Risky Business

B: Let me be clear about one thing: as a businessman, I don’t care about creating jobs. I do not. No businessman in his right mind cares about creating jobs. Even people who work in staffing don’t create jobs, they fill positions.

But business isn’t in the job-creation business. Business is about providing a good or a service for a fee. The reason businesses hire is because they want to be able to provide more of their goods or services for an increased fee. None of this should be surprising yet.

Negative outcomes, in particular a business operating at a loss, are referred to as risk. Businesses look for favorable circumstances to make sure they minimize risk. The easiest way to do that is to ensure that operating costs, the money it takes to keep a business going, remain low.

There are a lot of factors. Taxes, including corporate taxes- which is the main reason most US corporations were incorporated in New Jersey and pay taxes there. I happen to live there, so it’s simply coincidental that my companies are based there. Local cost of living, which affects wages. You can pay someone significantly lower in Idaho than you can in New York, and maintain a competitive standard of living.

But the single biggest factor is the health of that business’ sector of the economy. The HD TV market is booming, despite the recession; it isn’t like Sony is going to lay off people who build TVs just because the newspaper industry is dying. And by health I mean a strong amount of demand for the product. Recession-proof industries, as they’re sometimes called, usually have to do with fantasy and escape, TV, movies, comics. People spend as much or even more on their entertainment because it helps keep them from wallowing in the fear and uncertainty that exists in other parts of their lives.

But the entire reason for a business to exist is to make money. If creating jobs can help that business make more money, or more accurately, when, that’s when jobs will be created. Corporate profits are near an all-time high, corporate stockpiles of cash are at an all-time high. The only thing missing, really, is confidence, and that’s building. When businesses are confident that their spending won’t create products without sufficient demand, the business cycle will resume. With great haste.

DI: What about the minimum wage? There’s criticism that that has adversely impacted job creation.

B: If you want to purely create jobs numerically, yes, you could cut the minimum wage. You could also change the way that labor laws work, making it more cost-effective to employ more part-time workers as opposed to full-time employees. You could “create” a lot of jobs that way. But the jobs wouldn’t pay a living wage. They wouldn’t provide full-time employment. And they would externalize costs, such as healthcare, onto the community. It’s important, when thinking about jobs, to remember that quantity and quality are distinct, here.

The effect of the minimum wage on businesses is it slightly raises the bar for new hiring. An employer who might be able to profitably employ someone at less than minimum wage will have to wait until their profit margin increases enough to pay the minimum wage instead.

But I’d like to address the accusation, now ridiculously part of the name of a law that’s passed the House, that the healthcare bill is “job-killing.” You know what kills jobs? Not knowing if you’ll be able to keep offering employees healthcare. Because that’s a really big deal, and it’s here where that word uncertainty crops up again. Let’s say you hire on three new workers, and in one year, or five, if healthcare costs continue to rise, you’re suddenly faced with either cutting your workforce or cutting healthcare. Firing workers cuts profit, but getting rid of healthcare is likely to lose you your best people, which will not only shrink your workforce but ensure that the remaining workforce is less efficient. In the long run that could cost you more.

Healthcare reform was an attempt to bend the cost curve. Basically, healthcare has been getting more expensive for a long time, so the law was an attempt to shrink the size of that expansion. And this wasn’t just a dewy-eyed liberal social program, either. When you look at budget projections, the single factor that threatens our nation’s financial stability more than any other is healthcare costs- mostly for seniors. The law is working to push down costs. And keeping costs down makes hiring more attractive.

And the law that passed isn’t perfect, but no law ever is. The best path forward is usually to make amendments, to change the things that don’t work well while preserving the things that do. But if Republicans came up with a good, common-sense plan, if they found the common ground that I think exists on healthcare and offered to replace the PPACA with it, I have no doubt the Democrats would jump at the chance. But I suspect their preference is, as has typically been the case, for no regulation at all, that they’d like to get rid of reform and go back to the status quo, which isn’t sustainable.

