Detailed Abstractions

Well currently, the question is moot as the US government does own 61% of GM stock.  So they are the controlling shareholder, but it seems once again, pundits, journalists, and the rest are acting as if it’s a good thing only because it’s not as bad is it could be.

Via the Economist (here subtitled: An apology is due to Barack Obama: his takeover of GM could have gone horribly wrong, but it has not):

AMERICANS expect much from their president, but they do not think he should run car companies. Fortunately, Barack Obama agrees. This week the American government moved closer to getting rid of its stake in General Motors (GM) when the recently ex-bankrupt firm filed to offer its shares once more to the public…

Which sounds nice in theory, but in reality, the US Treasury through pressure by the Obama administration spent $50 billion dollars to own 61% of the shares.  With roughly 500 million shares available, this means the US government current owns 305 million shares.  At the current stock price today of .375 dollars, their 50 billion dollar investment is worth roughly 115 million dollars.

So even if a theoretical IPO that generates excitement were to happen, in order for the government to recoup $50 billion dollars the stock price will have to increase to $163 dollars a share or by more than 400 times it’s current price.

But of course when it’s not your money you lost, but taxpayers money, I guess that changes the calculus….

The Economist continues:

…Many people thought this bail-out (and a smaller one involving Chrysler, an even sicker firm) unwise. Governments have historically been lousy stewards of industry. Lovers of free markets (including The Economist) feared that Mr Obama might use GM as a political tool: perhaps favouring the unions who donate to Democrats or forcing the firm to build smaller, greener cars than consumers want to buy….

& here’s where it gets more confusing.  After stating the obvious concerns one would normally have when any business starts making decisions based upon politics instead of what’s best for the company (& also what they are legally bound to do, their fiduciary responsibility), they tell us those fears are wrong:

…Mr Obama has been tough from the start. GM had to promise to slim down dramatically—cutting jobs, shuttering factories and shedding brands—to win its lifeline. The firm was forced to declare bankruptcy. Shareholders were wiped out. Top managers were swept aside….

While simultaneously explaining to us how they did in fact make tons of political decisions:

Unions did win some special favours: when Chrysler was divided among its creditors, for example, a union health fund did far better than secured bondholders whose claims should have been senior….

DA posted about how the Obama administration used their leverage and power to bend the law to help the Unions over other creditors who should’ve legally be first in line for any monies (here).

But of course, that wasn’t the only political meddling in GM (the Economist):

Congress has put pressure on GM to build new models in America rather than Asia, and to keep open dealerships in certain electoral districts. But by and large Mr Obama has not used his stakes in GM and Chrysler for political ends….

Then why does the Economist think it’s a good idea?

[President Obama] his goal has been to restore both firms to health and then get out as quickly as possible. GM is now profitable again and Chrysler, managed by Fiat, is making progress. Taxpayers might even turn a profit when GM is sold….

& there we have it.  So long as there wasn’t a huge amount of political intervention and there’s a possibility that the government might recoup all their money…. Thing are good for The Economist.

Of course “good” is being defined by potential future results.  The truth is, the US government buying up private businesses creates far more implications that whether the stock prices rise enough to recoup the money they were given.

Enter Harvard Law School on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation.  Instead of asserting some win based upon theoretical future value, they asked the more important question (here):

In our paper When the Government Is the Controlling Shareholder, recently made publicly available on SSRN, we analyze the ways in which existing corporate law structures of accountability change when the government is the controlling shareholder, and the extent to which federal “public law” structures substitute for displaced state “private law” norms.

& the implications are vast.  In their full research paper (here), they ask a much more serious and long term question.  Which is, what rights do other shareholders have when the government owns a controlling interest and is forcing companies to make decisions that will not benefit shareholders in the long term?

Normally, shareholders have legal rights at the state level where officers of any company are held legally liable to their fiduciary responsibility:

In the handling of money and when one acts as a corporate or individual trustee, there is a fiduciary responsibility owed to the principal party. It is defined as a relationship imposed by law where someone has voluntarily agreed to act in the capacity of a “caretaker” of another’s rights, assets and/or well being. The fiduciary owes an obligation to carry out the responsibilities with the utmost degree of “good faith, honesty, integrity, loyalty and undivided service of the beneficiaries interest.” The good faith has been interpreted to impose an obligation to act reasonably in order to avoid negligent handling of the beneficiary’s interests as well the duty not to favor ANYONE ELSE’S INTEREST (INCLUDING THE TRUSTEES OWN INTEREST) over that of the beneficiary. Further, if the agent should find him/herself in a position of conflicting interests, the agent must disclose the dual agency (acting for two parties at the same time) or risk being accused of constructive fraud in regards to both or either principals….

