Wind & Collective Action

There is an article in the NY Times that tells of an interesting application of Mancur Olson's Logic of Collective Action. Ranchers in Wyoming are forming wind energy associations. Here is an explanation of the incentives for these new associations:

Mr. Stumbough felt the ranchers were at a disadvantage when dealing individually with wind developers. The developers, in most cases, know more than landowners about the value of the wind and the transmission lines that will carry it.

[ . . . ]

"Mr. Stumbough said: “I thought we could use collective bargaining strategies to maybe have a little more leverage in negotiating with wind developers. If we could all get together and work together cooperatively and do some cost sharing and maybe share some of the profits, I think it’s going to be a benefit to everybody.”"

Cost and profit sharing represents collective goods for the associations.

Note also the information problem suggested in the first paragraph. This reminds me of Hayek's The Use of Knowledge in Society. The individual landowners face a personal knowledge problem of wanting to discover the value of leasing their property for wind energy production. The associations are voluntary means of dealing with this problem. The relative values of resources in different uses are also emerging in prices for leases as well as prices for the electicity produced by wind turbines.

This situation also looks like it involves the information asymmetry often described as a source of market failure. But, the association's seem to me to be a market answer, in this case, to this supposed market failure. Thus, it is an illustration of why I am skeptical about information asymmetry as a legitimate source of market failure.

There are a couple of things in the story that concern me from the perspective of economic understanding or economic literacy. One is the caption under one of the photos:

Strong winds in southeastern Wyoming have forced landowners together to improve bargaining position.

Nothing, and especially not strong winds, have FORCED Wyoming landowners to form these associations. These are voluntary associations; not forced associations (i.e., they are not organizations such as unions are).

The second is the implied suggestion there is something wrong with secret deals:

That has made it easier for wind developers to make individual deals and insist that the terms be kept secret. The developers’ cause has not been hurt by a 10-year drought’s impact on agricultural families’ finances.

I would think there would be something wrong in secret deals if they involved force, but surely a landowner and an energy company can ethically make a voluntary agreement that includes secrets as long as no harm is done to the person or property of others.

You can learn about some of the specifics involved in forming the Slater Wind Energy Association here.

If you've read Olson's Logic, perhaps you would comment on the way in which the number of members is related to the formation of these associatons.

The Ant Colony

TIBOR MACHAN:

So you notice that your income has shrunk, you may even have lost your
job. So you decide to trade in your gas guzzler for a small vehicle and
even reduce your monthly car payments, if you have such. And in other
realms of your life, too, you may be making adjustments to cope with the
general economic downturn. You cook at home instead of eating at your
favorite restaurant; you do not purchase that pair of shoes you would have
otherwise, etc., etc.

In short, you are acting prudently, tightening your belt, as the saying
goes, in the face of the widespread economic contraction. Never even mind
why the contraction occurred--some of it could actually have come around
simply from people changing their preferences and behavior. (Instead, of
course, it happened because the government has been abandoning its proper
role as the protector of our rights and like a rouge referee, has been
inserting itself into the game for decades on end!)

But now that the results of such bad government have hit so many of us,
you are taking steps to deal with them. Ah, but no such luck. Instead of
making it possible for you to deal with your reduced resources, instead of
letting you make the budgetary adjustments you can make within the context
of your own life circumstances, the politicians are insisting that if you
refuse to spend the big bucks on those Detroit gas guzzlers, for example,
they will tax you and hand over what they have extorted from you to the
car makers, never mind your prudent choices. In time the savings you
thought you could garner from your good sense and discipline will have to
be shelled out in extra taxes so as to bail out those who aren’t getting
your business any more. Instead of insisting that those who make the big
cars and whatever else that’s no longer in demand in the market place make
their own adjustments, tighten their own belts, etc., the politicians
insist that they continue to be paid as if nothing had happened, no one
changed his or her purchasing behavior, as if the economy continued to be
in fine shape.

This is just one of thousands of results of the mixed economy, the
welfare state, in which your individuality is abolished and you are
treated as a member of some ant colony or bee hive. You will be
conscripted to be part of it all, never mind how sensibly you may figure
out to deal with the fiasco. No, you will not be allowed to use your good
sense, virtue, and occasional luck to address the economic mess the
politicians, bureaucrats and their rent-seeking clients produced. These
folks were the ones who prevented the realization of the free market and
instead created a top-down, planned or managed arena of wealth
redistribution.

