Miscellany: 5/31/15

Quote of the Day
Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit 
makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before.
James Buckham

Image of the Day

Via Dollar Vigilante

The Denny Hastert "Scandal": Time to End This Morally Corrupt Federal Structuring Policy

I, in a slight way, have been touched by this insane government policy, which I haven't discussed until now. There have been slow periods during the Great Recession when I've had a contingent offer, waiting for various end client approvals, which in some cases can take up to several months to close (if ever). As any familiar reader to this blog knows, I have a principled objection to government assistance programs; like many others, I establish one or more rainy-day funds to cover my basic expenses. In this one particular case, I had basically liquidated one of my rainy day funds into my checking account and simply paid expenses through my checking account (I average less than 1 ATM transaction, including withdrawals, a year).

So one day I signed into my bank account just to find myself having to answer several questions which seemed to suggest my account had come under scrutiny for possible money laundering activities. I have held this bank account for probably 15-20 years, and I know they wouldn't have done something outrageous like this without being pushed by the government. It absolutely infuriated me that the government was scrutinizing what I was doing with my own property, which is blatantly unconstitutional and none of its damn business.

I'm not going to comment in depth here on Hastert (see here for more detailed discussion); I'm not a big Hastert fan--I think the House GOP losts its reformist edge during his tenure as House Speaker, and I've criticized him on a few occasions over the life of the blog, but on this issue, Hastert is truly getting screwed over. To briefly summarize: Hastert was getting blackmailed by what seems to have been an alleged sexual impropriety with a young man during Hastert's earlier career as an educator. Hastert has been withdrawing money in $50K increments to pay off the blackmailer. Those withdrawals came under scrutiny from the government. When questioned by the government over the withdrawals, Hastert claimed that he didn't trust the bank with his money. So the government is going after Hastert for not exposing the politically embarrassing story of the extortion; in the Alice-in-Wonderful view of the federal government, the problem is not with the guy who has been extorting Hastert but Hastert's lack of candor of describing withdrawals, not based on alleged Hastert improprieties of money laundering, etc., but on the federal government's blanket scrutiny of what it considers "too big" deposits/withdrawals under so-called structuring laws and trying to "hide" even innocuous transactions from an overreaching government.

Elon Musk and a Libertarian Kerfuffle Over His Use of Tax Gimmicks to Build a Politically Correct Business Empire

I've been in a Jeffrey Tucker Facebook group; a fellow Catholic libertarian, he's one of what I would list as the 4 most prominent Catholic libertarians, along with Tom Woods, Judge Napolitano, and Lew Rockwell. But libertarians often clash on specific issues. For example, I'm pro-life and oppose State intervention on marriage. Tucker opposes the concept of intellectual property, which I strongly support, and we've clashed over the past 2-3 weeks over Tucker's gushing support of Elon Musk's Tesla. I strongly criticized Musk's exploitation of tax gimmicks (like the $7500 tax credit for yuppie purchasers of his electric vehicles). Tucker seemed rattled by our exchange, and sometime later revisited the argument by noting a legalistic distinction between tax credits and subsidies. (I've sometimes referenced this distinction which is probably best known in the context of education policy; the courts have favored the tax credit vs. government funding of education alternatives to local public school monopolies.) His position was basically don't hate the player: hate the game, i.e., don't blame Tesla buyers for reducing their own taxes; the rest of us are just jealous we don't have our own $7500 tax credits. The basic issue is government is stealing from all of us, and we shouldn't blame people for wanting to keep more of their own income. My point is, you're playing a sophistic game; the hodgepodge of tax gimmicks represents unwarranted State intervention in the economy, picking winners and losers, intrinsically corrupt policy.

The LA Times has an interesting feature on how 3 of Musk's enterprises (Tesla, Solar City, and SpaceX) have attracted nearly $5B in government support. The gameplaying by Musk's management, playing one state against another for tax giveaways is nauseating but not unexpected given the nature of political whores. However, one particularly objectionable discussion involves how Nevada initially rejected what Musk wanted to build a massive facility there, but then came up with a counter offer:

They shored up the deal with an agreement to give Tesla $195 million in transferable tax credits, which the automaker could sell for upfront cash. To make room in its budget, Nevada reduced incentives for filming in the state and killed a tax break for insurance companies.
Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval and Musk sealed the agreement in a Labor Day phone conversation. Hill [Nevada's wheeler-dealer] said it was worth it, pointing to the 6,000 jobs he expects the factory to eventually create.

