Teachers open the door,
but you must enter by yourself.
Chinese Proverb
My mom refuses to take the blame...
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| Via Bastiat Institute |
Pro-Liberty Thought for the Day
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| Via Libertarian Republican |
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| Via Independent Institute |
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| via Drudge Report |
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| Via Craig Leach on Reason FB |
HT Gary North
Dysfunctional Protectionist Policies Actually Make Gasoline More Expensive
This blog promotes free markets and free trade. Almost any motorist knows gasoline prices are on the rise--yet we're importing currently less than half our current consumption for crude oil, domestic oil is selling less than the global Brent price--is this a conspiracy? I can already hear one of Bill O'Reilly's populist op-ed's bashing oil companies...
Mark Perry's current Carpe Diem post explains a couple of reasons. First, one of this blog's favorite targets, the Jones Act, protects American shippers from foreign competition travelling between American ports. This can literally as much as triple shipping costs, say, from the Gulf Coast to East Coast ports. Second, since domestic oil can't be exported (but gasoline can), it doesn't factor in Brent pricing, basically a key factor in global gasoline prices. Allowing American crude to be figured in the global market would dampen prices, including for refined gasoline or other prices. In the meanwhile, refiners can exploit the higher margins given global gas prices vs. depressed domestic crude prices. So two crony groups, Big Refineries and Big Shipbuilders, gain at the expense of the motorist given counterproductive federal policy.
George Will on Common Core: Thumbs UP!
Facebook Corner
(Reason). Broader U.S. intervention in Nigeria, no matter how benevolent-minded in this particular instance, is a bad idea all around.
Because everyone knows that politically correct causes for intervention are more equal...
(IPI). It’s already been widely reported that the Chicago City Council voted to ban the sale of plastic bags in city. Alderman Joe Moreno, a main sponsor of the ordinance, wrote in the Chicago Tribune that plastic bags are “one of the most destructive, offensive and wasteful products ever created.” This is a difficult claim to take seriously since his ordinance still permits the sale of the “destructive” products at restaurants and stores that aren’t chains. Not only does the ban violate the rights of businesses and consumers to choose how to transport their goods, but there are also reasons why this ban might not even be good for Chicagoans’ health.
Paternalistic government as usual limiting consumer choices. Apparently the people can't be trusted to make their own decisions. It's not like there are more suitable, important things to attend to--like bankrupt city financing.
(Reason). Should America Open Its Borders? Reason Foundation moderated a debate on immigration reform featuring Cato Immigration Policy Analyst Alex Nowrasteh, Professor of Economics at George Mason University Bryan Caplan, and Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies Mark Krikorian.
Enough of anti-immigrants hiding behind Chicken Little labor protectionism and the welfare state. Liberalized immigration is win-win, largely complementary for higher-skilled individuals and at worst maybe a temporary 5% hit in certain locales with lower-skilled jobs not requiring a high school education. (Recall there is more business demand at lower wages.) Immigration correlates with economic growth; we had strong immigration during the Gilded Age (including my French-Canadian ancestors), a period which showed the highest economic growth trend, rising incomes, etc., with a small federal government. The last thing we need is busybodies getting in the way of immigrant entrepreneurs and in-demand professionals (medical, IT, etc.) or in businesses acquiring the resources they need to be globally competitive.
(National Review). George Will slams the White House’s focus on social media, calling tweets like First Lady Michelle Obama’s #BringBackOurGirls photo “an exercise in self-esteem.” Read this and more NR coverage of the Sunday news shows: natl.re/1iGDiXT
So expressing support for kidnapped girls is bad. What would you say if they ignored the situation? Gosh, I wonder.
That's sort of like asking, why give bullies or other attention-seeking by chain-pulling jerks the publicity they want? BECAUSE IT ENCOURAGES THEM. Why do you think televised sports no longer feature streakers? Do you honestly think people don't care about kidnapped girls? Do you think we don't have mothers, sisters, daughters, nieces or granddaughters?