Elections the Venezuelan Way

MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY:

"In recent weeks he [Mr. Chavez] has begun threatening to use the military against his own population in states where his municipal and gubernatorial candidates are defeated. On a trip to the state of Carabobo last week, for example, he told voters, 'If you let the oligarchy return to government then maybe I'll end up sending the tanks of the armored brigade out to defend the revolutionary government.' Just as troubling are the president's declarations that in states where his candidates are not elected, he will withhold federal funding."

Economics

F.A. Hayek:

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design." [The Fatal Conceit, p. 76]

I guess few economists understand this. After all, the models economists rely on assuming complete knowledge. Even the "tools" they use, such a benefit cost analysis, presume that an economist, or perhaps two or three working together, can come to know enough to calculate the benefits and costs of public expenditures and public policy changes. Instead of attempting to "demonstrate" how little they know, they attempt to demonstrate how the complete knowledge models of a static world can help people and governments make better decisions in a real world of adaptation and evolution. Few economists seem to think the world they study is a world of adaptation and evolution.

The Loss Of Individual Liberty

PETER ROBINSON:

"All that the nation's founders understood two centuries ago about the imperative of limited government, all that we learned from the long struggle between collectivism and free markets during our own time--all this could soon simply evanesce.

We are being asked to unlearn what we know, to surrender the virtues that can only be acquired in conditions of freedom, and to become a lesser people than we are. The land of the free and the home of the brave could soon be transformed into the land of the dependent and the home of the infantilized.

I may not have seen it at the time, but Milton Friedman was right. The challenge for this generation is to keep our liberty. And the challenge is now upon us."

Earlier in Mr. Robinson's piece he tells us of a conversation over dinner with Milton Friedman which includes this:

I had just re-read God and Man at Yale, the 1951 book in which William F. Buckley Jr., denounced the leftist attitudes he had encountered among the Yale faculty and administration as an undergraduate. Buckley singled out the department of economics as the most collectivist department on the campus. "Today," I said, "nobody would call the economics department at a major university 'collectivist.'"

Academia as a whole may have continued its long, sorry wobble to the left, I continued, but the economics profession had proved an exception, moving the other way. Departments of economics across the country now grasped the importance of free markets. "Mises, Hayek, Stigler and you," I told Friedman. "You've transformed the intellectual climate. You've won."

I suspect it is not true that economics departments across the country have not wobbled to the left. Efficiency economics abounds, and the conceptual framework of economics is static rather than dynamic, and as such, I believe efficiency economics is very far from the economic lessons taught by Hayek and Mises. I suspect that most of economics today falls prey to Hayek's The Fatal Conceit "that man is able to shape the world around him according to his wishes." Isn't this fatal conceit, after all, the conceptual nature of any discussion that involves the role of government as correcting market failure?

I do agree with Mr. Robinson that it would be a good thing for many of us to decide now is the time to work to save the idea of individual liberty.

[HT: Instapundit]

Hyperion Power Generation

What is this a picture of? Is it a picture of our nuclear energy future?

Apparently, HYPERION POWER GENERATION is already taking orders for shipment. Here is some of Hyperion's promo from it's web page:

Small enough to be transported on a ship, truck or train, Hyperion power modules are about the size of a "hot tub" — approximately 1.5 meters wide. Out of sight and safe from nefarious threats, Hyperion power modules are buried far underground and guarded by a security detail. Like a power battery, Hyperion modules have no moving parts to wear down, and are delivered factory sealed. They are never opened on site. Even if one were compromised, the material inside would not be appropriate for proliferation purposes. Further, due to the unique, yet proven science upon which this new technology is based, it is impossible for the module to go supercritical, “melt down” or create any type of emergency situation. If opened, the very small amount of fuel that is enclosed would immediately cool. The waste produced after five years of operation is approximately the size of a softball and is a good candidate for fuel recycling.

Perfect for moderately-sized projects, Hyperion produces only 25 MWe — enough to provide electricity for about 20,000 average American sized homes or its industrial equivalent. Ganged or teamed together, the modules can produce even more consistent energy for larger projects.

