P12. (calculated as the FIT rate of P17.95 less avoided cost of P4.50/kwh or the cost of buying at the current grid cost). One can lower consumption of power by giving away new efficient light bulbs that produce 60 watts of brightness at 15 watts use of power. Based on the calculation, by an ADB expert, the cost of doing this translates to $0.025 per kWh saved, roughly ten centavos/kWh saved. The numbers are striking-- P12 solar vs. P0.10 for energy efficient light bulbs.

In short, just give free light bulbs and you can do more than 100 times the benefit in terms of reducing carbon footprint for the same peso spent from public purse. A slightly clever solar operator selling at FiT rates can put solar panels under a light bulb, run even when there is no sunlight (like even night time) to get paid for power at P 17.95 per kWh, and only incur cost of P4.50 per kWh to buy power from the grid for the light bulbs.

Finally, am reposting here portions of a new article by Dr. Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit.
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IPCC WG3 and the Greenpeace Karaoke

June 14, 2011

On May 9, 2011, the IPCC announced:

Close to 80 percent of the world‘s energy supply could be met by renewables by mid-century if backed by the right enabling public policies a new report shows.

In accompanying interviews, IPCC officials said that the obstacles were not scientific or technological, but merely a matter of political will.

Little of the increase was due to ‘traditional’ renewables (hydro and ‘traditional’ biomass, mostly dung), but to solar, wind and non-traditional biomass.

I, for one, was keenly interested in how IPCC got to its potential 80%. Unfortunately, in keeping with execrable IPCC practices, the supporting documents for the Renewables Study were not made available at the time of the original announcement. (Only the Summary for Policy-makers was made available at the time.) This showed one worrying aspect of the announcement. The report was based on 164 ‘scenarios’ and the ‘up to 80%” scenario in the lead sentence of their press release was not representative of their scenarios, but the absolute top end. This sort of press release is not permitted in mining promotions and it remains a mystery to me why it is tolerated in academic press releases or press releases by international institutions....

The basis for this claim is a Greenpeace scenario. The Lead Author of the IPCC assessment of the Greenpeace scenario was the same Greenpeace employee who had prepared the Greenpeace scenarios, the introduction to which was written by IPCC chair Pachauri.

The public and policy-makers are starving for independent and authoritative analysis of precisely how much weight can be placed on renewables in the energy future. It expects more from IPCC WG3 than a karaoke version of Greenpeace scenario.

It is totally unacceptable that IPCC should have had a Greenpeace employee as a Lead Author of the critical Chapter 10, that the Greenpeace employee, as an IPCC Lead Author, should (like Michael Mann and Keith Briffa in comparable situations) have been responsible for assessing his own work and that, with such inadequate and non-independent ‘due diligence’, IPCC should have featured the Greenpeace scenario in its press release on renewables.

Everyone in IPCC WG3 should be terminated and, if the institution is to continue, it should be re-structured from scratch.
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The Greenpeace (and World Wildlife Fund) racket in renewable energy is getting more obvious. The distinction or dividing line between environmental activists and UN climate bureaucrats has also been erased in this case, as a Greenpeace activist has become a lead author of an IPCC Working Group (WG) 3.

The ultimate goal of this continued energy rationing in favor of RE power plants is simple: to get as much tax money and energy subsidies from governments and hapless energy consumers. Such scheme will make their RE farms cute, profitable and "sustainable".------

Related articles:
Energy rationing 1: Energy loans and climate alarmism, February 13, 2011
Energy rationing 2: The Renewable Energy (RE) law, February 18, 2011
Energy rationing 3: Restricting poor countries' access to cheap energy, April 01, 2011
Energy rationing 4: Anti-coal, anti-nuke hysteria, April 14, 2011

Climate stupidity 10: The Sun and GCRs don't affect climate?
Earth Hour lunacy, Part 3

On IPR Abolition 10: Debate with Mises Blog IPR Abolitionists

I posted Part 9 of this discussion series in the mises.org blog, where a known anti-IPR libertarian crusader, Stephan Kinsella, posted a new blog post, The Evil of Patenting Food and Seeds. I actually wrote Part 9 in reaction to that blog post by Mr. Kinsella.

Since the mises.org blog seems to be the hometown of many anti-IPR libertarians and anarchists, my intrusion naturally attracted a lot of counter-arguments. I am posting below those counter-comments and my reply to them.