It’s funny, because Republicans demonized the healthcare law for including death panels which didn’t exist, but their push to destroy the law could easily put us into a position where insurance company bureaucrats do sit on death panels, deciding who is worth saving. And I don’t mean to fear monger, there; at some point I think saving a human life becomes too expensive. And to be realistic, medicine is an exhaustible good in a lot of respects. So deciding how best to allocate those resources is an important question. But I think it’s a question that we as Americans, that we as consumers and premium payers, deserve to be a part of answering.

Fear Itself

DI: It wasn’t long ago that we were talking about fear, but in view of what happened in Arizona, namely the shooting of Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the discussions that have followed, I’d like to talk to you about using fear as a tactic, and how you feel about it.

B: I think we always run into trouble when we try to compare what I did, which wasn’t unlike urban warfare, with politics. Politics is supposed to be about finding the best solutions to problems. What I do, or did, was find ways to solve problems that didn’t respond to normal means. Crime isn’t something you’ll ever entirely legislate away; nor is violence.

And that’s why use of fear as a weapon in both cases is different. Fear in the realm of politics goes from Glenn Beck’s bunker mentality to full-fledged terrorism. Both ends of that spectrum are bad, because they’re necessarily anti-reason; rather than seek an amicable solution, they seek to prevent solutions and outcomes that aren’t favorable to them- even if that means preventing all solutions.

And I’ll admit it: I’ve used fear as a weapon, a bludgeon, even. But I’m willing to stand up and defend it, because I was using fear for the greater good against an uncommon evil.

DI: But don’t you think the same argument could be made? Don’t you think that people who really are pushing scary rhetoric feel like the world needs them to say those things?

B: Absolutely not.

Politicians, and I’m lumping in anyone who’s trying to join their voices into the political conversation, and I’d include the both of us in there, as well, can and should argue reason, logic, facts. It isn’t that they can’t argue based on those things, it’s that they often believe, perhaps even fear, that they can’t win arguments on the merits- and not to take too much of a dig, but given the merits they’re arguing on I’m not surprised.

Just to take a moment, here, arguing for unaffordable lower taxes for the wealthy, arguing to keep the unsustainable medical status quo, these aren’t popular ideas, and they’re not even fiscally responsible ones. I’m not even sure they’re coherent, frankly.

But by way of contrast I believed, when I started, that criminals were scared. No, that’s not right; I told myself they were scared. Because I was. I was terrified. I lived in a world where my parents, the very essence of what safety and security are supposed to be, could be taken. In an instant. Without warning. The world was so terrifying and mean and vicious that it could snatch us out of the night on a whim.

So I told myself that if I was this scared, criminals had to be, too. So what I had to become was that fear, that uncertainty.

DI: It’s funny that you mention “uncertainty.” Because uncertainty is making a comeback, as an argument against Democratic policies.

B: Uncertainty is just another club to use against programs conservatives don’t like. And I know some people roll their eyes and call me a partisan when I say things like that, but I don’t want that to be true. I want the people I disagree with to have a frank, adult discussion about how to fix things. I want an opposition who bargains in good faith, and argues in good faith. The absolute last thing that I want is to have to tell myself, again and again, that there are people who can’t be trusted, not even to agree to demonstrable facts, and that our collective destiny is still tethered to them.

But what I mean when I say that it’s just a bludgeon, it’s because uncertainty has nothing to do with the Democrats. Uncertainty has everything to do with change. Businesses want to know what the political landscape is going to look like in ten years, and anything that makes it harder to know that future makes them nervous. So when Republicans talk about repealing the health care law, which a lot of companies have already started spending money to implement, that makes businesspeople nervous. When we’re told that taxes might change, that programs might be cut- that makes us nervous. What business really, truly wants, is for things to stay the same as they are right now. And the same can be said of a lot of Americans, too. Unfortunately, that’s neither fiscally nor politically possible. In the long run, we can’t afford business as usual. And in the short term, the Republicans are making a lot of noise about cuts- though I suspect, as has already happened, the number they expect to cut will continue to shrink [Note: Their initial goal was to cut $100 billion, but that’s already been cut in half].