Pretty neat hot tub, eh?

[ Hat Tip: Instapundit ]

Complex Order

F.A. Hayek:

"Despite. . .differences, all evolution, cultural as well as biological, is a process of continuous adaptation to unforeseeable events, to contingent circumstances which could not have been forecast. This is another reason why evolutionary theory can never put us in the position of rationally predicting and controlling future evolution. All it can do is to show how complex structures carry within themselves a means of correction that leads to further evolutionary developments which are, however, in accordance with their very nature, themselves unavoidably unpredictable."

[Fatal Conceit, p. 25]

Social Justice Virus

DAVID HARSANYI:

"Now, I'm not suggesting Obama intends to transform this nation into 1950s-era Soviet tyranny or that he will possess the power to do so. I'm suggesting Obama is praising and mainstreaming an economic philosophy that has failed to produce a scintilla of fairness or prosperity anywhere on Earth. Ever."

Yes, I agree. Since so many voters seem to be climbing on board Obama's bandwagon, I'm beginning to think social justice should be described as a virus.

Beware Aggregation

From CAFE HAYEK an illustration by Pietro Poggi-Corradini:

"Research on inequality usually keeps track of percentiles. So let's look at the following simple example. A society at the beginning consists of 10 individuals, 9 of which make 1 dollar and 1 who makes 10 dollars. Social scientists decide to keep track of the top 20%. So the top 20% makes an average of 5.5 dollars while the bottom 80% makes an average of 1 dollar. Now suppose that after 1 year there are now 8 people making 1 dollar and 2 people making 10 dollars. The top 20% now makes an average of 10 dollars. Dividing 4.5 by 5.5 this represents an 82% increase for the top quintile. The bottom 80% on the other hand sees a 0% increase in income. One would like to conclude that 'inequality has risen'. But if you were given a choice to live in a society like the earlier one with 9 people making the same income of 1 dollar and one very rich person making 10 dollars, or live in the latter society where less people make 1 dollar and more people make 10 dollar, what would you choose? A simple calculus of probability tells me that the latter society might be more appealing to most people."

I offer this just as another illustration of my warning to beware the stories told based upon aggregation.

Can We Keep It?

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN:

"“Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?”

“A Republic, if you can keep it.”"

Policy and Paradise?

SHANNON LOVE:

One really has to ask the obvious question: If Obama’s economic policies work so well, why isn’t Detroit a paradise?

In 1950, America produced 51% of the GNP for the entire world. Of that production, roughly 70% took place in the eight states surrounding the Great Lakes: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York.

The productive capability of this small area of earth staggers the imagination. Virtually everything that rebuilt the industrial bases of Europe and Japan came from those eight states. Cars, planes, electronics, machine tools, consumer goods, generators, concrete - any conceivable item manufactured by industrial humanity poured out this tiny region and enriched the world. The region shone with widespread prosperity. People migrated from the South and West to work in these Herculean engines of industry.

The wealth, power and economic dominance of the region at the time cannot be overstated. Nothing like it has existed in human history.

Yet, a mere 30 years later, by 1980, we called that area the “rustbelt” and it became synonymous with joblessness, collapsing cities, high crime, failing schools and general hopelessness.

What the hell happened?

Obama happened.

Of course, not Obama personally but rather the same ideas that Obama espouses. What those ideas did to the Great Lakes states, they can do to the entire country.

Mystery

GLENN REYNOLDS:

"As Gas Prices Go Down, Driving Goes Up. When things get more expensive, people do them less -- but when things get less expensive, people do them more! What could explain this phenomenon? It's a mystery!"

Indeed!

Oh Crap

[via Greg Mankiw]

Redistributing the Wealth

There is new audio of Barack Obama discussing redistribution on a Chicago PBS radio program in 2001. BILL DYER gives it thoughtful attention. Here is what Dyer learns:

"Even back in 2001, Barack Obama was already focused on building a 'coalition of power' in the executive and legislative branches that could indeed bring about a national redistribution of wealth which even the most activist courts couldn't achieve on their own."

Plus:

"The reason for conservatives and moderates to be concerned about Barack Obama is not simply that he's a hard-left liberal — it's that he's an ambitious and talented hard-left liberal. He's seen where the Warren Court fell short. Barack Obama is now literally only days away from, in his words from this radio program, possibly "put[ting] together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change." Of that, we ought to all be duly terrified."