There shouldn't be tax gimmicks of any kind, never mind for green energy, entertainment, insurance or 1001 other industries.

Facebook Corner

(National Review). Hillary Clinton is an artful dodger when it comes to taking positions on lots of issues, but last week she opened a clear gap between herself and virtually every possible GOP presidential candidate.
I find it mind-boggling that the author doesn't acknowledge two of the GOP frontrunners, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio, came out in favor of ending Ex-Im some time back.

(a follow-up exchange on yesterday's FEE thread on the minimum wage)
An earned income credit is a start. Social welfare programs are also a good start. But for highly profitable corporations like McDonald's and Walmart, there needs to be some way to facilitate fair treatment of the worker. Walmart is notoriously anti-union, and unions are one of the most effective strategies to prevent worker abuse. Facilitating a living wage is a good strategy to ensure that people are either employed fairly or not employed at all.

And even if they are unemployed, it's interesting to note that food stamps are one of the most effective types of economic stimulus, where every dollar offered becomes 1.3 in economic activity.
No, I actually oppose both earned income tax credit and social welfare, it's just that the earned income tax credit is less morally hazardous and economy-damaging--it also spreads the cost of this assistance across the economy, vs. hitting the plurality of small businesses .(There are the predictable problems with the earned income tax credit, e.g., when do you stop supplementing income, and you lower the incentive for workers to improve their skills, knowledge, etc., to strive for higher-paying jobs.)

The private sector, not parasitic highly-compensated government bureaucrats with a vested interest in a permanent underclass, is and always has been a better way to address the poverty issue. As ro your economically illiterate and paranoid corporation-bashing, the fact of the matter is that Wal-Mart and McDonald's have to offer market-competitive wages or no one would work there; you are also ignoring the fact that a large plurality of workers on minimum wage (probably 3% or so) are younger workers, household dependents, not heads, so your inequality propaganda falls short.

As for the discredited faux-economics Keynesian crap dished out by self-serving Krugman and his like, people do eat, whether or not we're in a recession, and there's no magic to the use of stolen redistributed tax dollars. If you think the ruling class (overpaid political whores and government bureaucrats) don't take a big bite out of the special-interest SNAP program--or if the government debt used to finance the program aren't a huge offsetting cost, you're delusional. 

Political Cartoon

Courtesy of the original artist via the Washington Examiner

Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Cat Stevens, "Sitting".

Miscellany: 5/30/15

Quote of the Day
...the myth of socialism is far stronger than the reality of capitalism. 
That is because capitalism is not really an ism at all. 
It is what people do if you leave them alone.
Arnold Beichmen

Image of the Day

This Economic Illiterate is Running Against Hillary Clinton? A Pox on Both Your Houses




Facebook Corner

(Reason). "You don't necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers when children are hungry in this country." - Sen. Bernie Sanders
But who is saving the children from economically illiterate Bernie Sanders' poverty-sustaining socialist policies? The Venezuelan socialists can't even keep one brand, never mind 23, of toilet paper in stock.

(Rand Paul 2016). The artist who created that Obama “Hope” poster now says the president is a failure
 It took him 7 years to figure that out.

(IPI). Good news for lovers of cheap booze: Chicago could be getting its real happy hours back.
Well, I would prefer the Illinois legislature to get out of the business of micromanaging the operational policies of bars, period, not 4-hour exemptions, etc., but at least this is a step in the right direction.

(Reason). Sen. Bernie Sanders' misguided understanding of economics and why "Made in America" isn't always the best slogan to get behind. [See above video.]
"Made in America" doesn't necessarily mean quality. Case in point, one Bernie Sanders, made in America, but recycling tired old failed European socialist ideas.

(Cato Institue). "If taxpayers suddenly stopped subsidizing Amtrak, what would happen?"
Amtrak is the poster boy for government operational hubris and incompetence. Never mind it was government policy that effectively hastened the day of reckoning for private-sector, taxing them (unlike the public highway system), establishing barriers to exit of unprofitable lines, etc. (Cato Institute has a good retrospective on these issues.) The inevitable happens when Statist demagogues and bureaucrats enter the equation; every political whore wants a depot in his home neighborhood, etc., never mind the passenger load won't pay its way and it has to be massively subsidized. The only real solution is to privatize it; let businesses run without corrupt political/special-interest influences or burdens (taxes, regulation, etc.)