DI: Sorry, I think I derailed. You were scared, and so criminals had to be, too.

B: Right. I told myself they were cowards, in the same way bullies ridicule their victims for flaws they often hate in themselves. It was a coping mechanism, in the beginning, though one I wasn’t equipped to recognize at the time.

But I think innately I recognized that fear, given how effective it was against me, how crippling, could be used as a weapon. So I looked for what really terrorized me, and it was a single childhood incident with bats. And there are certain animals, and insects, arachnids, that make people anxious.

I didn’t want to dress up in a full-on bat costume, that would have turned me into a Scooby Doo villain, but I wanted to take the things that make bats scary and use them. The wings, that make them appear larger than they are. The mystique; most people think nearly all bats are vampiric and prey on humans. But ultimately, the most troubling thing about bats is they set off people’s sense that they’re in danger. I had to look, sound, move, in a dangerous way. From there the rest came together.

And what was strange is how much of the danger became built up. I never killed anyone; though I’ve put a few men in wheel chairs and worse. But the legends have my body count into the hundreds, at least.

DI: Don’t you worry that saying that, while there’s a new Batman active, might undercut him?

B: This isn’t the first time there’s been a replacement for me, though it’s likely the most permanent. And not all Batmen have been non-lethal. I have my preference, and I’ve made that preference known to those I’ve worked with, but frankly I don’t outright employ the people I work with- and I certainly can’t dictate terms.

DI: But Clark told me last year- or is it two years ago, now- that you actually pay salaries and insurance for the League.

B: That’s true, but that doesn’t mean I employ them. I compensate them as best I can for the service they render, but I don’t employ them. I don’t endorse what they do, or take credit for it. I’ve been blessed with means, so I try and see that people who do good work can continue to. That’s it. I think it would ruin the spirit of the gesture if I ever attempted to assert the ability to control others.

DI: Like Diana.

B: That’s overly simplistic. Diana killed Maxwell Lord because she didn’t have a choice. It was unfortunate that it played out on live television, but Lord was controlling Clark. She fought like a hellcat, but Clark was killing her, slowly. She did what she had to to survive, and to stop Lord from using Clark against the rest of us. I’m certain the choice she made saved my life, and probably a lot of other lives.

And I also don’t pay her. Sure, she gets the same check from the League fund as Clark did and I do. And all three of us donate ours to charity. I have more money than I could ever need, Diana has the Amazon ambassadorial stipend, but I never understood Clark. He told me, “It’s not like we need a bigger apartment… just don’t tell Lois.” Oops. She knew, of course. He couldn’t keep a thing from her. Hell of a reporter, hell of a woman.

DI: You speak like she’s dead.

B: Not dead. We’re still friends. But there’s a part of her that’s dead to me. I laughed when he made me promise not to date her, when he was dying. We went out a long time ago- but it ended long before they ever became serious. So that part of Lois has been dead to me for a very long time.

But obviously there’s a line there, somewhere. We’ve had a few of our friends turn violent, start hurting innocent people. I remember the day we officially stripped Hal Jordan of his membership. It wasn’t a pleasant day. But I always figured the League had high enough standards. If someone could make it in the League, then I wasn’t going to micromanage their behavior.

DI: On that note, actually, I’m aware of one specific League member who you sponsored, and then personally fired for about what we’re talking about.

B: And I’ll assume she sent you an “anonymous” email signed with an “H.” Huntress came from Gotham. She had a similar life to mine. I presumed a kinship with her. I helped train her, and when she showed promise, and maturity, I sponsored her membership in the League. And for a time she performed admirably. Until we were attacked by a hit team sponsored by Lex Luthor.

DI: My lawyer’s advised me against us using Luthor’s name specifically unless we have proof of criminal malfeasance.

B: I have his big bald head on the Watchtower’s security cameras. I put his scowl from a different angle on a Christmas card I send to him every year.

