As we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.
Nelson Mandela
Contrarian Comments: CA AB 2299: Thumbs DOWN!
Whenever I hear of measures carrying unanimously, I get instantly suspicious: is a legislature engaging in trivial pursuit, e.g., "I Love Puppy Dogs Day"? Is the bill a knee-jerk response to a tragic event? Is the bill so innocuous as to lack any teeth? Does it have a politically correct name or theme? (For instance, does any politician care to explain voting against the Stop Child Abuse Now Act?) I have the same reaction to near-unanimous legislation like I do to somebody offering to sell me a Rolex watch for $20.
Steven Greenhut has a good article in Reason on a California bill that seeks to shield references to judges and other public safety officers from public property records, a presumably preventive measure against attempts by revenge-seeking criminal elements; who could possibly object to this?
There are a number of things we should ask before ever creating a new law:
- "Where's the beef?" Why this law and why now? Has there been a surge of attacks against public safety officials traced to access of public property records?
- How effective is the measure likely to be? For example, do criminals have other ways of getting the information they want, say, by following the official or his family member home? Maybe the residence becomes known through other means--self-disclosure, house guests, delivery services, etc.
- What about unintended consequences? Will the press realize the significance of a particular event or crime at a relevant residence? What about divorce or real estate transactions and the buyer's right to know?
- How about equal protection? Any double standard suggests that public servants are "more equal" than private citizens. Greenhut points out that the exemptions of public servants typically grow stealthily over time. Where do you draw the line: what about defense attorneys, key witnesses, etc.?
Small Business or Fast-Growing Start-Ups?
Any faithful reader of this blog knows that I have been skeptical about the President's obsession with picking winners and losers in the economy. All I see is a redistributionist strategy among businesses by size. The GOP, of course, is fiercely protecting its Main Street business roots, just like they are zealously protecting their lead on middle-class tax cuts.
Veronique de Rugy, who I have referenced in the past on Wasserman Schultz's polemical comparison of Bush and Obama's job record, has written a relevant article entitled America’s Small-Business Fetish. Veronique debunks a number of myths, in particular, an SBA claim that small businesses create 70% of all new jobs: she points out the small business number in the percentage included ALL jobs, not just incremental job gains for small businesses. She points out that the definition of "small business" is so expansive, it covers over 99% of American businesses, and in reality there is no significant differences in job growth among the business sizes. She does find that a significant percentage of new jobs result from young (<10 years), entrepreneurial companies, but they leapfrog in size very quickly, beyond criteria for small companies, which makes any supportive policy hit-or-miss. She also points out that SBA loan guarantees were hammered during 2011 as small businesses defaulted on loans (going from a requested $1.4B to $6.2B). If anything, the preferential treatments for smaller business are counterproductive to job growth, because certain federal regulations and mandated benefits kick in at stages when the number of employees reach 10 or 50.
We need a high growth policy--meaning universally applicable low taxes, low regulations/mandates, and respect for economic rights.
Some Comments on the European Crisis
I'm deeply concerned that the European economic fascists will take full advantage of the crisis to rationalize a tighter-controlled, more cohesive "United States of Europe" at the expense of national sovereignty. What we are seeing is no serious attempt to address fundamental issues, including counterproductive wage regulations, an overbuilt government sucking resources away from the private sector, and economic growth killing tax hikes instead of deep spending cuts.
Veronique de Rugy, who I just referenced in the prior segment, has published a widely reprinted chart (see below) questioning "austerity". She talks about the need to address structural reforms including comprehensive budget reviews, welfare reforms, etc., and bolder actions (including government downsizing and real cuts). By all means, Obama's "balanced approach" of immediate tax hikes and deferred planned increase cuts is a recession waiting to happen.
Carolina Carmenes Cavia and David Howden in a recent Mises Institute Daily published an interesting commentary called The Systemic Siesta. They ask a very thought-provoking question: how is it that given the slack in the Spanish economy and over 20% unemployment while Germany has relatively high labor costs and roughly 6% unemployment, that German companies haven't transferred some of their production to Spain. Long story short: there are high exit barriers to hiring a Spanish worker, and the high gains in Spanish income over the past decade haven't been offset by productivity increases.
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| Courtesy of National Review |
The Story Behind the Acadian Diaspora
Back in the early 80's, initially working on my UH MBA part-time for professional development, I had joined the Catholic Newman Center and went on the first of several mid-semester religious retreats. (My first nephew was born while I was on my first retreat.) At the first one I met one of my best friends Tim, a liberal Irish Catholic in the process of pursuing his accounting PhD and later becoming a professor at the University of San Diego. The first retreat in the east Texas woods was an amazing experience; I eventually become part of the Newman in-crowd for a number of semesters before leaving the group a year or so before my doctoral graduation. (There were issues with a couple of the priest staffers and a former girlfriend, but a key turning point was when the group invited a local community college group to participate in the retreats; around the campfire, these kids started cracking deranged "baby in a blender" jokes.)