(The Hill). "The callous use of general warrants and the disregard for the Bill of Rights must end," Rand Paul said in a statement. "Forcing us to choose between our rights and our safety is a false choice and we are better than that as a nation and as a people. So tomorrow, I will force the expiration of the NSA illegal spy program."
The so-called Patriot Act was a case of an authoritarian power grab at the expense of individual liberty in the aftermath of the 9/11 tragedy, trying to deflect attention away from failed public policy.. You cannot treat the whole American people as suspects; you do not make America safer by pursuing aggressive interventionist foreign policy.

(FEE). If enforcement of minimum-wage policies were carried out in practice by policing low-skilled workers rather than employers – if these policies were enforced by police officers monitoring workers and fining those workers who agreed to work at hourly wages below the legislated minimum – would you still support minimum wages?
Would you be good with police officers arresting those workers who, preferring to remain employed at sub-minimum wages rather than risk losing their current jobs?
Who SHOULD be arrested are those authoritarian bastards, many of them spamming this thread, who attempt to obstruct, even make illegal, the voluntary contracts between those low-experienced/skilled workers and those businesses willing to employ, many of them small with limited operating budgets. Political whores picking a number out of their asses are not only economically illiterate but are basically pricing a significant percentage of prospective workers out of the labor markets; the same hypocritical "progressives" who claim to be non-racist ignore the disparate adverse effects of counterproductive wage policies on urban minorities and young people. A minimum wage policy is, de facto, a punitive tax on low-income workers and their employers; if these idiots really wanted a less damaging, more coherent redistribution policy, they might look at an earned income credit vs. social welfare programs.

(National Review). The government is not listening to your phone calls, but you wouldn’t know that from what Patriot Act opponents say.
The government has no intrinsic right to know or to obtain personal data in a glorified fishing expedition. If the government has a genuine need for specific purpose, let it go through due process. Under no circumstance can the government treat all citizens as suspects.

(National Review). Alternatives to it are not less cruel.
Premeditated murder is not morally justifiable even when endorsed by majoritarian tyranny or State authoritarians.

(Reason). Freedom of speech. Happening now in Phoenix.
Under what perverse leap of logic is incivility to others a litmus test for free expression? If I call your mother a slut, is that part of the free market of ideas? Whether you libel/slander someone's reputation affecting their ability to make a living, try to incite a life-threatening panic in a public facility, spread lies about someone's sexual health, any and all forms of verbal aggression, it's not in the same category as a scientist expressing a theory challenging the status quo.

I'm not excusing physically violent, even fatal attacks in response to obnoxious behavior. I'm not in favor of Big Nanny government washing your mouth out with soap. There are social tactics to dealing with difficult people, such as the silent treatment or shunning,

Personally I feel that these protesting jerks in Phoenix are looking for attention, and I would suggest that Muslims not dignify this obnoxious behavior by giving them what they're looking for.

Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Cat Stevens, "Can't Keep It In"

Miscellany: 5/29/15

Quote of the Day
The most important thing she'd learned over the years was that 
there was no way to be a perfect mother 
and a million ways to be a good one.
Jill Churchill

Chart of the Day: ObamaCare Hasn't Reduced the Underinsured

Via Independent Institute

Image of the Day

Rand Paul is AWESOME!



The Natural Right to Self-Expression vs. the Speech Fascists



A Well-Raised Child



Facebook Corner



 (Rand Paul). Caption this

 "And-stay ith-way and-Ray"

(FEE). Today, Venezuela’s inflation rate is over the top.
No wonder they've run out of toilet paper: the government needs to print bolivares...

 (Citizens Against Government Waste). USPS is a "money pit"  
Ir's comical watching all the postal union whores spamming these threads with the same old same old complaints. The fact of the matter is that the USPS maintains a government monopoly with an obsoleted failing business model, which threatens to unload unfunded employee/retiree liabilities on the taxpayer vs. postal customers. And despite repeated debunked USPS gripes about prefunding by GAO and OPM: "unlike other federal entities, the USPS was created as a self-sustaining organization. Thus, it has a unique obligation to pay for its own liabilities rather than pass that expense onto the taxpayers. Similarly, while private companies are not always required to prefund such obligations, they do not enjoy the USPS’s federal guarantees, and the law does not require taxpayers to cover their debts."  

