A minimalist approach to essential, transparent, accountable, flat, adaptable, responsive, solution-based government, rooted in virtuous individual autonomy, traditional values and free markets, with a bias towards reduction of government functionality, cost and scope
Remy is Back and Tackling School Administrative Idiocy
Another Account of the Economically Illiterate FDR
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(National Review). Pope Francis cannot be put into a liberal, Democratic box. Two critical points: (1). The Pope intentionally didn't publicize this; where's the leadership if he doesn't have the courage to lead openly? (2), The Pope opened the door with his ambiguous "who am I to judge?" rhetoric.
(Pro-Life Libertarians). Petersen really drops the ball here. Personally opposing abortion doesn't accomplish anything. Without a government to protect their rights, unborn children will continue to be treated as second-class citizens. Austin Petersen
Although I am pro-life, I do not think the government should be involved in legislating abortion. Why? Because a government big enough to make those decisions is big enough to FORCE you to have abortions, as they do in China. What you empower government to do today, can be used as a power for the opposite effect tomorrow. We must exemplify a culture of life, encourage adoptions, and offer mothers hope and options. We cannot believe that by terrorizing them with the government that we will change their minds. We are a nation of life, and love, not big government and force.
I think Petersen is running for President on the LP ticket, and roughly two-thirds of libertarians are pro-aborts. One could just as well argue that to the extent any government refuses to acknowledge the natural right for the preborn to live is on a slippery road to arbitrarily defining the rights of others, say the elderly and disabled. Everyone knows the consequences of sex without birth control; there are operations, devices and meds to prevent the possibility of conception. With freedom comes responsibility--not at the expense of the rights of others.
(IPI). Now that #Chicago has lifted its ban on food carts, there should be no restrictions on where vendors can operate. Yet, less than a day after the ban was lifted, aldermen with a history of limiting the city's food options made moves to restrict vendors' ability to operate in lucrative locations. Political whores who put their crony restauranteur political contributions over the interests of the consumer, who gets more choice and competition for his hard-earned dollar. Food carts and trucks are often a financially viable first step towards a brick-and-mortar as they grow their reputation.
Before I started this blog in July 2008, how incredulous I was over how satisfied Democrats seemed to be over their choice between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Of course, their contest was over before the blog, but I was astonished: neither candidate had credible private or public sector administrative experience, neither had a signature legislative accomplishment or policy expertise, served in the Senate leadership or had exhibited bipartisan leadership with the opposition party. Barry had barely served one session of Congress before commencing his run, and Hillary had just begun her second term in office. Their voting records and stands on the issues were highly consistent with the party line.
So on what grounds was either Obama or Clinton qualified to be President? Some want to give Clinton credit for her husband's tenure in office as a governor or President, which is patently absurd. It's true that Hillary Clinton had a major role in Bill's "healthcare reform effort", eventually abandoned, and arguably in conjunction with his tax increase, responsible for losing control of the Congress his last 6 years in office. But more qualified than Biden, who had served nearly quadruple the tenure in the Senate and two terms as Vice-President--or Gore, who spent more time in Congress and also 2 terms as Vice-President? Not to mention the GOP has a deep bench of multi-term governors, the freshest policy ideas from either party, and a distinctively pro-liberty Senator.
What about Clinton's experience as Secretary of State? In terms of executive performance, not only do we have a hypocritical standard of "do as I say, not as I do" email policies, but we have someone who maintained diplomats in Benghazi, even after Britain withdrew theirs, and refused to bump up security despite numerous requests. The Obama Administration has had an incoherent policy, silently standing by as the Green Revolution in Iran was crushed but getting caught flatfooted by the Arab Spring and the spread of radicalized factions, while the Administration tried to blame a Youtube video for inciting terrorist violence. (Whereas Clinton is not responsible for Obama's decisions or the actions of other members of the Administration, she did almost nothing to correct the record or to take responsibility for anything (except for paying lip service to the concept under questioning), including her department's lack of responsiveness to Benghazi security issues, basically throwing her direct reports under the bus, arguing she was far too busy to manage her subordinates.)
