You can build a throne with bayonets,
but you can't sit on it for long.
Boris Yeltsin
Pro-Liberty Thought of the Day
The Local Government vs. Girl Scouts: Thumbs DOWN!
In the latest outrage of government harassment of juvenile entrepreneurship and fundraising, it's not just lemonade sales, even on your own front lawn. No, the proposed Snelling, GA ordinance even includes those nefarious purveyors of Thin Mints, Samoas, Do-Si-Dos, and Tagalong cookies--the Girl Scouts. (No doubt the Girl Scouts must be scamming grannies everywhere out of their pension checks--yes, I'm being sarcastic...)
According to Reason,
The city council is considering requiring anybody trying to sell anything door-to-door to submit to a background check and get a permit. And no, adorable little moppets trying to raise money for the Girl Scouts and band trips are not exempted...the ordinance will require parents of children trying to raise money to register with the police and also accompany their kids on sales trips...But requiring a background check to sell cookies to the neighbors?The Millionaire Government Retiree Next Door
HT Carpe Diem. According to Forbes,
It’s said that government workers now make, on average, 30% more than private-sector workers. Put that fantasy aside. It far underestimates the real figures. By my calculations government workers make more than twice as much. They are America’s fastest-growing group of millionaires. Doubt it? Then ask yourself: What is the net present value [assuming a 4% return] of an $80,000 annual pension payout with additional full health benefits? An $80,000 annual pension payout implies a rather large pot of money behind it–$2 million, to be precise.As the North County Times of Carlsbad, Calif. explains: “Carlsbad offers its police and firefighters a ’3-percent-at-50′ retirement plan, meaning that emergency services workers who retire at age 50 can get 3% of their highest salary times the number of years they have worked for the city. City officials have said that in Carlsbad the average firefighter or police officer typically retires at age 55 and has 28 years of service. Using the 3% salary calculation, that person would receive an annual city pension of $76,440.” Who are America’s fastest-growing class of millionaires? They are police officers, firefighters, teachers and federal bureaucrats, who, unless things change drastically, will be paid something near their full salaries every year–until death–after retiring in their mid-50s.Now do you think the government has built up a $2M nestegg through direct contributions and pension returns for each civil servant? Of course not. Consider the fact that social security maxes out somewhere shy of $30K, the government confiscates just over 12% of your income (including the emploer match of your deduction), and has accumulated over a $40T unfunded liability. Do you think that the city can afford to lose 2 young teachers or police officers to pay the pension of just one retiree making nearly 50% more than the average working household? Of course, the parasites will trot out the same old same old arguments... They'll tell you the average retiree makes much less than $76K, and they'll insist that a deal is a deal, that the bargain was they would take a smaller paycheck in exchange for a more secure retirement. The point is that the private sector knew decades ago that the Baby Boomer Retirement Tsunami made for unsustainable retiree obligations and for the most part transitioned to a defined contribution system. For people who retire at 55-60, especially knowledge workers vs. manual labor, their retirement payment period may stretch up to 3 decades or more, with their home all but paid off already... For future legislators to somehow have to make up the difference of decades of underinvestment at the expense of future taxpayers' increased taxes and/or service cuts is morally unjust; retirees need to share in the sacrifice or taxpayers will impose a settlement.
Will Crownfunding Be Crowded Out By a Creeping Government Blob?
The Sharing Economy: What Happens in Your Home Among Consenting Adults is None of the Government's Business
Short Stories
I do have a Twitter account (Dr. Scamell, my former dissertation chair, would probably laugh out at that--Ron contain himself to 140 characters? Actually, although I can mock myself over my prolixity, my messages can be pithy in nature (I do have a tendency to overexplain because of uncertainty of my audience), and I pride myself on readability and organization. I had considered starting a blog long before this one in July 2008, but I wasn't sure how I wanted to use the medium. In fact, I saw it as perhaps a vehicle to build an audience for books I wanted to write, perhaps attract the attention of some syndication publishers or even my own radio talk show. None of that has happened, of course. (Perhaps my views are a little too idiosyncratic, that readers like most of what I write, but strongly disagree with one or 2 positions.) If you read through the first 18 months of the blog, you see it took me a while to flesh out my signature miscellany format. I consider myself a natural humorist and have a talent for ad libbing, so that eventually worked into a regular blog feature. So I've thought about using Twitter to build traffic for the blog or other projects or perhaps as a vehicle for my one-liners. But I'm not really interested in telling the Internet what I ate for lunch today, regurgitating the obvious or registering my support for whatever cause; it should be value-added. If and when I start publishing Tweets, I'll probably make a note about it in the blog.