Furthermore, despite the protests by USPS propagandists, "What [the USPS spokesman] does not mention in the commercials is that the Postal Service has special preferential borrowing privileges with the federal government. He does not mention that the monopoly power of the Postal Service to jack up stamp prices without fear of customers turning to competitors is a kind of government-backed power to tax. He does not mention that stamp prices might go down, as do the prices of many other goods and services, if the Postal Service were subject to competition. He does not mention that the USPS has billions of dollars in unfunded pension liabilities backed by the federal government, that is, by American taxpayers. He does not mention that, unlike private enterprises, the Postal Service is exempt from most taxes." Whereas the government is responsible for some issues, e.g., not empowering the USPS to shutter thousands of money-losing facilities, corrupt protected union contracts that account for roughly 80% of costs, at least 50% above its limited competition for certain market niches (where the USPS has a government-guaranteed pricing advantage), the fact is that the USPS, like all full or quasi-government entities, simply can't compete, period, and has repeated failed. Recall the great nineteenth century libertarian Lysander Spooner who pointed out, unlike the earlier Confederation, the Constitution did NOT establish for a "sole and exclusive" post office, "Spooner continued to successfully and cheaply deliver mail for seven years before the US government shut down his operation. The 12¢ stamps sold by the USPS were no match for Spooner's 3¢ stamps, so the US government, in order to oppose the inevitable, officially declared that all city streets were to be deemed post roads, available only to the USPS in letter delivery." 

While private sector companies have had to compete by radically improving speed and costs, "skip ahead to the 1900s and we see that the price of a first-class stamp increased 633 percent in only 27 years, and this number is supplemented by a 10 percent speed decrease in 15 years. " And that's despite things like increasingly delivering to cluster boxes (like my parents have had to use a few hundred yards from their house). Not to mention "before 1950 the mail was delivered twice a day, or a dozen times week. Soon postal customers can look forward to just five deliveries a week. Unless there is a holiday, of course."

(Citizens Against Government Waste).  
Bad customer service is costing the Post Office big time...  
I love my post office and it's employees!!!!!  
I hate my post office, its arrogant, self-serving employees, long lines, horrible service and bloated pricing.  
I love every post office I have ever walked into, in the several states I have lived in. In my 36 years, I have had ONE problem with them.
I was actually punched to the kidneys behind my back by one of a group of postal employees in an El Paso post office (around 1989) as I argued with a postal manager over reimbursment of a postal insurance claim. (An Illinois-based software company with a product guarantee did not want to acknowledge receipt of the package. The USPS told me it was my, not their, responsibility to obtain their signature, subject to prosecution of fraud, the business did not receive the package. The business had no incentive to respond to me, and I was arguing the USPS needed to provide me with confirmation they delivered the insured package.)

Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Michael Ramirez via Townhall

Courtesy of Scott Stantis via IPI

Courtesy of the original artist via Reason

Courtesy of Eric Allie via IPI

Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Cat Stevens, "Morning Has Broken". His second straight A/C #1.

Miscellany: 5/28/15

Quote of the Day
20% of what you do accounts for 80% of the value.
Vilfredo Pareto

Chart of the Day

Image of the Day

Via LFC

Via Ron Paul

Against Anti-Liberty Blue Laws

Any familiar readers know where I stand on this: in my FB Corner feature, IPI often circulates posts on Sunday car sales bans, and I often take on the busybodies; I've never perxonzlly bought a car on a Sunday, but consumers should have that option on their days off. Similarly, I once lived in Irving, which was in (at least then) a dry county. On those rare events when I wanted to buy beer or wine, I would stop on the way to visiting one of my sisters in Plano. But even when I visited my folks for the holidays, the local grocery stores used to rope off their beer/wine aisles on Sunday mornings. I mean, hell: Sunday talk soup takes place in the morning. Listening to hopelessly intellectually challenged, economically illiterate "progressives" often requires an alcoholic beverage....



Are There Any Libertarian Democrats? No



Facebook Corner

(Rand Paul 2016). Looks like Bobby Jindal is trying to get some attention.
There was a time I personally thought Jindal should be on a national ticket. He has lost my respect for his judgment.

(Liberty.me). Rand Paul apparently believes Ed Snowden should be in prison. Agree?
 Yes, Snowden should be in prison. If you're a legitimate libertarian, you stand by your contractual commitments. Snowden knowingly and intentionally violated the terms of his security clearance.

I Don't Know Ms. Trainor, But Bella Will Capture Your Heart



Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Eric Allie via IPI

Courtesy of Eric Allie via IPI

Courtesy of Chip Bok via Townhall

Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Cat Stevens, "Peace Train". His first A/C #1 and Top 10 hit on the Hot 100. Arguably his signature tune; outstanding performance. I'll probably reprise this hit later in the countdown.