So as Shania Twain might sing, Hillary Clinton's one term as Secretary of State "don't impress me much". I don't doubt that Hillary Clinton is competent and has a decent work ethic, but there are tens of millions, including myself, who are similarly qualified on those grounds. But is being a Secretary of State key preparation for the Office of the Presidency? Only about half a dozen have been elected, all before the Civil War and most of those in the early nineteen century when the Federalists imploded leaving the Republican-Democrats the dominant party for a generation.
Hillary Clinton lacks the personal charisma of Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. She has been hyper-partisan, her judgment and integrity undermined by the Emailgate scandal, she has voted for unsustainable, morally corrupt, failed, economically illiterate domestic spending programs, the fact that the Clinton Foundation did blockbuster business with foreign parties during her tenure as Secreteary of State is ethically troubling, her political positions have been at the expense of individual liberty and local autonomy, I see no end to domestic or international meddling in the affairs of others. Her reckless Twitter tweet in the response to the Daraprim price hike kerfuffle was totally political and irresponsible (Turing recently raised the list price of the drug, prescribed about 10,000 times a year; the drug is off-patent, but generics have to pass through expensive FDA approval. Hints of even more Draconian regulation of drugs caused a huge correction in the biotech industry, one of the crown jewels of our economy. The correct response is to eliminate barriers to entry, and government regulation is the biggest one.)
Much has been made by how many votes Hillary Clinton got during the 2008 campaign, but this had less to do with Clinton herself, but a change election year in which the Democrats were favored to add to their 2006 Congressional sweep and a misguided belief that Bill Clinton's economic policies were responsible for the strong 1990's recovery/economic boom. What about her most important political criterion, i.e., her gender? The fact is if Hillary Clinton had been a man, she never would have made the US Senate from NY; her role as First Lady gave her a priceless political advantage. Many of us conservatives admire women like Ayn Rand, Margaret Thatcher, and Angela Merkel. The closest "progressives" have in that category is Elizabeth Warren.
Rand Paul Rails Against the Kick-the-Can-Down-the-Road Congressional Budgeting
OK, This Girl Has Already Beaten the Biggest Fish I Ever Reeled In--With a Barbie Pole!
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(FEE). The Turing Pharmaceuticals scandal tells us very little about capitalism, but it does tell us a lot about the perverse incentives that regulation can create. The real monopoly is the FDA; as the author points out, the drug is off-patent, but generic competition requires the high cost of FDA approval, particularly for a drug that amounts to 10,000 of up to 4 billion prescriptions a year. The way you deal with the likes of Shkreli is to privatize the FDA and/or open the American market to foreign generics. A monopoly means it's not capitalism. Period. A monopoly means there is no competition, the opposite of the principle of capitalism. It also means there is corruption and/or bad legislation in government enabling the monopolistic practice, in other words, crony capitalism. A genuine capitalist situation would have this piece of shit raising the price of Daraprim but another company who also has access to Daraprim selling it for much less and getting all the customers. The OP is wrong; you can have a dominant supplier in a market (think Intel in the PC market) without government intervention; the government is not responsible for the success to market dominance, say, through economies of scale, It's only if Intel or other supplier resorted to non-market mechanisms to maintain their dominance. Patents and copyrights violate real property rights (to use your own property in any peaceful manner you as owner see fit), so they are NOT part of a true free market. Remember they were initially promulgated by the crown, seeking control of the populace's minds and kickbacks from the privileged. That is cronyism, not moral. Yes, there are thieving libertarians like [troll] who think they have a right to the intellectual efforts of others. He needs to read real libertarians like Lysander Spooner.