What this is for, is so shareholders can be protected.  If a company you own shares in decides to willfully make decisions which are counter to this responsibility, shareholders can sue for compensatory damages.

But what if the main decision maker is the federal government?  Even though the Economist seems to be ok with this, though recent history shows this is an incredibly naive position to take (from the full report):

Even though government investment started less than three years ago, there are already troubling anecdotes….

For instance, after the government purchased 71% of AIG and AIG gave 165 million dollars in bonuses which were contractually guaranteed, the “owners” responded with threats.  Senators and Congressmembers bemoaned this.  Told us it was unethical for AIG to follow their contractual obligations because the government owns them.  Even President Obama:

….urged Congress to draft legislation that sends “a strong signal to the executives who run these firms that such compensation will not be tolerated.”

As if Senators, Congressmen, and the President have any idea what pay should be in the first place… (DA post here), but they went further (from the full report):

Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee pushed the idea of suing AIG….

Since they have majority ownership:

[Barney Frank] “I still believe that we have a right legally to recover this, because we can assert our ownership rights and say, yes, you may have a contractual right to a bonus but your rotten performance means you should forfeit it”…

Additionally:

…”senior Treasury officials have been meeting several times a week all spring to review, one by one, the payments to the company’s executives. But the time-consuming discussions have never been resolved whether any of the executives should get paid.”  Now, even routine bonuses are pre-cleared with Kenneth Feinberg, the “compensation czar.”

& what of the bank bailouts?

…bailout recipients faced mounting pressure from the President and Congress to increase lending.  President Obama said he would “hold banks ‘fully accountable’ for the assistance they recieved and that they ‘will have to clearly demonstrate how taxpayer dollars result in more lending for the American taxpayer’”…

What about foreclosures, from people who can’t pay their mortgages?

Rep. Barney Frank “acknowledged that struggling homeowners [weren't] getting help as fast as many in Congress had hoped”, and urged bank executives to put in place a foreclosure moratorium until the government could implement mitigation programs.

These same people who also went after GM & Chrysler for closing too many dealerships.  And then there’s Citigroup, Bank of America, etc, etc, etc. (DA post here).

But this is Harvard, so they talk about ways other countries have handled this.  For instance, the UK started another government agency.  Theoretically it’s independent of politics, with a sole goal to find businesses which need to be saved and to save them.

Which of course is an entire other conversation…. why anyone believes the government can make the bad decision of buying a failing private company and solve the conflict of interest by simply building another government agency is…. well, it’s stupid.

It would be like having an entire corrupt police force arguing that the solution to the corruption is to merely hire more cops.

& therein lies the true problem.  When the press, politicians, and us normal voters, refuse to look into the future to see the true implications of such actions, we end up with answers like “since our [government's] original plan didn’t work, it must only be because we didn’t go far enough.”

I would submit to those willing to critically contemplate, that the decision itself was wrong & all these implications were obvious, known, and serve as further proof that politics and business don’t mix.

More importantly however, they fail in their analysis on a fundamental level.  True critical thinking can never rely on results as proof of anything.  Because it’s always possible to make a bad decision, and have positive results in spite of it.  It’s also completely possible that you make the most perfect decision ever, but it still fails.

So no – the question isn’t really whether the government made a good investment, whether taxpayers will actually recoup the $50 billion spent, or whether GM ultimately succeeds in the long run.

The question should be- should we have done it regardless of the answer to any of those questions?

& I would proffer the answer is easy: no.  The long range implications of such dangerous behavior isn’t worth saving one single car company.

Of course, that’s just my two synapses firing…. they could always be misfiring

The campaign is in full gear, each side trying their best to paint the other side as evil itself…. enter the President (here via Politico):

MENOMONEE FALLS, Wis. – President Obama, playing off the slogan of his 2008 campaign, mocked Republicans Monday as the party of “No, we can’t” and skewered Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for saying he wishes the GOP “had been able to obstruct more” of Democrats’ agenda.