Nonoy Oplas June 14, 2011 at 1:32 am

I feel that the arguments by the author are rather shallow. Take the case of rice seeds, IRRI alone has 112,000+ different rice seed varieties; various national governments rice research institutes, academic institutes, private corporations and research institutes, also have their own rice genebank. Who now has the monopoly of important seeds? Was anyone disallowed or disenfranchised from developing or inventing a new rice variety? My longer discussion here, http://funwithgovernment.blogspot.com/2011/06/on-intellectual-property-abolition-part_14.html.

If free marketers hate private ownership of inventions, if they want more socialized, more collective, more communal ownership of inventions, I think that position is closer to socialism.

Andrew (from Russia) June 14, 2011 at 2:18 am

“If free marketers hate private ownership of inventions, if they want more socialized, more collective, more communal ownership of inventions, I think that position is closer to socialism.”

They want no “ownership” at all. One doesn’t render IPRs “communal” by rendering them nonexistent, just like one doesn’t render slavery “collective” by abolishing private ownership of slaves. With IPRs gone, physical property rights expand naturally to fill the void – just like self-ownership takes over ownership by one’s master.

On your expanded post, the notion of “additional incentive” smacks of interventionism. Acknowledging that incentives exist is OK, trying to manage them is another story.

Nonoy Oplas June 14, 2011 at 2:24 am

Hmmm, some guys make a full time or lifetime career of producing ideas. They produce not a single physical property, only ideas. Like song composers, book and magazine authors, molecular biologists and chemicsts, etc. Unlike carpenters who produce chairs and houses, farmers who produce food, engineers who produce cars and laptops, the earlier group produce only ideas, and they cannot own their own discoveries and invention. Weird.

nate-m June 14, 2011 at 2:19 am

If free marketers hate private ownership of inventions, if they want more socialized, more collective, more communal ownership of inventions, I think that position is closer to socialism.
Yes, that’s right People that champion freedom, capitalistic forces, wealth, real money and open markets are the socialists while those people that want to restrict markets and think the use of state government enforced monopolies is the key to human creativity and profits are the ones that are the capitalists.

Better markets through regulations, taxes, restrictions, and the use of force. That is the future of capitalism.

Nonoy Oplas June 14, 2011 at 2:30 am

Bright ideas are scarce, idiotic ideas are not, they abound. One proof is that governments anywhere keep expanding. Some idiots say they have invented a coffee that can cure all sorts of cancer, all sorts of heart diseases, and their coffee discovery is free for all humanity to enjoy. This is an example why bright ideas should be protected and rewarded, to separate them from idiotic ideas.

Dagnytg June 14, 2011 at 3:16 am
Nonoy Oplas,

I think you’re missing the point of the article.

The author is only pointing out the ridiculousness of suing a farmer for using seeds produced from his harvest.

If the harvest is a by product of the GMO seeds, shouldn’t the farmer pay royalties on his harvest?

If not, then why does he have to pay royalties for the seeds produced from the harvest? You can’t have it both ways.

To say I can’t use the seeds from the harvest is to say I don’t have property rights to my harvest.

Nonoy…is that what you believe?

Bottom line: Either I own my harvest and the rights to do what I want with it…or I don’t.

Nonoy Oplas June 14, 2011 at 3:37 am

Thanks Dagnytg. The author has generalized the discussion that’s why the title is “The evil of patenting food and seeds.” And the reason why I posted my article is because I showed that in rice alone, 112,000+ rice varieties, mostly product of biotechnology and currently or previously patented seeds, The lesson is that plant patents resulted in an explosion of innovation and competition of tens of thousands of new seeds.

The way plant patent is implemented in the West, based on the articles referenced by the blog author, seems to be different from the experience in poorer countries like the Philippines. Here, patented seeds are not repeated for replanting not because of IPR and legal issues, but because the productivity of “recycled” seeds are lower compared to the original seeds. And if farmers think that the price of one biotech or seed company is too high, farmers have the choice of getting the seeds of another biotech or seed company, or use the old, off-patent seeds. There are lot of choices among patented seeds, among off-patent seeds.

Andrew June 14, 2011 at 2:29 am

“Hmmm, some guys make a full time or lifetime career of producing ideas. They produce not a single physical property, only ideas.”