Mr. Dyer does an excellent job exploring the audio. You really should read the whole thing.

One point from the audio that I think is very important is that the Senator takes note that, as written and ratified, our constitution does not allow government to redistribute wealth. The implication of this, for me, is that in order to give the federal government the power to redistribute wealth it should first be necessary to amend the Constitution to grant this enumerated power to Congress. Amending the Constitution requires a super majority to agree, and I do not think a super majority in this country would approve of such an amendment. I would find this a comforting safeguard.

In contrast, it seems that Senator Obama believes "redistributive change" can be accomplished legislatively. As a practical matter, given the nature of our national tax system whereby pretty close to the lowest 40% - 50% of households by income do not pay federal income taxes and receive checks from the federal government instead, the Senator may be correct. I suspect, if elected, President Obama will try to find out if it is possible to accomplish "redistributive change."

After seeing the Joe the Plumber video in which Senator Obama said he thought that spreading the wealth around was a good thing, I tried to explain why it would diminish our prosperity. I would like to add a bit too my earlier explanation.

Mancur Olson explains that the necessary conditions for prosperity are (1) strict enforcement of private property rights, which includes the strict enforcement of voluntary contracts, and (2) a minimum of predation. A government that redistributes wealth will violate both of these necessary conditions. Such a government will fail to strictly enforce private property rights because it takes income and wealth from Peter to give to Paul. And, by taking from Peter to give to Paul the government itself becomes a predator, and most likely the largest predator in the economy.

In my course Power and Prosperity, I suggest to my students that the key point of the course is to understand the difference between good government and bad government. Of course, I mean to help my students understand that good government supports and sustains the necessary conditions for prosperity as described by Mancur Olson. Bad government then, is government that is the predator. It seems that the policies of Senator Obama would seek to give us bad government.

Who Pays Federal Government Taxes?

Over the course of this presidential election season there has been quite a bit of discussion of income taxation. As you can see from my blog post just before this one, Senators McCain and Obama have policy positions with respect to income taxation that are considerably different.

One of the tax themes that I don't like to hear is that the federal government should more heavily tax the wealthy. This theme goes along with the assertion that recent efforts to decrease federal income taxes have been to the benefit of the wealthy. What are the facts in this regard?

The two charts I provide here summarize data reported by the Congressional Budget Office. Each chart shows tax shares by income quintiles for all households.

The first chart, above, shows the share of just the federal income tax by income quintiles for all households, 1979-2005. The red line shows the share of the federal income tax paid by the top 20% of households by income. In 1979 the top 20% paid 64.9% of all federal income taxes and since that time this share has been increased so that in 2005 the top 20% paid 86.3% of all federal income taxes. It would appear that the often heard political mantra of "tax cuts for the wealthy" is just a bit inconsistent with the experience of the past 25 years regarding the federal income tax.

Of course, the federal government has other sources of tax revenue that are not reflected in the chart above. Notably, the payroll or social security tax is excluded from the chart above. The chart just below shows the tax shares for all federal tax liabilities, including the payroll tax.




This chart too shows that the top 20% of households by income have paid an increasingly larger share of all federal tax liabilities. At the same time, every other income quintile group has paid a smaller share of all federal tax liabilities over time.

It seems to me that a different political narrative and set of issues should be discussed. The distribution of the burden of financing federal government seems very unequal, and perhaps inequitable (dare I say unjust) to me. Is it fair or equitable for the burden of financing our federal government to fall so heavily on the top income households that this income quintile pays 2/3 of all federal tax liabilities? Is it fair that the top income households pay over 86% of the federal income tax liabilities? Is it fair that the bottom income households not only show no income tax liabilities as a group, but this bottom group actually receives payments from the federal government? After all, isn't the idea of government that it provides goods and services that all citizens share? If so, then shouldn't all citizens share in paying for the goods and services received from the federal government?

The distribution of the burden of financing federal government also may weaken our republican form of government. Look again at the chart at the top of this post. The bottom 40% of households by income pay a negative share of the income tax, i.e., people in these income quintiles receive payments. Doesn't this set up a bad set of incentives with respect to public policy, especially with respect to government taxation?

