The influence of each human being on others in this life is a kind of immortality.
John Quincy Adams
Coming Summer Attractions: HR 459 Audit the Fed
July Vote: Thumbs UP!
Let us recall a key finding from a recent GAO audit, one of the few redeeming amendments to Dodd N Frankenstein, co-sponsored by pro-liberty conservative Ron Paul. From unelected.org:
What was revealed in the audit was startling: $16T [> US GDP] had been secretly given out to US banks and corporations and foreign banks everywhere from France to Scotland. From the period between December 2007 and June 2010, the Federal Reserve had secretly bailed out many of the world’s banks, corporations, and governments. The Federal Reserve likes to refer to these secret bailouts as an all-inclusive loan program, but virtually none of the money has been returned and it was loaned out at 0% interest.
When you have every single member of the Republican Party in Congress and progressive Congressmen like Dennis Kucinich sponsoring a bill to audit the Federal Reserve, you realize that the Federal Reserve is an entity onto itself, which has no oversight and no accountability.
The list of institutions that received the most money from the Federal ReserveI referenced a Mitch Snyder post on the Fed in my May 14 post, including the above list of secret loans; I reproduced the list here to draw attention to (1) the number of foreign banks receiving hundreds of billions and (2) the massive amount of loans, not listed under TARP. Be clear: the printing of fiat currency has risks, including inflation and the declining purchasing power of the dollar. But I also have issues with our meddling in European and other economies. More importantly, there's an issue of a more global agenda which potential risks to national sovereignty: the last thing I want is subjugation to some central planning elitists letting no good crisis go to waste at the expense of our unalienable rights.
Citigroup: $2.5 trillion
Morgan Stanley: $2.04 trillion
Merrill Lynch: $1.949 trillion
Bank of America: $1.344 trillion
Barclays PLC (United Kingdom): $868 billion
Bear Sterns: $853 billion
Goldman Sachs: $814 billion
Royal Bank of Scotland (UK): $541 billion
JP Morgan Chase: $391 billion
Deutsche Bank (Germany): $354 billion
UBS (Switzerland): $287 billion
Credit Suisse (Switzerland): $262 billion
Lehman Brothers: $183 billion
Bank of Scotland (United Kingdom): $181 billion
BNP Paribas (France): $175 billion
and many many more including banks in Belgium of all places
A Damning Indictment on the Public School System
I stumbled across Compton v. Addison on the Wrights' Law blog ironically while working on my Political Humor segment. Addison has a learning disability problem that went untreated for years; the Compton district was sued on the basis of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which requires states to enact policies and procedures to ensure that “All children with disabilities … regardless of the severity of their disabilities, and who are in need of special education and related services, are identified, located, and evaluated …"
In essence, the Compton school district is trying to appeal adverse lower court rulings based on the rationale that Addison's case is one of negligence, not of intent. (Count to 10, Ronald.... I have zero tolerance for this nonsense. Every child is a gift from God. This goes beyond blatant disregard for professional ethics and due diligence; I submit it violates Addison's fundamental human rights and dignity. If it was in my power, I would terminate for cause any teacher or administrator whom looked the other way. I would bring them up before any relevant professional or licensing board.)
Let me quote a few key facts from the blog post (my edits):
- "On standardized testing in eighth grade, Addison was reading at the 4.0 grade level and doing math at the 4.3 grade level. She was promoted to ninth grade."
- "Addison received low and failing grades in academic subjects. On standardized testing in ninth grade, Addison’s reading and general mathematics were below the 1st percentile. Addison was promoted to the tenth grade."
- [This one really gets to me.] "Addison was quiet and withdrawn. She had no friends. Her teachers described her work as 'gibberish and incomprehensible.' Her anxiety increased. She could not enter the classroom without coaching. She colored with crayons, played with dolls, and urinated on herself in class. The mental health provider recommended that Addison be evaluated for learning disabilities and an IEP. The school did not follow though. At the end of tenth grade, Addison failed all academic subjects. She failed the California High School Exit Exam, and performed below the first percentile in reading and math. Addison was promoted to the eleventh grade."