Don’t they have something in common with the guys that produce SERVICES?

Nonoy Oplas June 14, 2011 at 2:33 am

No. A bus driver, a restaurant waiter, a barber, produces a service, but not ideas. A molecular biologist or biochemist produces a drug molecule for a particular disease, that’s production of ideas, of a useful idea to treat and kill certain diseases. Idiots can say they have also produced a drug that can do the same with zero clinical trial. Abolish IPR and the claims of idiots and real researchers are generally the same.

Colin Phillips June 14, 2011 at 3:25 am

The key similarity you seem to have missed entirely is that, completely absent any government force, waiters and barbers manage to generate an income for themselves, even though “they produce not a single physical property, only” services. Why then should only molecular biologists get government intervention in their field to grant them a monopoly? What about all the poor waiters? Surely the government should step in and ensure that nobody competes with the restaurant business? Weird.

Nonoy Oplas June 14, 2011 at 3:48 am

It is possible that an IPR like patent can be issued by a private, industry association someday. So the debate is not much of who issues the IPR, but whether IPR should be honored or not. An IPR is a monopoly, true. But it is not an industry-wide monopoly, rather a product monopoly, I discussed here, http://funwithgovernment.blogspot.com/2011/03/ipr-and-medicines-part-8.html, the case of 101 new drugs in development, all patented, all not marketed yet, to treat prostate cancer alone. Excluded there are off-patent drugs, and patented and marketed drugs already, against prostate cancer too. Each inventor gets an IPR, and all inventors compete with each other in producing a drug for the same disease. You reward inventors for producing ideas. You cannot reward IPR to waiters, barbers, bus drivers, etc. since they produce ordinary services, not important ideas.

Andrew June 14, 2011 at 2:51 am

“Abolish IPR and the claims of idiots and real researchers are generally the same.”

So the focus has shifted from “ownership of production” to “truth in advertising”. It seems that absent a concise, coherent argument to hold onto, this game of whack-a-mole can be played forever.

Nonoy Oplas June 14, 2011 at 2:52 am

How in hell does “truth in advertising” come into the discussion?

Colin Phillips June 14, 2011 at 3:21 am

Did you read what you wrote?
“Idiots can say they have also produced a drug that can do the same with zero clinical trial. Abolish IPR and the claims of idiots and real researchers are generally the same.”
What were you trying to say here? Can you try to state it a bit more exactly? Until you do, it sounds like you think that absent IP, consumers are completely unable to distinguish between different things. You can’t seriously believe that.

Nonoy Oplas June 14, 2011 at 3:55 am

What am I trying to say exactly, here: Idiots can say they have also invented a drug that can kill a particular disease even with zero clinical trial, no R&D whatsoever to test the efficacy and safety of their drug invention. Abolish IPR and the claims of idiots and real researchers who go through all clinical trials, all tests on efficacy and safety, are just the same.

Colin Phillips June 14, 2011 at 4:30 am
Nonoy Oplas,

I’m sorry, that’s just not true. The reason I don’t take medicines that have not had clinical trials proving its safety and efficacy is not because there are patents on the medicine – it’s because a proven safe useful medicine is a fundamentally different good to me than an unknown, untested medicine sold on a street corner.

That’s not a defense of patents whatsoever. Think about this: For you, personally, in your own home: In a world without patents, would you buy your medicines from shady characters on street corners? What if there were two pharmacists – one of whom sold cheap, untested medicines, and one of whom was confident enough to get an external third party auditor to stake their reputations on the fact that he only sells safe medicines. Even if the first pharmacist was much cheaper, would you really use him? I wouldn’t.

So clearly, patents are not required to test medicines.

Nonoy Oplas June 14, 2011 at 4:53 am

Precisely Colin. A patent is sort of a certificate that the inventor of a new drug or new seed, etc. has hurdled a battery of tests for efficacy and safety. I think all generic pharma companies are satisfied with the IPR system. They spend little or nothing on inventing new drugs, going through the hassle of repeated clinical trials, of getting the risk of being sued by their patients if the drug is not effective or will produce more adverse results. The generics simply wait for the paten to expire, and they benefit from all the research work done by the innovators. In the Philippines, the biggest pharma company here is not a multinational. It’s a local generic pharma, its sales revenue is larger than the combined sales of #2, #3 and #4 companies, all innovator multinationals. What the generics want are certain flexibilities in IPR, not abolition of IPR. And the generics companies get it.