Anyway, Luthor’s team included a man code-named Prometheus. He’s extremely dangerous, to the point where he briefly took control of the tower from us that last time he’d been there. I managed to subdue him. A short time later, I discovered Huntress about to kill him. Mind you, he was incapacitated and in custody. She was about to murder someone on the Watchtower, in our headquarters. I’d never liked calling it a “Justice” League, but killing someone like that, there, was antithetical to everything we stood for.

That might have been the end of it, a small reprimand, a stern warning. But she argued the point with me. She couldn’t even understand why we would allow someone so dangerous to live. And I realized she never would. So she didn’t belong in the League. Ultimately, there’s a world of difference between using lethal means in the heat of battle, and executing someone because you’re afraid of them when you have power over them.

DI: Do you think there’s anything to the fact that the execution would have been similar to the way your parents were killed?

B: Hmm. Perhaps. Maybe I just don’t like to see people murdered.

DI: But Prometheus was a bad guy. He’s since gone on to kill innocent people. Do you think she’s wrong to have wanted him dead?

B: I’m not sure. I certainly haven’t tried to stop her career, and we still work together on occasion. I simply disagreed with her on that point, and felt strongly enough that I removed my sponsorship. I didn’t want her actions to reflect upon me, or to encourage similar behavior in other League members. For better or worse people looked up to us. It was a part of our pact with the public that we try and live up to that.

DI: Okay. Let’s end with: do you think you or Huntress was more feared during your tenure as Batman?

B: I was. For a lot of reasons. I was older, more established. Taller, thicker, just more physically imposing. I think there was a sense, after I’d been in Gotham for a long time, that vigilantes cropping up were operating in my shadow, often under my tutelage- whether it was true or not. Besides which, I don’t think Huntress ever really cared about being subtle, or even frightening. She was more impetuous and forceful. Not to stretch our metaphors too far, but our politics could probably use a lot more of her, and a lot less of me.

Though when I mentioned that there have been several fill-in Batmen- she was one of them, during the earthquake, and she did a fine job. I’ve never held Batman has to be a man.

We're All Mad Here

DI: I understand you feel strongly about the Tucson shooting.

B: It makes me want to go out and punch somebody in the face.

DI: Someone who deserves it, presumably.

B: Preferably… but senseless gun violence, it strikes a nerve. I think punching anyone would make me feel better, at this point.

DI: Do you miss it, then? Being able to walk out onto the street and vent that frustration? Find a bastard and punish him.

(pause)

B: Yes.

DI: As someone who’s been the object of your seething gaze, have you ever considered that you might have anger issues?

B: Yes.

DI: Yes as in you’ve thought about it or yes that you’ve concluded that you do.

B: I do. Occasionally.

But most of that is explainable, between my childhood, and exposure to crime and to warlike circumstances, I think anyone would have rage issues. So given those facts, I think my anger is larger within range.

DI: Sounds like you’ve seen a professional about this.

B: Dated a few.

DI: Professionals?

B: Doctors. Wiseass.

And I think it doesn’t take too many run-ins with genuine sociopaths to make you wonder about your own sanity.

DI: And that’s been a recurring theme in the Tucson shooting. Jared Loughner was apparently a very disturbed man, and there have been some who believe that the state of mental health care in the country lags behind even that of our lagging health care system. You’ve been in Arkham Asylum more times than most, what are your thoughts?

B: I’ve been to, and indeed inside Arkham, but never as a client- I want to be clear about that. There are enough rumors about me being crazy without you starting one about me being committed.

DI: Not to mention that Arkham isn’t your average mental health facility. It’s the Mayo Clinic for crazies- you’ve got to be somebody to reserve a padded cell there.

B: But Arkham is a mess. It’s a sinkhole for money. Most of the inmates don’t have insurance or assets. It’s funded almost entirely by a local charity group that matches donations and money budgeted from state and local government.

DI: I don’t want you to be alarmed by me actually doing a little research, but you fund that organization, don’t you?