Miscellany: 5/27/15

Quote of the Day
Whenever man comes up with a better mousetrap, 
nature immediately comes up with a better mouse.
James Carswell

Image of the Day

Remy Is Back; Spoofing Socialist Bernie Sanders



The Patriot Act Kerfuffle: Let It Die

The metadata intervention has had ZERO IMPACT in the much-hyped War on Terror and moreover is prohibitively expensive. I don't have much enthusiasm for the bipartisan measure, which basically mandates recordkeeping of dubious business merit. The law is little more than public relations for security populists to demonstrate they are willing to throw money we don't have and individual liberty under the bus to combat terrorism.



Nebraska Abolishes Death Penalty: Thumbs UP!

Facebook Corner

(National Review). How were they THIS far off the mark?
It's not just the fact that less than 5% of the population is gay, but we've seen so much emphasis on recognizing gay "marriage" given a segment that is notoriously promiscuous with only a small percentage of long-term relationship. Many states like California recognized gay partnerships with marriage-like legal recogniition long before the gay marriage kerfuffle became a political obsession for Democrats.

(National Review). EXCLUSIVE: An explosive, in-depth report on Elizabeth Warren's extreme hypocrisy on the one issue that gave rise to her political fame.
 Of course the populist windbag Cherokee Lizzie profited from cheap government easy money policy and tax policies favoring property flipping in the middle of an unsustainable housing bubble. It's somewhat amusing seeing the Warren leftist trolls spamming this thread saying the National Review is Hypocritical for attacking Warren's making a legal profit. The issue of course involves the fact that populists like Warren want to blame the 2008 crisis on "market failure", not the reality of failed government policy; of course, Warren rose to power as a demagogue hyping the totally discredited myth of predatory lending (as if selling houses to marginally qualified buyers with virtually no money down in a pricey housing market is "exploiting" buyers: the lender is taking all the risk). Yes, Cherokee Lizzie is a hypocrite; ;in her own way, she contributed to the housing bubble--but it's the OTHER parties looking to profit from the speculative bubble who are the evil ones...

(FEE). The highest property taxes in the state and oppressive local regulation often make investing in jobs and businesses in Baltimore unprofitable. Only fixing that will produce a stable community. Shoveling more federal money into the city is the triumph of hope over experience. http://at.fee.org/1Rox5PL
Only when government stops morally hazardous social welfare policies and tax-base reducing punitive taxation, propping up failing government monopoly schools, and intervening in the economy through counterproductive barriers to work (e.g., minimum wage policies that price low-akill/experienced workers out of the market; occupational licensing, etc) will we see genuine economic progress that lifts all boats.

(Mises Institute). Matt McCaffrey: Decades ago, economists like Mises and Rothbard were already arguing that tax breaks are not economically or ethically equivalent to receiving subsidies. Simply put, being permitted to keep your income is not the same as taking it from competitors. Exemptions and loopholes do not forcibly redistribute wealth; taxes and subsidies do, thereby benefiting some producers at the expense of others.

Yes, entrepreneurs who take advantage of tax breaks will incur fewer costs than entrepreneurs who don’t. But this doesn’t show that exemptions or loopholes provide unfair advantages; in fact, just the opposite — it shows that taxes penalize entrepreneurs unlucky enough to be left holding the bill. https://mises.org/library/no-tax-breaks-are-not-subsidies

Tax breaks are no different in concept than getting an intrinsically corrupt special-interest tax rebate. Taxes should be low and uniformly applied. A tax break is a centrally planned industrial policy violating the very concept of free markets. Arguing that those without the support of a majority of political whores are simply jealous because they can't redistribute their tax obligation ro others through tyranny is simply a morally corrupt point of view.

(Citizens Against Government Waste). The Post Office wants to expand to banking even though they can't handle mail...
 In no way should a public monopoly use its dying cash cow business to compete against banks. Cherokee Lizzie is now endorsing her concept of a too big to fail bank! if the post office wants to compete as a bank, let it first give up its corrupt monopoly privileges and/or let banks open up their own postal services business.
For those of you who think USPS can't handle the mail, I suggest you go to a UPS or FedEx store with your No. 10 business envelope, hand them $0.49, and see what happens.
If only like other countries, the post office was privatized...
If they hadnt been forced to prepay all the pensions and what ever else they were forced to do, they wouldnt be in the hole. Almost like they were set up to fail. Similar to what is happening to our soc.sec. with all the hands in the cookie jar, piss poor mgmt
 I KNEW some goddamn union whore would bitch about the failing postal union not being allowed to have the taxpayer bail out its unsustainable union pension costs...