This is in reference to the infamous 3-way 2010 US Senate battle among Tom Campbell, an economist/lawyer who earned both a PhD under libertarian icon Milton Friedman and a Harvard Law graduate, Carly Fiorina, the terminated former HP CEO, and Chuck DeVore, probably the most conservative Tea Partier of the group. Campell, a multi-term Congressman who used to represent my former Congressional district in Silicon Valley, was leading the pack until about a month before the primary, where Fiorina won over half the vote (Campbell and DeVore split the remaining votes), but Boxer defeated Fiorina by 10.
The FCINO (fiscal conservative in name only) charge was absurd. Let me quote Conservapedia over his Congressional record: "Campbell's record was fiscally conservative while socially moderate... the conservative National Taxpayers Union Foundation named Campbell the most fiscally responsible member of Congress. His political leanings have gained him a libertarian following." Sarah Palin, who decided to back the "best" candidate, i.e., the only one with ovaries, termed Campbell a "liberal" Republican. Cato Institute responded:
Campbell
Boxer
Americans for Democratic Action
20
85
Republican Liberty Caucus
79.5
16
American Conservative Union
64
4
National Taxpayers Union
73 (21st in House)
14 (73rd in Senate)
Hawkins, a DeVore backer, does a good job of pointing out that Fiorina is not a principled conservative here. Now Fiorina was really targeting Campbell's record as an economic adisor to the Governator having to deal with a heavily Democrat state legislature. But it would be more honest to review his record as an elected official, particularly in Congress--part of the GOP-controlled House which had yielded the first budget surpluses in decades. It's not just Carly had no votes on the record, but she had a mediocre personal voting record.
One might think that the fact that I hold 2 graduate business degrees and taught for 4 of my 5 years as a professor in a business school might mean that I would be supportive of Fiorina. I do think that she is articulate and persuasive like many effective managers, but I was not impressed with her record as CEO of HP: in particular, I was not a fan of her decision to merge HP with Compaq. The PC industry was maturing into a highly competitive, low-margin commoditization business; whereas we might see some economies of scale in dealing with suppliers and reduced costs in industry consolidation, I would expected more of an effort to expand in higher margin software (75%) and/or services (40%). (The IBM turnaround in the 1990's was largely based on similar considerations. HP notably tried to acquire PwC in 2000 and backed away under slumping operations, only to see IBM pick it up at a much lower price, strengthening its already strong hand in global services.) And let's point out that while HP stock lost half its value and profits dropped about 40% during Fiorina's tenure (and about 80% of the profits came from the legacy printer business cash cow), this was not typical across the market; in fact, PC/server vendor Dell's stock price grew. When Fiorina spin of her performance focusing on doubling revenues, growth in patents, cash flow, et al, many of these things are artifacts of the controversial merger, not organic internal growth; she is diverting attention from the diminishing aggregate profitability and comparable revenue figures from the new business unit. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, who Trump cited during the debate, notes that much of what Fiorina had purchased, against the wishes of multiple critics including stiff opposition of HP board members, was shuttered after she left and notes Fiorina's abrupt shift (as discussed above) from the higher-margin strategy to the highly competitive hardware market; if Fiorina's record was as stellar as she purports, why haven't other major corporations hired her? Hawkins and others have cited a handful of lists including Fiorina among the worst CEO's of all time.
Probably a bigger issue from a political standpoint are her leadership skills and fit with the organization's culture, in particular, the infamous HP Way. Now certainly Fiorina paid lip service to the company myth origins of the company's parternship roots as referenced in the above spoof by Sun Microsystems, now an Oracle business unit. Fiorina's self-professed background as a climb from secretary to the corner office is misleading; she worked briefly as an administrative assistant after dropping out of law school in 1976; she earned an MBA at Maryland in 1980 and landed in a marketing management track at AT&T she got sponsored for a prestigous mid-career fellowship at MIT's Sloan School, which gave her exposure to senior managers, earned her second Masters and landed on the senior manager track at AT&T, eventually ending up in a prominent position at AT&T spinoff, Lucent, when HP recruited her in the late 1990's. (Lucent underwent a huge stumble over the years after Carly's departure, not due to Fiorina's non-CEO role, but which involved sales boosted by dodgy loans to finance dubious customer purchases. Let's just say that if the HP CEO spot had opened a few years later, Fiorina would not have been on the short list of candidates.) The basic point here is that Fiorina, although she was a manager in the high tech industry, was not an engineer/techie, but more of a marketer showing certain management skills in streamlining/consolidating operations, etc. However, she seemed to lack the experience and administrative skills that a successor CEO, Mark Hurd, had in eventually making the Compaq merger work and restoring HP to a stable, more prosperous path.