When I teach public choice to my undergraduate students we rely heavily on the median voter model. The charts above suggest we may be pretty close with the federal income tax to a situation in which the median voter is actually a person who has no federal income tax liability and who may actually receive payments from the federal government. If such a situation was the case then it would seem that the lower income households could see incentives to vote for politicians who would seek to help them take from the political minority.

Maybe we are closer to this situation than I think. After all, there are politicians campaigning, and it seems even leading in the political polls, who showcase their tax policy as making the wealthy pay more, as though the wealthy weren't already paying the largest share. After all, there are even politicians who say they favor redistributing the wealth. Is it now the situation in this country that the median voter prefers such politicians because it is expected he or she will be rewarded for supporting such politicians with more of the income and the wealth of others?

Or, is this stretching the history of the past 1/4 century a bit too far?

At least we economists should be able to offer another bit of insight into the present situation. For efficiency, we know that the benefit principle should be met. That is, for an efficient allocation of resources, each individual should pay an amount equal to their personal benefit at the margin for the goods and services provided by government. It seems likely that the charts presented above suggest we are quite a distance from the benefit principle in federal government taxation, and thus we are quite a distance into a government revenue and expenditure system which results in an inefficient allocation of resources.

One final observation. The politicians who have chosen the policy position of more taxes for the wealthy, are often (maybe mostly?) members of Congress. The data charted above are produced periodically by the CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE. I think this means we can safely assume that the politicians saying "more taxes for the wealthy" aren't saying this because they haven't had the data at their fingertips.

Greg Mankiw's Work Incentives

GREG MANKIW CONSIDERS presidential tax plans:

"If there were no taxes, so t1=t2=t3=t4=0, then $1 earned today would yield my kids $28. That is simply the miracle of compounding.

Under the McCain plan, t1=.35, t2=.25, t3=.15, and t4=.15. In this case, a dollar earned today yields my kids $4.81. That is, even under the low-tax McCain plan, my incentive to work is cut by 83 percent compared to the situation without taxes.

Under the Obama plan, t1=.43, t2=.35, t3=.2, and t4=.45. In this case, a dollar earned today yields my kids $1.85. That is, Obama's proposed tax hikes reduce my incentive to work by 62 percent compared to the McCain plan and by 93 percent compared to the no-tax scenario. In a sense, putting the various pieces of the tax system together, I would be facing a marginal tax rate of 93 percent.

The bottom line: If you are one of those people out there trying to induce me to do some work for you, there is a good chance I will turn you down. And the likelihood will go up after President Obama puts his tax plan in place. I expect to spend more time playing with my kids. They will be poorer when they grow up, but perhaps they will have a few more happy memories."

You really should read the whole thing.

I think his calculations offer a pretty dramatic illustration of the differences in the presidential tax plans.

Don't miss the implications of this illustration for growth and prosperity. The difference in the money left to his kids with and without the income tax also illustrates the impact of income taxation over time on growth and prosperity.

Obama's Delusions?

ALAN REYNOLDS takes a look at Senator Obama's campaign promises:

"A trillion here, a trillion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money. Altogether, Mr. Obama is promising at least $4.3 trillion of increased spending and reduced tax revenue from 2009 to 2018 -- roughly an extra $430 billion a year by 2012-2013.

How is he going to pay for it?"

Raising the tax rates on the salaries, dividends and capital gains of those making more than $200,000-$250,000, and phasing out their exemptions and deductions, can raise only a small fraction of the amount. Even if we have a strong economy, Mr. Obama's proposed tax hikes on the dwindling ranks of high earners would be unlikely to raise much more than $30 billion-$35 billion a year by 2012.

Besides, Mr. Obama does not claim he can finance his ambitious plans for tax credits, health insurance, etc. by taxing the rich. On the contrary, he has an even less likely revenue source in mind.

In his acceptance speech at the Democratic convention on Aug. 28, Mr. Obama said, "I've laid out how I'll pay for every dime -- by closing corporate loopholes and tax havens." That comment refers to $924.1 billion over 10 years from what the TPC wisely labels "unverifiable revenue raisers." To put that huge figure in perspective, the Congressional Budget Office optimistically expects a total of $3.7 trillion from corporate taxes over that period. In other words, Mr. Obama is counting on increasing corporate tax collections by more than 25% simply by closing "loopholes" and complaining about foreign "tax havens."