“Obstruct more? Is that even possible?” Obama said with a laugh during a fundraiser for Tom Barrett, Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Wisconsin. “So apparently that’s their plan for the future: ‘No we can’t.’ Clean energy: ‘No we can’t.’ Health care: ‘No we can’t.’ Wall Street reform: ‘No we can’t.’ ”…

First, I’ve written about this before (here).  The short version is just by using critical thinking one should come to the conclusion that obstruction isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  It depends upon what is being obstructed and why.

But honestly, this whole stupid argument just needs to die.

The facts are:  We have a President whose own party controls the Whitehouse, Congress, & the Senate….

Yet it’s someone else’s fault they are unable to manage being the party in power.

It would be as if Microsoft’s CEO went on TV to give an interview and complained that it was AOL’s fault they lacked success.

With all due respect Mr. President, a prior president set some precedent with the phrase “The buck stops here.”  Maybe it’s time to start contemplating that more seriously.

Here we go again…. yet another marketing campaign by the Obama Administration to tout bail out packages that has yet to do anything they’ve previously promised (DA Post here) as a rousing success.   These silly marketing games seem to work well for politicians, but what logic tells us is that you can’t prove a negative.  The Obama Administration can tout bailout monies spent for any reason in to any success they please because proving that it would’ve been better without the money is a nonexistent hypothetical situation for which we can only guess.

& with upcoming elections, for which Democrats currently seem to be in some trouble (polling data here via RealClearPolitics), they will continue this regardless of any true facts which show the opposite.  This week, with some gall, they plan to use the auto show in Detroit (here via Policito):

When the president travels to Michigan on Friday, he’ll tout the revival of General Motors and Chrysler since the auto companies received billions in federal aid and government-assisted bankruptcies….

I say with gall, because they fully intend to tout even more success with blown money when the only major car company to NOT take bail out money is doing better than their rivals (here via Star-Tribune):

DEARBORN, Mich. – Four years ago, Ford mortgaged everything down to the blue oval logo to save itself. Now, even as Americans remain skittish about the economy, it’s reaping big rewards and stealing business from stumbling rivals.

Ford said Friday that it made $2.6 billion from April through June, its fifth straight quarterly profit. The company, which reported record losses in 2008, now predicts it will end 2011 with more cash than debt.

With its two longtime Detroit rivals still finding their way after spending time in bankruptcy last year, Ford, which never took government bailout money, extended its success story…..

Yep, instead of using this time to stand up for the ingenuity, the self reliance, the perseverance of private individuals working without taking tax money, they will use this to tell us all how much better off we are than if they hadn’t.

Oh… and in case you might be one of those people who know about Ford’s success, they have an answer for that as well (here via Detroit News):

Washington — The Senate’s top Democrat argued Ford Motor Co. probably would have collapsed if the government hadn’t bailed out its top two competitors….

So there you have it, even with logical evidence to the contrary, not only did the all knowing government help out two companies that are still barely surviving, but also completely fixed a company for which they contributed nothing directly.

Come on…. we can’t find any good justices to nominate to SCOTUS?  This is what… the third (including the previous administration) uninspired justice nominated in just 5 years.

For such a prestigious and life long appointment, we should expect much better (via Cato here):

Elena Kagan, President Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court, seemed to shock many people when she dodged questions about the Declaration of Independence during her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee…

DA posts here & here

Via Freakanomics here, which will hopefully put to rest the idea that nurses go on strike to “help” patients, from the NBER paper:

…Controlling for hospital-specific heterogeneity, patient demographics and disease severity, the results show that nurses’ strikes increase in-hospital mortality by 19.4% and 30-day readmission by 6.5% for patients admitted during a strike, with little change in patient demographics, disease severity or treatment intensity….

Robert Reich via Salon.com here demonstrates once again how much politics effects his economic analysis.  According to him, this whole economic mess, including a potential backslide can be blamed solely on deregulation:

…starting in the late 1970s, and with increasing fervor over the next three decades, government did just the opposite. It deregulated and privatized. It increased the cost of public higher education and cut public transportation. It shredded safety nets…

Which he believes is causing greater wage disparities:

…We’re back to the same ominous trend as before the Great Recession: a larger and larger share of total income going to the very top while the vast middle class continues to lose ground….

