Super Bowl, Twosday, and Beyond

With Super Duper Tuesday probably the most important thing happening this week (sorry football fans), I thought it’d be timely to provide some information.

We are in trying times this year, with housing, recession, credit worries, elections, etc., which is why there has been so much volatility in the markets. People are uncertain what will happen. To mitigate some of that risk, everyone should be going out to vote when it is their state’s turn. Before voting, of course, you should layout all the options, and I don’t mean just Democratic and Republican.

In my humble opinion, I think the US’s political system is very flawed. There are two major parties, people don’t do their research, people don’t vote, and the voting system isn’t optimal.

Many people think that there are just Democrats and Republicans when there are many other parties and other people. It’s not all the people’s fault, the media highlights the extremes and the two largest parties because they are perceived as more important, and they’ll get better ratings. This continues the cycle. Don’t get me wrong, I think the media is very important, in fact, just me writing this “rant” is part of journalism. Journalism, along with Education, Healthcare (?), and of course Finansophy are among the most influential and important careers anyone can be in.

People don’t really take the time to look into a candidate and everything they believe in. They are deciding on The Commander-in-Chief of the USA, they should do some more research. Maybe that majority of people that aren’t voting are all in protest against the system, but not voting doesn’t help. You allow a minority of people to control the majority when you don’t vote.

How’s this relate to Finansophy? By taking part in our voting system, you have a say on what will happen, thus giving your projections some more accuracy and thus less uncertainty. You’ll also be able to capture what people are thinking about, what affects them, what plans the future leader may pursue. This should allow you to make better judgments on what will happen in the future with less risk, and thus higher risk-adjusted returns. The President, believe it or not, has a lot of say into what’s going to happen to the economy and its people, as seen by Bush’s recent economic stimulus plan. They also bring with them all their supporters, whether it be their Cabinet, or Justices. Each of the candidates have a different moral philosophy that they use to judge what is right and wrong for people in the US. Not voting is essentially giving up your right to complain if anything you don’t like happens. It also perpetuates the vicious cycle and doesn’t solve the problem. At the minimum, you should protest vote (and vote for a political philosopher?) to show that people are listening and not liking what is happening.

There are also many superior voting systems out there than our electoral college. Read up on them and try to promote them so that we have a fairer system that everyone may be more willing to participate in.

In Plato’s Republic, Philosopher-Kings were the ideal rulers of everyone because they knew what was fundamentally Good and thus all their actions were maximally just for everyone. Now go out there and look for a Philosopher-King!

(Image CC-BY-SA telethon.)