[following of my post in a Tom Woods thread]:
Let's say that the unicorn of limited government is restored... how do you keep it limited? How do you keep it from turning into the same monster in a fraction of the time? Better to let/help it collapse and not do anything stupid afterward... like building a new one.
If government is good or necessary... why would you ever want to limit it?
Well, as Woods would probably note, the worst fears of the Anti-Federalists have been realized: liberty has become a narrowly defined series of exceptions to Statist domination, where the Ninth Amendment is treated as a mere inkblot, to quote the late Robert Bork. There are a series of steps, structural and procedural:
1) term limits for elective office including single terms for federal statewide/national office and for judicial appointments, including SCOTUS;
2) rule-based monetary policy;
3) a more robust amendment guaranteeing economic liberty, the right not to purchase market goods and services and the right to opt out of any government-sponsored individual benefit program;
4) constitutional delegation of any social welfare or individual benefit programs to state administration with portability of benefits and other applications of the principle of Subsidiarity;
5) constitutional cap on federal spending, mandatory cuts relative to the natural GDP credit limit, and a repeal of the sixteenth amendment;
6) a constitutional prohibition against state mercantilist policies, including non-safety-related professional or business barriers to entry;
7) a restriction on the Commander-in-Chief's use of the military to purely defensive, emergency purposes without explicit Congressional authority;
8) state-based initiatives to veto federal laws, recall Presidents or their own senators;
9) more rigorous federal financial statements, including explicit assessment of any unfunded liabilities, distinction between assets and period expenses, etc.
This is obviously not a comprehensive list, but a beginning baseline for discussion.
Is government good or necessary? Only to a limited sense, not as it currently stands. Over 60% of the federal government budget involves individual, not common benefits. Why would I want to limit it? Because the funding of government has an opportunity cost--it takes funds that could be spent, saved or invested elsewhere in the economy; also, much of what the government does could be privatized (if a legitimate market) and done better, faster, and cheaper in the real economy. Not to mention that government policies are often morally corrosive, undermining personal empowerment and reinforcing government dependency. What would I limit government to? Things like protection of fundamental rights of life, liberty, and property; enforcement of contracts; common defense, etc.
[my concluding post in a bitter exchange with an anti-Catholic bigot on a Lew Rockwell FB thread]
I do not suffer fools gladly. The vast majority of priests, like my retired uncle, and sisters/nuns, like my late aunt, are godly people, the best people I've ever met, period. When some sleazy creep decides to denigrate the Church, which tirelessly conducts constructive, positive efforts to help the poor, provide quality education (a money-losing effort) to urban, minority youth, including many non-Catholics, whose public schools are failing them, I have zero tolerance for smug, morally self-superior bigots whom grossly mischaracterize one of the few true forces for good in this world because a negligible fraction of rogue clergy perversely violated their vows? The Church has never defended sinful acts, especially sexual abuse of minors, an abomination to the memory of Jesus, Whom loved children. I think some bishops didn't manage allegedly "cured" rogue priests effectively; then you had typical bureaucratic inertia in a hierarchy worried about scandal and due process rights of accused clergy. (I'm not defending the process, just analyzing it.)
troll stomping on an Economic Freedom thread:
Oh, yeah: +.1% first quarter growth under the worst "President" in US history. Yet another economic illiterate: this President-In-Name-Only has the slowest economic/job growth in a recovery over at least the last several decades. He has managed to add more debt than any leader in world history; his economic policies have led to the lowest labor force participation rate in decades and your "solution" is to encourage more dependency on government? For your information the most rapid economic growth record and compensation/standard of living rate was during the Gilded Age with a small federal government, including the last time we elected a reasonably competent Democrat President--Grover Cleveland. By the way, more jobs were added during the Reagan years than during the Clinton era--and Reagan inherited a high interest rate, inflation rate, unemployment rate economy.
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Michael Ramirez via Townhall |
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| Courtesy of the original artist via IPI |
Herb Alpert, "This Guy's In Love With You"