Nobody, including the Tax Policy Center, believes that is remotely feasible. And Mr. Obama's dream of squeezing more revenue out of corporate profits, dividends and capital gains looks increasingly unbelievable now that profits are falling, banks have cut or eliminated dividends, and only a few short-sellers have any capital gains left to tax.

You really should read the entire piece.

So what do you think? Is the Senator delusional? Or is the Senator just playing us voters for big chumps? Is he relying on voter ignorance or irrationality? I guess I hope he's playing the voters for chumps.

Memo To Young Voters

ROBERT SAMUELSON is tryng to look out for you:

"You're being played for chumps. Barack Obama and John McCain want your votes, but they're ignoring your interests. You face a heavily mortgaged future. You'll pay Social Security and Medicare for aging baby boomers. The needed federal tax increase might total 50 percent over the next 25 years. Pension and health costs for state and local workers have doubtlessly been underestimated. There's the expense of decaying infrastructure -- roads, bridges, water pipes. All this will squeeze other crucial government services: education, defense, police.

You're not hearing much of this in the campaign. One reason, frankly, is that you don't seem to care. Obama's your favorite candidate (by 64 percent to 33 percent among 18- to 29-year-olds, according to the latest Post-ABC News poll). But he's outsourced his position on these issues to AARP, the 40 million-member group for Americans 50 and over."

He doesn't see candidate McCain as being less much better.

What should you do?

What should you -- the young -- do? First, get angry -- at the media and think tanks for discussing this problem in misleading euphemisms (for instance, the problem is not an "entitlements crisis"; it's excessive benefits for the old); at the candidates for exploiting your innocence; and at yourself for your gullibility.

Next, start picketing AARP. It's the citadel of seniors' political power and the country's most powerful "special interest." It wields a virtual veto over roughly two-fifths of the federal budget. Your activist groups ought to be there every day with placards reading "Give Us Generational Justice" or "Get Off Our Backs." Ask direct questions of federal candidates about what benefits they'd cut, which they'd keep and why.

You need to appeal to the shame and guilt of older Americans by reminding them that their present self-absorption is not a victimless exercise. Only if older Americans act on their rhetorical pledges of worrying about their children will the political climate change. If you -- the young -- don't stand up for yourselves, believe me, your elders and your politicians won't.

Argentina's Property Grab

WSJ REVIEW & OUTLOOK:

"Argentine President Cristina Kirchner announced this week that her government intends to nationalize the country's private pension system. If Congress approves this property grab, $30 billion in individually held retirement accounts -- think 401(k)s -- managed by private pension funds will become government property.

[ . . . ]

Mrs. Kirchner won't have trouble making the case for expropriation to Congress, which is controlled by her fellow Peronists. When the Argentine government ran out of money in 2001, it blamed the market and increased its own role in the economy. Since then it has imposed price controls, defaulted on its debt, seized dollar bank accounts, devalued the currency, nationalized businesses and tried to set confiscatory tax rates with the aim of making society more "fair." Mrs. Kirchner and her predecessor (and husband) Nestór Kirchner have also preserved the Peronist tradition of big spending.

All of this has been deemed acceptable because of the "crisis." But it has come at a cost: Among emerging market investors Argentina is now considered one of the worst places on the planet to put your money. . . . Argentina, if little else, serves as a cautionary tale on how to ruin an economy."

When the role of government is as the great predator prosperity flees to safer domains.

Uncle Milty On The Draft

From Greg Mankiw's blog, this is MILTON FRIEDMAN ON THE DRAFT:

"In his testimony before the commission, Mr. Westmoreland said he did not want to command an army of mercenaries. Mr. Friedman interrupted, 'General, would you rather command an army of slaves?' Mr. Westmoreland replied, 'I don't like to hear our patriotic draftees referred to as slaves.' Mr. Friedman then retorted, 'I don't like to hear our patriotic volunteers referred to as mercenaries. If they are mercenaries, then I, sir, am a mercenary professor, and you, sir, are a mercenary general; we are served by mercenary physicians, we use a mercenary lawyer, and we get our meat from a mercenary butcher.'"