Because with deregulation, of course, companies can become EVIL:

…Companies were allowed to slash jobs and wages, cut benefits and shift risks to employees (from you-can-count-on-it pensions to do-it-yourself 401(k)s, from good health coverage to soaring premiums and deductibles)….

I submit what Mr. Reich fears is freedom – freedom of business owners to hire and fire as they wish, freedom of employees to change jobs easily (401K allows this, pension does not), just freedom.

Secondarily, you can see in his writing that the only thing the government has ever done wrong, is by not getting involved enough.  He doesn’t mention government meddling, deficit spending, enormous new health care expenses, entirely new federal agencies which more money will be needed, idiotic regulations like a moratorium on all oil drilling due to one company’s failure….

Nope, for Mr. Reich, it’s all because the government hasn’t taken enough control over the little people.

Via Cato here, more news on the Obama Administration’s transparency:

The Social Security’s trustees’ annual report is, by law, supposed to be published by April 1. This year, however, the trustees have postponed its release indefinitely. The program’s financial condition continues to remain hidden from public view — and by many accounts will continue to be so until the end of the fiscal year….

Wonder if Reich views this as an issue?

Friday last week, I posted random links including a short story about the current Senate race between Carly Fiorina & Barbara Boxer (here):

…In what has to be either a sign of the end times or a sign of our bright future, Senator Barbara Boxer is in a tight race against former HP CEO Carly Fiorina…

While the true impact of the 2010 midterm elections is still ultimately up to a vote which hasn’t happened, the signs seem to all be pointing to good news based upon selectorate theory (DA post here):

..the theory is also powerful due to its simplicity.  It states that leaders will pay back those people that helped them become leaders in order to stay leaders.  This seems fairly intuitive and agrees with most understanding of incentives, but from here they can make predictions based upon the ration between what they call W, the Winning Coalition, and S,the selectorate or those who can affect who the leader is….

…The corollary with W/S is that when W is small as compared to S, the revenues spent will be mainly private and conversely if W is large compared to S, expenditures will be mostly public….

The basic idea is that the leader will use their power to pay back those who helped them get elected and the larger that coalition is, the less likely that money can come in the form of direct payoffs.

Now theoretically, in a free election system, W is 1/2 of S + 1.  IE – in order to get elected I need 50% of the votes plus one.

What happens however, if the voters through their actions artificially limit W?

How can they you ask?  Easily actually.

Every 10 years post census, each state will redraw district boundary lines based upon population numbers.  The problem is this “redrawing” isn’t done based on some objective science or even just basic math, but based on politics.  The way it currently works is the party in power redraws the districts.

Typically, the only ones who argue against these plans are the parties out of power.  Historically, the minority party would go to court, but courts have answered these challenges by stating that unless specific acts of discrimination or such can be proven, political redistricting is not something the court will actively change.

The reasoning is that voters have recourse already so the court is not necessary.  Their recourse is to elect those who redraw the district boundaries.

Now in states that change majority party from time to time, there are incentives for politicians to not gerymander individual districts too bad, least they be on the receiving end next time.

However, in states like CA or TX, where one party dominates, there are no incentives for the party in power to do anything but draw district boundaries in such a way as to ensure they can maintain power.

This is how we end up with politicians like Barbara Boxer or Nancy Pelosi, who win their individual districts in landslide elections, but whose national approval rating is slightly higher than the IQ of a prune.

This is also the reason (here) “polls showing voter disgust, such as the dismally low congressional approval ratings, only show feelings.  The reality is even with rates of congressional approval as low as 16%, the rate for the election of incumbents is well over 90%.”

But his only works through voter ignorance.  The reality is voters are free to vote for whom they want.  Just because a district is redrawn to include mostly Democrat supporters, doesn’t mean those voters must vote for the Democrat.

We know the truth however for many voters is party loyalty and party identification are much stronger forces in their life than political analysis.

There are reasons for this as well, including the sheer complexity of the government itself.  This level of complexity means for a voter to be truly informed, a good deal of time is needed to sort through the information.  Time most people would rather spend with their families after work.  But I digress…. (read more about The Myth of the Rational Voter here via Cato)

The point is that while voters don’t have to vote party loyalty, the evidence is very strong to suggest they do.

Therefore - back to W/S as a ratio – if voters allow a district to always put a Democrat (or Republican) in that seat, they are effectively making the general election a formality whereas the real election is during the primaries.