- "In September 2004, Addison’s mother wrote a letter to the school. She requested that the district conduct an evaluation, a behavioral assessment, and hold an IEP meeting for Addison."
Sugar, Sugar..
This blog is pro-free trade and has a particular distaste for the corrupt sugar subsidy program; IBD has an excellent editorial It's Time To End The Job-Killing U.S. Sugar Policy. Some key takeaways:
- "An Iowa State University study has found that the federal sugar program costs U.S. consumers roughly $3.5 billion a year and deprives the workforce of 20,000 jobs."
- "The Commerce Department has determined that for every sugar-growing or sugar-harvesting job the sugar program saves, nearly three sugar-related manufacturing jobs are lost."
- "Food manufacturers that use sugar have moved jobs to Canada, where the price of sugar is less than half the U.S. price, and to Mexico, where they're two-thirds the American rate. Kraft, Hershey and Brach's are three brand-name companies that have closed U.S. facilities and moved their operations out of the country."
Dick Carpenter/Cato Institute,
"Occupational Licensing and the Poor": Thumbs UP!
I never knew there were state licenses for shampooers. In fact, the Institute for Justice lists 5 states, led by Tennessee with 70 days of training, 2 exams, and a $140 fee. (No doubt given the fact I'm a do-it-myself amateur: a licensed shampooer would assure me that a professional shampoo job would leave my hair fuller, more manageable, and more appealing to the ladies...)
Licensing can be a way of independently establishing one's qualifications for individuals and businesses. But it can also serve to raise a barrier to entry for a profession, a form of protectionism. Let me give an example from personal experience. We can think of college degrees from accredited program an an example. When I started my graduate studies at the University of Texas, I was seriously considering the PhD program. There were multiple reasons I stopped at my Master's, the biggest one being that my teaching assistant support was not renewed after my first year (I had to borrow money from my grandfather to get my thesis in abstract algebra typed and printed). But another consideration at the time was the fact that there was a glut of mathematicians on the market at the time; UT found its doctoral graduates were having placement problems. One of the newly minted PhD's went to some obscure state branch school in Missouri. So they decided to engage of program population control by raising the qualification standard for PhD candidate status to 6 exams. I knew one married couple where the wife did qualify but her husband failed to nail down his sixth exam within the given time period.
David Young has a broad overview of occupational licensing, pointing out nearly 20% of the work force operates under some licensing arrangement and nearly 500 occupations are licensed in at least one state. Stan Gross has a nice summary overview of research on occupational licensing and related service quality; a broad summary is that there is a suggestive but not firmly established link. (Among other things, there are various reliability and validity issues with relevant outcome measures.)
There is a broad trade-off here: for example, certifications are often seen as a rationalization for raising rates or salary (again, using an education context, we see a number of teachers going on to earn a Master's, which usually translates to a nice raise at the public school; however, whether or not students benefit commensurate to the higher pay rate is open to question). Moreover, there's a question of the nature and extent of the licensing mechanism. For example, the licensing mechanism can be unnecessarily, unduly restrictive which amounts to a protectionist scheme to manipulate the market in order to protect high wages.
The following commentary addresses the anti-competitive nature of much, if not most occupational licensing.
Political Humor
It's been a rough week for Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg has lost so much money in the market that President Obama is going to have him replace Ben Bernanke." - Jay Leno
[Major loss of face.... And Obama is going to replace Treasury Secretary Geithner with Jaime Dimon of JP Morgan Chase: he needs managers able to cope with big losses...]
"A new study shows current members of Congress speak at a 10th grade level. When reached for comment, Congressman Eric Cantor said, 'Nuh-uh!'" - Conan O'Brien
[Well, that explains the floor speech from South Carolina the other day: "I personally believe that US Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don’t have maps and I believe that our education like such as in a South Africa and Iraq everywhere like such as and I believe that they should our education over here in the US should help the US or should help South Africa and should help Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future for our children."]
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
The Rolling Stones, "Waiting On a Friend"