(IPI). Due to record out-migration, Illinois’ population actually shrunk by 10,000 people last year.
To what far-off lands did they migrate?
Most went to high-growth states, such as Indiana or Texas, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Are we gonna blame teacher here again? How about blaming the voters. They vote for thieves.
Guess who taught the political whores how to lie, cheat, and steal?

(Pacific Legal Foundation0. "...it is an incredibly far-reaching and questionable assertion of unilateral power by President Obama, especially since Obama denied he had that power several times in the years leading up to his reversal of course,” PLF's DC Center Executive Director, Todd Gaziano
 Most of us libertarians want to see a far more open immigration policy. I don't necessarily object to the intent of Obama's policies, but the focus, means and the motivating factor (totally political). The current President NEVER compromises: he rhreatens unilateral fiat if the opposition refuses to capitulate to his terms.

An Act of Kindness For a Struggling Student



Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Bob Gorrwll via Townhall

Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Cat Stevens, "Moonshadow". His first A/C Top 10.

Miscellany: 5/26/15

Quote of the Day
The back of one door is the face of another.
Proverb

Tweet of the Day

Line of the Day: "Venezuelan Bolivar Now Worth More as Toilet Paper Than as Money." http://t.co/b8Bv0Z4AHe

— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) May 26, 2015

A Prager Video I Disagree With: US As Global Policeman

First of all, you have to admire someone who is actually willing and has the intellectual integrity to assert his favorable position on a question where many people actually pay lip service to opposing.

Now dealing with his arguments:

• We don't have any legal or constitutional mandate to serve as global policeman. The ability to assert use of force doesn't imply we ought to.
• We don't have the resources to do so, there can be literally dozens of wars going on simultaneously, and selecting the "good" interventions can be arbitrary. Just as the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan showed, we were spread too thin, our inventory and supplies were sharply degraded, our armed forces had low morale with many soldiers rotating multiple tours, We were highly vulnerable to a crippling third front. We typically don't have the logistics or relationships to operate effectively in a foreign context; consider, for instance, Bush's limited options to invading Iraq.
• Our actions are often inconsistent in principle. For example, the USSR, China, and Cambodia have engaged in forms of genocide under the Communists, but we didn't intervene for obvious reasons.
• If and when we do intervene, there are often unintended consequences. Consider WWI; the unintended consequences included the Russian Revolution, and the harsh settlement terms over the Germans laid the seeds to WWII. The interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, initially thought to be short-lived, cost thousands of fatalites and over a trillion dollars we don't have, and unwitting set the stage for ISIS and an unchecked, meddlesome Iran.
• Our policies have been morally hazardous; our allies are basically freeloading off our global operations and have little incentive to engage in more constructive policies or assert regional leadership.

RFRA and Religious Liberty



Facebook Corner

(IPI). Chicago Tribune: "A 2005 pension law was intended to rein in school districts' big salary spikes that boost retiree benefits and pension costs statewide, imposing cash penalties on districts that gave raises higher than 6% to outgoing educators.
However, the issuing of large raises hasn't stopped."
How does your district stack up?
What they should have done is cap pension coverage of income, period, plus reduce the incentive to spike by making the pension base some career mean salary. (Of course, I don't believe in defined benefit systems, period, but if you're going to do it, you don't make stupid rules without teeth in them.)

(IPI). Property-tax bills in Illinois are the 2nd highest in the country and 2/3 of this tax revenue goes to education and teacher pay.

Yet, unlike other states, Illinois taxpayers are left in the dark about the contracts schools negotiate with unions – until after the fact.

Pensions aren't the problem. That's just politician propaganda to deflect the blame onto someone else. My school district and myself send the state a check for the retirement fund. They spend it, divert it, however they feel like it. Then try to place blame on me. It's a load of crap. I would be happy, happy, happy if we could eliminate the state from getting the money and have it managed by private sector responsibly. This site continues to let the state off the hook, when it's the state that has the spending problem. They refused to support a bill from Rauner reducing spending. There is the enlightening news about why our state is broke and it doggone sure isn't the pensions, but the people SPENDING THE PENSION FUND!
It's astounding all the economically illiterate "progressive" bullshit in this thread. SIx years into the "Obama bull market" you have a system that's only about 40% funded--never mind you are inevitably going to have a bear market that could reduce that by 40% or more. Many Illinois local governments have seen their pension outflows up to triple or more what they were budgeting 10 years ago--and less than half of Baby Boomers have retired. This has the potential of getting ugly really fast. Already Illinois taxpayers are taking a big hit on debt financing as you have de facto junk bonds yielding among the highest rates in the nation. You "progressives" keeping whistling "Don't Worry; Be Happy"; you're about to see reality kick you in the ass.