This combined with the facts that primary voters represent a very small percentage of total voters & primary voters tend to be true believers, results is an artificial reduction of W in our ratio of W/S, ultimately reducing voter power.

While I tend to stay away from any predictions, the current trending of certain national Senate and Congressional races is showing a promising sign of reversing this trend for at least one election cycle.

Of course for now, these are only polls.  They only tell us what people think during a given time period and nothing more.  The true test for voters will be on election day:

Will voters stand up against incumbents?  Or will they do what they’ve done for the past couple of decades; complain about the worthless government while simultaneously voting to keep the same government?

Boxer might lose?!?!  In what has to be either a sign of the end times or a sign of our bright future, Senator Barbara Boxer is in a tight race against former HP CEO Carly Fiorina (via the Atlantic here):

The latest Field poll looks a bit troubling for Sen. Barbara Boxer: she leads her Republican opponent, former HP CEO Carly Fiorina, by just three percentage points (47% to 44%)…

San Fransisco’s City Council, in an attempt to prove themselves the absolutely dumbest people on Earth, might ban the sale of pets (via Huffington Post here):

…If the ordinance passes San Francisco could be the first city in the nation to ban the sale all pets except fish….

The IMF tells the US to slow down on spending (via the Hill here):

The United States must rein in its deficits sooner than President Barack Obama wants, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Thursday.

In an annual report on the U.S. economy, the IMF said the U.S. faces a “central challenge” in implementing a “credible fiscal strategy” to ensure that public debt is put on a sustainable path without putting the economic recovery in jeopardy….

The NSA responds to the WSJ article (posted here yesterday) concerning the “Perfect Citizen” program (via the Atlantic here):

Today’s Wall Street Journal article by Siobhan Gorman, titled “US Plans Cyber Shield for Utilities, Companies,” is an inaccurate portrayal of the work performed at the National Security Agency. Because of the high sensitivity surrounding what we do to defend our nation, it is inappropriate to confirm or deny all of the specific allegations made in the article. We will, however, provide the following facts: PERFECT CITIZEN is purely a vulnerabilities-assessment and capabilities-development contract. This is a research and engineering effort. There is no monitoring activity involved, and no sensors are employed in this endeavor. Specifically, it does not involve the monitoring of communications or the placement of sensors on utility company systems. This contract provides a set of technical solutions that help the National Security Agency better understand the threats to national security networks, which is a critical part of NSA’s mission of defending the nation. Any suggestions that there are illegal or invasive domestic activities associated with this contracted effort are simply not true. We strictly adhere to both the spirit and the letter of U.S. laws and regulations….

I’m not saying I automatically disagree that their statement is completely accurate, but we should not forget the NSA is the same agency who for years denied even having something like Echelon.

In other administration news, WSJ Online is reporting (here):

The federal government is launching an expansive program dubbed “Perfect Citizen” to detect cyber assaults on private companies and government agencies running such critical infrastructure as the electricity grid and nuclear-power plants, according to people familiar with the program….

As a concerned citizen, you might ask yourself… how will this work?

…The surveillance by the National Security Agency, the government’s chief eavesdropping agency, would rely on a set of sensors deployed in computer networks for critical infrastructure that would be triggered by unusual activity suggesting an impending cyber attack, though it wouldn’t persistently monitor the whole system, these people said….

& herein lies the problem…. the internet wasn’t designed to predict or prevent attacks, so the question becomes – how do they plan to do this?

Do they plan to redesign the internet?  Or do they plan to spy on all computers connected?  Combination of both?*

In this age of “transparency” I’m sure we can find out:

….Defense contractor Raytheon Corp. recently won a classified contract for the initial phase of the surveillance effort valued at up to $100 million, said a person familiar with the project.

An NSA spokeswoman said the agency had no information to provide on the program. A Raytheon spokesman declined to comment….

Ahhhh…. that clears it up.  The administration bent on transparency is implementing a secret program to monitor most internet activity without telling anyone what it is.

Please note: I do agree that say specific intrusion detection techniques and encryption would be left out of the public.

But for this administration, the transparent, no more Patriot Act administration, to task the world’s number one cyber-spy agency to secretly monitor internet activity of American citizens without telling those citizens exactly what it’s doing – well, whatever it is, it’s not transparent.