B: Yeah. But what I mean to say is that there isn’t a lot of money to be had to pay for the genuinely mentally ill; that goes double for the dangerous, criminal mentally ill. Ronald Reagan gets a lot of the blame, though in truth he’s mostly responsible for California, where he was Governor at the time. He signed a bill changing the standards for involuntary commitment, and at the same time cut funding and staffing of state-run institutions. The idea was to shift the unstable into community facilities, but those facilities were almost all either underfunded or nonexistent. California’s just the most famous example of what happened across the country, seen mostly as a movement to strengthen patient rights. Its unintended consequence was closing down a lot of options for care for people who didn’t have a lot of alternatives. Arkham is just the most egregious example I’m aware of. That’s why I give money to it- like my parents before me.

DI: I’d like to spend a moment discussing what some have called the revolving door nature of Arkham.

B: I know a lot of people look at supercriminals elsewhere, who are capable of growing to the size of buildings, or causing earthquakes, and wonder why Arkham can’t handle its more human-sized inmates. But the Joker, on an average year, takes in over $60 million dollars from his various criminal enterprises. About 70% of that ends up being confiscated, most of it ending up in state coffers or being returned to his victims, but he is far from the most successful criminal in this city. This is a huge cottage industry. You simply can’t pay guards a quarter of a million dollars and expect that none of them will be swayed by paydays that large.

DI: Wait, did you just say you pay the guards a quarter mill a year?

B: Most of them are ex-Special Forces. Would you really expect anyone else to either be willing to take the job or be qualified for it? Arkham is a special case, with some of the most dangerous, unstable individuals on Earth, and the people who deal with them have to be properly compensated. And the same goes for the rest of the staff, from contractors to doctors to the custodians. They’re all comparably well paid, but between threats of violence and bribes, I’m not surprised at the number of escapes per year. About half of the people who are repeat offenders are genius-level intellects with peculiar and esoteric knowledge and skill sets.

DI: But given the recidivism, are you still against the death penalty?

B: If it’s through the courts, if it’s done properly… well, I’ll never be for the death penalty, but I’m not completely against it, either. At some point, the lives they take matter more than any principles we might want to uphold. And I mean any. And it’s acknowledging things like that that makes me glad to be out of that game, where that kind of decision was in my hands.

DI: And I hear that one reason why most of your gallery of rogues don’t get the chair, or at least put in sane people prison, is the constant use of the insanity defense. And I know you’re more in the apprehension side of things, but I understand you’ve sat in on enough insanity defense cases to have an idea of how that works. I know outside Gotham it’s still a fairly infrequent defense.

B: Right. But after John Hinckley got off after shooting Reagan, it picked up here. There are several tests involved with an insanity plea. The first is the M’Naghten rule, which most people know but have never heard by name. Basically, for someone to be not guilty by reason of insanity you have to prove that they don’t have the ability to understand the difference between right and wrong. There’s a modifier to M’Naghten, that someone can’t be guilty if an impulse to commit an admittedly wrong act was “irresistible,” though that’s often considered too vague and broad.

But what’s probably had the most impact on these kinds of cases is that the burden of proof in New Jersey is on the state. So the state has to prove that the Joker was sane at the moment he commits a crime, and prove that beyond a reasonable doubt.

DI: Wow. This has been thoroughly depressing. But I seem to recall you having an amusing Joker anecdote to play us out.

B: Right. I once apprehended the Joker in Idaho. He was attempting, through food-tampering and theft on a wide scale to cause what he called, “The Great American Poh-tah-toe Famine.” He was giddy, like he always is- he even seems to like getting caught- until I told him that Idaho doesn’t have an insanity defense. They abolished it. He was going to go to real prison, and given the size of his crime spree, wasn’t likely to survive his sentence. He stared blankly for a moment, then said, “Poe-tay-toe, poh-tah-toe, let’s call the whole thing off.” Unfortunately, Idaho allowed extradition to Gotham, where he was wanted on more serious charges, and the cycle started over again. Every time he gets caught, I lobby the state to send him back to Idaho for his crimes, but so far there haven’t been any takers. Still, for a few months he had to contemplate spending the rest of his life in a real Idaho jail cell. I don’t think he found that funny.