(IPI). 64% of Illinois school districts pick up pension contributions for teachers.
Ending teacher pickups is a simple, responsible way for school districts to free up money for the classroom.
This isn't the case in CPS - The teachers contribute to their pension.
This is so freaking unconscionable. Really, people; even if you disregard the fact that the combined contributions don't make a sustainable pension system for the given retirement lifespan distributions, most of us in the REAL economy, i.e., the private economy that the parasite ruling class (including government employees) live off, during tough times, employer matches are not guaranteed--and in my experience are typically capped at about 3%. And those matches are typically on a multi-year vesting schedule--which means unless you stay with one employer in an environment where you can be laid off in a heartbeat for several years, you can lose some or even all of that match. Now flash forward to the fact that termination rates in the public sector are typically one-sixth or even less of comparable employees in the private sector, and you have high-five or even six-figure public employees (as a PhD who had to sacrifice 3 years of decent pay during my residency period as a doctoral student, I as a professor in a far more demanding position made one-third or less of what some Illinois teachers make--even adjusting for the cost of living, that's absurd) who are getting virtually all of their retirement paid by taxpayers. There's a term most of us who know economics use called "skin in the game"; these guys pay very little into pension systems that all but guaranteed a million-plus retirement. no wonder why these parasites didn't say a word as the state built this Ponzi scheme over decades, believing if and when this game of musical chairs came to its inevitable end, the corrupt Illinois justice system had their backs. These parasites are about to see their day of reckoning--a taxpayer revolt is coming, and it's not going to be pretty.

Children and Beautiful Dogs



Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Henry Payne via Townhall

Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Cat Stevens, "Hard-Headed Woman".  This song never charted, but I came across it on Cat Stevens' first hit compilation album--and it remains one of my all-time favorites. I'm still looking for my own hard-headed woman...

Miscellany: 5/25/15 Happy Memorial Day

Do NOT Let Traitors Undermine the Freedom 

For Which Patriots Paid the Ultimate Price

Quote of the Day
Murphy's Seventh Law: Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.

Image of the Day

McDonald's Answer to Minimum-Wage Nonsense HT ZeroHedge

Osseointegration, FDA Approval, and Wounded Vets

Whereas Memorial Day primarily focuses on those who have died in America's wars, a number of wounded vets must deal with horrific disabilities for decades, including missing limbs.

There are, of course, prosthetics manufacturers who serve a market need for those with amputated limbs. I've briefly mentioned in past posts that my first college RA was a disabled Vietnam War vet who lost one of his legs. Tom didn't always like to walk around his prothesis, often hopping around on his good leg or using his crutches. (During my family's visit to the dorms, my baby sister saw Tom without his prosthesis and to my dismay loudly pointed it out.) There have been some technological advances since then towards more natural prostheses:

Osseointegration refers to a direct structural and functional connection between ordered, living bone and the surface of a load-carrying implant. Currently, an implant is considered as osseointegrated when there is no progressive relative movement between the implant and the bone with which it has direct contact.

I stumbled on this related story in one of today's emails:

I recently met [Joe, one of those recent veterans who lost his right leg] while in the US, and he has an unbelievable story.
Despite losing a limb in combat, Joe can’t get a new leg because the FDA won’t approve the procedure that he needs.
It’s called osseointegration. And the FDA thinks that it might be too risky for Joe.
Risky. Kind of like being in a combat zone in a country that never should have been invaded to begin with for reasons that were all lies, all to support a war that only makes the country less free.
So since the government doesn’t think that Joe is responsible enough to make his own decisions, he now has to go overseas and pay tens of thousands of dollars out of his own pocket.
Joe doesn’t have the money; so a family member set up a donation page on the Internet trying to get help. (I’m not publishing the link here because I’m going to take care of it myself.)
It’s amazing when you think about it– a combat veteran who lost a leg supposedly fighting for ‘freedom’ can’t have the medical procedure he needs because a destructive government bureaucracy.

I have not reviewed this issue in depth, but I do believe there have been trials scheduled. At least one source suggests that the real story is not-invented-here syndrome and crony prosthesis manufacturers lobbying for protectionst policies. In any event, this blog repeatedly beats the drum for FDA reform or (preferably) privatized.

