One person with a belief is equal to a force of ninety-nine with only interests.
John Stuart Mill
Joe "Sore Loser" Miller (R-Denial) Gets Shut Out in Alaska Supreme Court;
Federal Judge Beistline Lifts Certification Stay, Dismisses Miller Lawsuit
I regret I didn't keep my readers updated on Joe Miller's quixotic attempt to disenfranchise nearly 10,000 Alaskan voters by positioning the election to the US Senate as a spelling bee and a test on penmanship. Last Wednesday the Alaska Supreme Court rightly voted on all counts to sustain the lower court ruling saying the election board acted appropriately in allowing phonetically similar spellings of Murkowski's surname to count and ruling that Joe Miller hadn't properly substantiated his fraud allegations.
Miller yesterday indicated that he would not seek to bar lifting of the injunction; the federal judge today lifted the injunction, meaning the election board will certify Lisa Murkowski's election over the next couple of days (so the reelected senator is able to be sworn in next week with the rest of the 112th Congress). The question is whether Miller has permanently damaged his potential candidacy for Begich's seat in 4 years. (Of course, there is some speculation Sarah Palin might be looking at that seat for herself...)
Sallie James/CATO, "Persistent Trade Myths": Thumbs UP!
Ms. James, in the embedded podcast, points out nicely many of the themes I've been pointing out: for instance, trade has become the whipping boy for job losses, but in fact fewer manufacturing jobs have more to do with a more productive workers and increased automation. (One must as well bitterly complain about that nefarious agricultural technology having cost the jobs of millions of farmers! ) She also discusses Paul Rubin's excellent Wall Street Journal article, "The Protectionist Instinct": win-win trades. I recently mentioned notorious US protection of its ethanol industry, at the expense of suppliers like Brazil, a country with a rapidly growing middle class, coveted target consumers of American goods and services. There's also the heavily protected sugar industry; it doesn't keep the cost of baked goods, candies, etc., globally cost competitive.
She references Daniel Griswold's CATO webpage. Here are a few pertinent Griswold column facts:
- "It's not about access to "cheap labor," either: More than three-quarters of outward US manufacturing investment goes to other rich, developed economies like Canada and the European Union...From 2005 to 2009, foreign manufacturers invested an average of $87 billion a year in US factories...while US manufacturing companies were investing an average of $45 billion a year abroad." [Remember Barack Obama's phony job-killing policy wanting to punish US companies for building their overseas operations? An incentive to invest in a country with the second highest business tax rates in the developed world? What do companies do to cut costs (and taxes are a cost)? Yup, cut jobs...]
- [Daniel, why do we want companies to invest in their overseas operations?] "In 2008, US companies sold more than $6 trillion worth of goods and services through overseas affiliates — three times what US companies exported from America....Almost 90 percent of what they produce abroad is sold abroad.."
- [Daniel, how does Obama's ill-advised trade/tax policy affect the bottom 95% of American workers?] "The $26 billion the U.S. government collects each year from tariffs amounts to the most regressive tax it imposes. Remaining U.S. trade barriers drive up the cost of living for low- and middle-income American families, who spend a larger share of their income on goods subject to the highest tariffs, such as food and low-end clothing. Repealing those tariffs would be a tax cut for the poor."
- [Daniel, what do you think about Obama's crony capitalism?] "Protectionism is just another form of subsidy for politically connected producers. The same government that bailed out General Motors and Chrysler protects other special interests with tariffs and production subsidies [and also carries] water for the United Steelworkers union, textile magnates, and the sugar industry by supporting anti-competitive trade barriers."
Amazon Is Transforming the Marketplace
Yesterday's discussions on energy and the public schools initially started as an introduction to this segment. I wanted to talk about the conditions that make economic growth possible. It's really impossible to overstate the damage that an inexperienced, incompetent President and the 111th Congress have done to this country. Fundamentally we have built an economy that is based on liberty, hard work, persistence and innovation.
Let me start with small companies. (Among others, Moya Mason has accumulated a nice summary page of facts and figures about new companies and attrition.) It might be interesting to note some important facts relating to why a number of smaller companies fail. Poor business planning, inadequate capital, (lower) education level and/or poor managerial/accounting knowledge and skills, and insufficient owner commitment/motivation (e.g., a desire to work for oneself, being responsible for other employees, etc.) make a difference. Not all businesses fail because of bankruptcy; for example, some small business owners (e.g., single-person) clear a modest income, but a company has offered a job for more money and/or fewer hours. Maybe the business didn't achieve its goals (e.g., profit, market share, or growth) or required an excessive number of hours affecting one's quality of life.
If you pick any item out of what I just discussed, you can find a rationale for a conservative economic policy: if the business, for instance, finds its limited working capital and hours eaten up by government taxes/fees/mandates, time-consuming paperwork, and fees for expensive lawyers and accountants, etc. Playing winners and losers doesn't help. For instance, since many of my clients are larger organizations, I do well when my clients do well. I have no incentive to build my own practice if, say, my clients put off projects because of budget problems. There are other insights as well: for instance, if I was to make more by collecting unemployment than by subcontracts, what's the point of marketing myself for a new opportunity?
Of course, it's not just Obama whom has increased the federal payroll; many of the jobs created during Bush Administration were also federal (e.g., DHS/TSA). But we have a number of professions (e.g., legal or medicine) where growth is unsustainable. There are only so many costs you can put on business; it distracts business from their core functions and saps resources.
The reason I went off on energy is because it affects businesses in multiple ways. For example, $5/gallon gasoline or diesel may adversely affect store traffic, shipping costs, or your ability to hire the right people or to bid on a project.
What should we be doing? Avoiding things like the FCC's recent power grab to regulate the Internet; promoting free trade legislation which opens more international markets for companies like Amazon.com.
Let me start the remaining discussion by noting that I do not hold Amazon stock, but I have been an Amazon customer for years. (An ex-college professor who likes books? Go figure...) Amazon has broadened its product mix over the past few years.
The day(s) after Christmas are among the top shopping days of the years--and, of course, it's the time you return those gifts that aren't in your size or are duplicates you don't need.
Amazon has patented an intriguing new rules-based technology which, in theory, could drastically reduce the time, cost and effort of gift returns. It would require all parties to be in some Amazon-connected network. I do not know how they intend to implement the concept, but they've had a wish list concept. If someone buying you new clothes got the size wrong, you can have the size automatically adjusted (if available). Or if a friend already purchased that new country CD for you, your second friend's transaction will fail, and he or she will get an interactive or email notification. Perhaps a food gift is incompatible with your known allergies, and you can instead be given an Amazon gift certificate for the value of the gift.
One principle I've repeated on several occasions is that we should design systems to eliminate human error or unnecessary activity. Anytime we can proactively eliminate the hassle from a shopping experience, the better.
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Diagram from Patent 7,831,439, Granted to Amazon.com |
Political Humor
A few originals:
- Congressman Danny Davis and former US Senator Carol Moseley Braun, Chicago mayoral candidates of color, have warned "First Black President" Bill Clinton not to intercede in the upcoming election on behalf of his former senior policy adviser, Rahm "Dead White Fish" Emanuel. Bill Clinton may even find himself stripped of his honorary black American status...
- New York City residents and visitors are angry over the city's sluggish response to the recent snowstorm. The biggest snow job? No, not the unplowed side streets: Mayor Bloomberg's press conference today.
Aretha Franklin, "Winter Wonderland"