On IPR Abolition 9: Seed Patent and Explosion of Seed Varieties

One of the pet peeves of the anti-IPR groups and individuals, particularly the socialists and some anarchists, is the patenting of seeds -- rice, corn, eggplant, tomato, many other vegetables and crops. The usual arguments given are that (a) IPRs create monopoly, (b) ideas are non-scarce, there is no competition when one person will use an idea discovered or invented by another person. See my earlier discussion, On intellectual property abolition, Part 8.

Let me give the example of the most important crop in the Philippines and many other countries, rice. The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) has more than 112,000 different types of rice in its genebank. See the International Rice Genebank (IRG). And aside from IRRI, there are many other rice research institutions worldwide -- academic, national governments, NGOs, etc. -- that keep their own rice genebank too. See also the long List of rice varieties in many countries, from wikipedia.

Let us take the more than 112,000 different rice varieties in the IRRI genebank alone. I do not know how many of them were "natural" or "organic" varieties, and how many were products of biotechnology to develop certain properties, like drought resistant, flood resistant, resistant to certain insects, pests and microbes, and so on. And those rice varieties are patented. Modern science has allowed rice farmers, from small scale to corporate farmers, to develop high-yielding varieties with shorter harvest period.

If people are wondering why the population alarmism of "millions will starve to death" created by Thomas Malthus in the 18th century, to Paul Ehrlich in the 60s to 70s did not happen despite the continued rise in global population, the quick answer is rising productivity due to modern science and biotechnology. And the IPR system of seed patenting provides additional incentives to private corporations, private research institutes, even some public research institutes, to spend huge amount of money and engage the brightest minds in agricultural science, biotechnology, biochemistry and related fields.

So, as the number of rice varieties keep expanding worldwide, who has the monopoly of important rice seeds? IRRI? The UN? Is there a single corporation, or cabal of corporations, that monopolize all those 112,000+ seeds? Was anyone disallowed or disenfranchised from developing or inventing his/their own new rice variety?

Here are two examples of those more modern, more high yielding rice varieties introduced in the Philippines. I saw them in a rice farming village in Pangasinan. The farmers that I talked to said these seeds are expensive, P1,350 for a 5-kilos sack Pioneer hybrid rice seed (middle), and P600 for a 3-kilos pack of Agriseeds. But they have heard a lot and saw examples of their neighboring farmers who harvested about 2x the already high yielding variety that they were using for many years now.

I am not a rice farmer, so I do not know the difference in properties of these new seed varieties with the older varieties. I just took photos of the packaging. Here are the other side of those 2 varieties above.

The embrace -- and risk-taking -- of small scale farmers of more expensive, patented rice seeds, but will significantly increase their harvest and income, is a good sign. The goal of farmers is simple: higher harvest, higher income.

Plant patent is 20 years from the date a patent was applied. I do not know if seed patent has the same procedure as drug patent. For the latter, the various clinical trials and other R&D eat up 10 to 13 years of the 20 years drug patent so that the actual marketing and higher price period is only 7 to 10 years.

Once the plant or seed patent expires, other seed developers, corporate or academic or NGOs, can use the off-patent seed variety for propagation to more farmers. The rest of humanity benefits from the expensive research, the risk-taking, trial and error efforts by the innovator companies and scientists.

The continued demonization of the IPR system and the individuals, entrepreneurs and companies who seek IPR protection because they already spent huge amount of resources for the expensive and risky R&D work to develop ever more high yielding seed varieties, from rice to corn to vegetables and fruits, is often driven by emotion and not reason. When socialists attack those innovator corporations, it is understandable because socialists simply hate private corporations who make profit, because there is "labor exploitation" involved, because there is "price gouging of consumers" involved. That is why they advocate the forcible take over and ownership of all means of production by the state.

When other free marketers however, attack private companies and individuals that seek IPR protection after they spent on expensive R&D and want to make high profit someday, there is inconsistency in their advocacy of the free enterprise system. If they hate private ownership of inventions, if they want more socialized, more collective, more communal ownership of inventions, to my mind, that position is closer to socialism.
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Related articles:

1. Should intellectual property rights be abolished? (22 pages)
2. Population alarmism and Paul Ehrlich