*side bar* To get an idea of cybersecurity threats, how difficult it is to detect without intruding on personal computers, and just an overall great article about a real life cyber-mystery, I highly recommend The Enemy Within published by The Atlantic:

When the Conficker computer “worm” was unleashed on the world in November 2008, cyber-security experts didn’t know what to make of it. It infiltrated millions of computers around the globe. It constantly checks in with its unknown creators. It uses an encryption code so sophisticated that only a very few people could have deployed it. For the first time ever, the cyber-security elites of the world have joined forces in a high-tech game of cops and robbers, trying to find Conficker’s creators and defeat them. The cops are failing. And now the worm lies there, waiting ……

The full article is well worth the time.

More bad news for Obama & the Democrats for 2010 elections.  Via The Atlantic here:

Chris Cillizza’s Morning Fix reports new data from Gallup showing that independents now favor a generic Republican candidate for Congress over a generic Democrat by 12 points….

& as is continually the case with this congress, more bad news for freedom.  Via The Hill here:

The 30-second campaign ad could become a thing of the past for third-party groups if the Democrats’ campaign finance legislation becomes law.

Media strategists argue the new disclosure requirements would eat into the majority of their ad time….

& while we’re talking about lack of freedom…. what might Kagan do about this “disclose” act?  Via Reason.com here:

As solicitor general of the United States, Elena Kagan argued in front of the Supreme Court that the federal government had the constitutional authority to ban certain political pamphlets. She also strongly implied that some political books, if they were partisan enough, could also be censored…..

Does is matter that she’s against free political speech?  Unlikely…. via Yahoo News here:

…Kagan’s performance in the Judiciary Committee drew praise from Democrats and compliments even from some critics, putting her on a path to confirmation by the full Senate sometime in July.

“She will be confirmed. I believe she will be confirmed,” said Republican Orrin Hatch, a member of the Judiciary Committee, predicting there would be at least some Republican support…..

& least we forgot, there’s still an oil spill…. which is being screwed up by the same government that is promising to “fix” healthcare….  Via The Heritage Foundation here, all kinds of people are offering help, but we’re still considering it:

In total, there have been 27 countries and 5 international organizations offering boom, dispersants, skimmers, vessels, bird rehabilitation equipment as well expertise. Along with the other important action items for the administration to undertake, accepting international assistance must be a more urgent priority. The Department of State has a chart that lists the equipment and expertise sitting on the sidelines with most of the status orders “under consideration.” Owners of the equipment have been rapid in their response to government queries but the equipment remains idle. It simply needs to be better….

Not to mention the economic killing impact the asinine moratorium is having:

Meanwhile, the Gulf continues to suffer. It’s not just government incompetence when it comes to the environmental cleanup; the administration’s policy decisions are making the economic harm much worse – especially the offshore drilling moratorium. Although the ban was only meant to affect those rigs operating in water 500 feet or deeper, it has led to a de facto ban on shallow water drilling….

Butler said that only one of his four drill rigs are operating; all four were drilling before the spill. Spartan has six contracts that would put his entire fleet back to work, but he can’t get going until the permits come through, he added. The week before last, Butler said he had to lay off 72 employees. Come Tuesday he’ll have to let another 140 go. “That’s 140 families, is how I look at it,” Butler said….

Not only incompetence in the clean-up, idiocy in quickly implemented, but poorly thought out regulations (DA post here), The Atlantic takes all this and poses an interesting moral question here:

In this video from Climate Desk partner Need to Know, Atlantic correspondent and oil expert Lisa Margonelli talks to Jon Meacham about halting drilling in the Gulf. She explains her view that Americans don’t have a right to drive cars and use gasoline unless we’re willing to drill for it in our own backyard….

For good news – research conducted on parents and children in reference to video games demonstrates that most parents actually don’t need government help.  Via The Technology Liberation Front (here):

• 93% of the time parents are present at the time games are purchased or rented
• 64% of parents believe games are a positive part of their children’s lives
• 86% of the time children receive their parents’ permission before purchasing or renting a game
• 48% of parents play computer and video games with their children at least weekly
• 97% of parents report always or sometimes monitoring the games their children play
• 76% of parents believe that the parental controls available in all new video game consoles are useful

It might be scary to those in government who are continuing to try to push more laws concerning how parents raise their children as it discounts the need for those laws, but for us normal folk – it gives us what we see everyday:

Once again, these findings illustrate that parents are parenting!