My Greatest Hits: May 2014
Other than one spamming incident where one post all of a sudden started gaining an unlikely hundreds of hits (I will not list outlier posts), I am happy to notice one of the stronger months in daily readership, with all top-ranking posts over the past month:
More Love and Marriage
Facebook Corner
(Reason). The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted 3-2 along party lines today for a proposal submitted by its chairman, Democratic appointee Tom Wheeler, which would regulate how Internet service providers can charge for "fast lanes."
We need to repeal any and all government meddling over the Internet and restore a free market. I don't trust any government meddling over fast or standard traffic, period; it will be a drag on growth, innovation and investment, and it will harm all consumers. At least the 2 GOP members had the integrity to oppose this latest of power grabs by Statists.
helps the large internet companies keep the little guys out as does all government business regulations
Nonsense. Of course, "net neutrality" is a "progressive" smokescreen for megalomaniac, pushing-on-a-string government regulation and intervention which I oppose. There are already multiple modes of Internet delivery: cabled, wired, wireless, satellite, etc. But the concept of letting content providers charge premium pricing to provide smoother, more timely service (passed on to consumers) encourages providers to invest in capacity that benefits other consumers as well; we see similar concepts elsewhere, e.g., EZ pass or toll lanes, overnight delivery, etc.
The lesser regulated ISPs have been quick to invest in infrastructure and capacity without the bureaucratic inertia of incompetent government regulation. And what this commenter ignores is the fact that the alleged Big Carriers, far from co-opting the FCC's power grab, which exceeded its statutory mandate, took the FCC to court and basically won their lawsuits. There already is competition in the marketplace; if you find one ISP not providing the service you expect (blocked websites, etc.), choose another ISP.
The primary concern seems to be about new innovative content providers. But in most cases content providers have invested in CDN's (think decentralization of content delivery) to smooth out traffic jams on the Internet. I have faith in the markets, which serve to fill consumer needs--and the last thing we need is the same sort of amateurish technical incompetence that marked the ObamaCare rollout.
Wonder who much money is Tom Wheeler getting from Comcast.
There were court decisions AGAINST the FCC's power grab over the Internet. Verizon won relevant suits against the FCC.
always meddling...“No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.” Mark Twain
Oh, wait... The FCC was successfully sued about overstepping its statutory grounds.
seems odd that the party who preaches equality and access for the poor, blah blah blah blah would be for lining the pockets of big corporations...oh wait...the parties ARE the same...
What part about the 3 Democratic appointees (vs. 2 GOP) voting to impose unnecessary government regulation over a well-functioning Internet did you fail to grasp?
That's really not "net neutrality" then, is it?
Always assume something the government names will achieve the opposite.
"Net neutrality" is "progressive"-speak for redistributional policy, also part of the egalitarian hubris, which, in Net terms, seeks to drag down everything to slow, over-capacity networks, i.e., spread the misery, versus charging resource hogs a fair market price which enables additional investment in infrastructure.
This will destroy the internet as we know it. Thank you gubberment.
NO, GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION will destroy the Internet as we known it.
I expect that what will really happen is that all who don't pay the extra will be put in the 'slow lane', not that there will be a 'fast lane' for those who do pay.
Like all regulations, the large companies will easily afford to pay for the fast lanes and smaller competitors will suffer. Eliminating competition is the only way the established companies can keep prices high.
This is absolutely ridiculous by people whom don't even understand what they're talking about. First, as the cited NJ quote shows, content providers have normally had to invest in infrastructure over and beyond datalines, like CDN's, servers, databases, etc. Ultimately, consumers of content pay those costs, e.g., Netflix subscription fees. Netflix won't be able to hold onto customers if other traffic crowds its offerings out. Other users will benefit from ISP investments in network capacity, etc. It's preposterous to argue ISP censorship, there are multiple modes to access the Internet, and if anything, government policy artificially drives industry consolidations and retards creative destruction. The answer is not incompetent government regulation driven by special interest parasites, but a free market. The Internet has developed despite government regulation, not because of it.
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Steve Kelley and Townhall |
Neil Diamond, "The Story of My Life"