Another friend of mine was Rob, whom was working towards his professional terminal degree in optometry. Rob is one of the few Franco-Americans I've met in higher education; more specifically, he was a Louisiana Cajun (Acadian descent). (Ironically I went on a campus visit to Louisiana Tech while I was in hell at UTEP, but they didn't make an offer.) Rob is the best amateur storyteller/comedian I've ever heard. He had a seemingly inexhaustible supply of Boudreaux & Thibodeaux jokes; his accented staccato delivery and the spoonerisms (e.g., "four or 3 times" vs "3 or 4 times")) cracked me up every time. I had to be his biggest fan: I could have listened to him for hours. Newman never was the same after Tim and Rob graduated and moved on with their lives.
I've mentioned in a prior post that I expressed surprise when some travel services associate, a man of color, I met in passing on a business trip read my name with perfect pronunciation (my dad will often write "gill-met" on restaurant waiting lists, and I often head for a desk as soon as I see someone hesitate before announcing the name "Ronald.......?"). When I asked how he managed to get it right, he shrugged his shoulders and said, "I'm from Louisiana and know a lot of Cajuns."
The basic story behind the 1755 diaspora is in the context of the 1710 British conquest of Acadia (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island. and parts of Maine and Quebec). There were two different French cultures in New France: Acadians and Québécois (my ancestors were among the latter). The Acadians had originally emigrated from predominantly French cities. The 1713 Treaty of Utrecht allowed the Acadians to stay, but they refused to swear allegiance to the British crown. Over the coming decades, some (but not all) Acadians participated in militia activities against the British and established key supply lines to New France fortresses. The British responded during the French-and-Indian War with an unconditional deportation of Acadians.
I've embedded past videos by Dr. Amy Sturgis (e.g., the Trail of Tears); this one makes a controversial characterization of the upheaval as an ethnic cleansing (while other historians suggest it is one of a number of mass deportations across history). An estimated 11,500 were moved, with nearly a third of those perishing along the way. Whatever the terminology, there's little doubt over the historical injustice.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote his most famous poem, Evangeline, about an engaged couple, Evangeline Bellefontaine and Gabriel Lajeunesse, separated by the Great Upheaval or the Great Expulsion. Evangeline over the following decades searched in vain for her separated beloved. Finally, as an elderly Sister of Mercy, Evangeline is ministering to the ill during an epidemic in Philadelphia:
Suddenly, as if arrested by fear or a feeling of wonder,
Still she stood with her colorless lips apart, while a shudder
Ran through her frame, and, forgotten, the flowerets dropped from her fingers,
And from her eyes and cheeks the light and bloom of the morning.
Then there escaped from her lips a cry of such terrible anguish,
That the dying heard it, and started up from their pillows.
On the pallet before her was stretched the form of an old man.
Long, and thin, and gray were the locks that shaded his temples;
But, as he lay in the morning light, his face for a moment
Seemed to assume once more the forms of its earlier manhood;
So are wont to be changed the faces of those who are dying.
Hot and red on his lips still burned the flush of the fever,
As if life, like the Hebrew, with blood had besprinkled its portals,
That the Angel of Death might see the sign, and pass over,
Motionless, senseless, dying, he lay, and his spirit exhausted
Seemed to be sinking down to infinite depths in the darkness,
Darkness of slumber and death, forever sinking and sinking.
Then through those realms of shade, in multiplied reverberations,
Heard he that cry of pain, and through the hush that succeeded
Whispered a gentle voice, in accents tender and saint-like,
"Gabriel! O my beloved!" and died away into silence.
Then he beheld, in a dream, once more the home of his childhood;
Green Acadian meadows, with sylvan rivers among them,
Village, and mountain, and woodlands; and, walking under their shadow,
As in the days of her youth, Evangeline rose in his vision.
Tears came into his eyes; and as slowly he lifted his eyelids,
Vanished the vision away, but Evangeline knelt by his bedside.
Vainly he strove to whisper her name, for the accents unuttered
Died on his lips, and their motion revealed what his tongue would have spoken.
Vainly he strove to rise; and Evangeline, kneeling beside him,
Kissed his dying lips, and laid his head on her bosom
Sweet was the light of his eyes; but it suddenly sank into darkness,
As when a lamp is blown out by a gust of wind at a casement.
All was ended now, the hope, and the fear, and the sorrow,
All the aching of heart, the restless, unsatisfied longing,
All the dull, deep pain, and constant anguish of patience!
And, as she pressed once more the lifeless head to her bosom,
Meekly she bowed her own, and murmured, "Father, I thank thee!"
Still stands the forest primeval; but far away from its shadow,
Side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers are sleeping.
Under the humble walls of the little Catholic churchyard,
In the heart of the city, they lie, unknown and unnoticed; (107-109)Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
The Rolling Stones, "Hang Fire"