Sunday Talk Soup and Martin O'Malley

This holiday weekend gave me me an opportunity to catch up on some podcasts. The May 3 MTP focused on the Baltimore unrest over the Freddie Gray incident. Former Baltimore Mayor and Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, a widely expected challenger to Hillary Clinton for next year's Dem Presidential nomination, was a guest. Expect him to concede decades of failed public policy at the local and state level? Think again...

FMR. GOV. MARTIN O'MALLEY:
Oh, I think the problem is the fact that we have built an economy that's leaving whole parts of Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, so many citizens behind. I mean, I was giving out food there at St. Peter Claver's in the aftermath of this unrest, and there are people in whole parts of our cities who are being totally left behind and disregarded.
They are unheard. They are told they are unneeded by this economy. And that extreme poverty breed conditions for extreme violence. People are frustrated. They're angry. And they feel like people aren't listening.

Now it couldn't be social welfare policies are at least in part morally hazardous in contributing to single-parent household and up to a 75% illegitimacy rate? Or public union controlled schools are abysmal failures/? Or government employment mandates (e.g., minimum wages), sky-high incarceration rates or a dysfunctional war on drugs.

That an unaccomplished political whore like O'Malley would try to engage in political spin pretending that he is on the side of the urban underclass whose lots did not improve under his tenure as mayor and governor boggles the imagination. The fact is that government is part of the problem, not the solution. O'Malley is trying to sell the vision that all we need is a huge urban city bailout from a central-planning federal government. To be fair, Todd does point out that the government has thrown an ungodly amount of money at urban issues, but O'Malley tries to deflect the blame on the federal government not throwing even more money at the problem:

CHUCK TODD:
And this morning's Baltimore Sun has this headline or, excuse me, Washington Post: "Why Couldn't $130 million Transform One of Baltimore's Poorest Places." $100 million was poured into this community over the last 20 years. Are we not spending the money correctly? What are we getting wrong here? Money has been there; what are we getting wrong?
FMR. GOV. MARTIN O'MALLEY:
No, Chuck, that's just not true. We haven't had an agenda for America's cities for at least two decades.

Facebook Corner

(IPI). Two bills promoting criminal-justice reform from the liberty perspective passed through the Illinois General Assembly this week.
House Bill 218 addresses the sentencing system for low-level cannabis possession and House Bill 494 removes automatic lifetime barriers to employment in schools and helps give former offenders the opportunity to prove themselves rehabilitated and able to work.
It's sad that we need to explain to the crony prison industrial complex and their misguided supporters why an incarceration rate multiple times any other democracy in the world and a discriminatory government prohibition on employing those who have paid that debt to society violate the very principles on which this republic was founded.

(LFC). A pretty remarkable thing. A fast food restaurant that can feed thousands of people per day with custom orders, with only a few employees. You mad, commies?
You know, if the economically illiterate fascists were more transparent in their morally contemptible intervention, wage-price prohibitions on labor-market clearing wages, they might want to consider redistribution via, say, the earned income tax credit, rather than penalizing low-skill/low-experience workers or the plurality of small businesses hiring them operating on paper-thin profits. Bottom line: if you aren't a jobseeker willing to work for less money than some number a corrupt demagogue political whore picks out out of his ass or if you're not a small business owner trying to manage your budget, mind your own business!

(FEE). Requiring inventors to get permission from the government before using technologies is a sure way to stunt innovation and economic growth.
The protectionism and the cronyism of those with a vested interest in the status quo are predictable; I think to some extent there is going to be some resistance of change, some fears of economic uncertainty in the context of creative destruction. A country, however, has to foster innovation and trial and error in the private economy if it expects to remain relevant in a growing global economy. If, say, IBM had been obsessed with cannibalization of its mainframe business by low-cost personal computers, competitors would have been more than willing to take IBM's market share. Try as they might, the Luddites can'r put the genie back into the bubble. We need to fend off the special interests who fear-monger and rule at the expense of consumers, who benefit from greater competition and variety of goods and services.

(Rand Paul 2016). Is there a bigger idiot than Peter King?
Peter King, by sacrificing individual liberties in his mindless fearmongering defense of Big Brother run amok and his feckless support of throwing American lives and treasure at unsustainable foreign interventionism, is the true national disgrace.

Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Scott Stantis via IPI

Courtesy of Glenn McCoy via Townhall

Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Cat Stevens, "Wild World"