The following excerpt explains some of the resistance to the hotly disputed Compaq merger, which barely survived a stockholder vote, opposed by the co-founders' descendants:
In voting against the merger [the largest to that point in the tech industry], Walter Hewlett cited sluggish growth in the PC and low-end server markets, the potential dilution of HP's profitable printer and imaging business, and customer uncertainty that could be created after the merger.
Packard, in a report in the San Jose Mercury News, said he agrees with Walter B. Hewlett's criticisms of the deal. He also focused on the massive layoffs expected if the deal is completed. "For over 50 years, one of HP's fundamental corporate objectives has been to provide long-term employment for its people," Packard said in the statement. Eunice said both HP and Compaq have been involved in "massive, failed" mergers, including HP's merger with Verifone Inc. and Compaq's with Digital Equipment Corp. and Tandem Computers Inc.
"Fiorina and Capellas [Compaq] haven't had any track record of doing this," he said. "HP's always been a friendly company, and friendly, soft and cuddly companies have a lot more trouble in mergers, unlike hard-as-steel companies like Computer Associates."
Just a side note: as a DBA I have had experience with various versions of Unix and Linux, including Sun, HP-UX, IBM AIX, and Digital Unix. When I was a corporate DBA in Silicon Valley, my employer had deployed Oracle Apps/EBS on the Digital Unix platform. Digital Unix eventually became Compaq Tru64, and the handwriting was on the wall with the HP merger that Tru64 would go away in favor of HP-UX. As you might expect this introduced uncertainty in terms of platform support, and migrations between platforms can be nontrivial.
Mergers can be very expensive, and I just described above how HP almost overpaid by multiple times the proposed, eventually abandoned PwC merger. It's not just that headcount had to be slashed to make the merger work, but Fiorina would be inheriting the problem stepchildren of Compaq, and she had not dealt with the complexities of large mergers during her management stint at Lucent. All this made the merger a very risky proposition for stakeholders.
It went beyond that. The co-founders of the company had managed by "walking around"; they had a more inclusive, informal management style. Fiorina had a more aloof style inconsistent with HP's culture, she was more comfortable operating in the sanctuary of her office. She had an issue with delegating authority to her subordinates, against the wishes of the board, which was a deciding factor in her termination.
It's sad that the GOP has gone from Romney's stellar CEO skills to the more dubious ones of Trump and Fiorina this cycle. I've save my comments on Trump for another post, except to note that, besides his four company bankruptcies, some have pointed out that Trump's executive results relative to his wealth are lower than if he had simply invested his wealth in the 1980's in a stock market index fund. Romney, unlike Trump and Fiorina, had public sector administrative experience, but even he lacked some background, e.g., in international policy. Also, the role of the President is different than that of the CEO; a President can only work in conjunction with Congress' approval. He doesn't have line-item approval; his policy is constrained by the law and available resources. Trump and Fiorina would have to be willing to negotiate and compromise under the Balance of Powers.
What do I think of her as a Presidential candidate? I think that she has benefited from the early campaign stretch showing nearly 1 in 2 GOP supporting one of the 3 candidates with no political office experience. She has made the most of her debate performances to date, with professional, detailed, articulate responses (e.g., modernizing the military) and deftly turning back Trump's unforced errors, such as the disparaging joke about her looks.
However, I think she has come across as highly defensive and has been somewhat misleading about her past (from secretary to CEO); the political posturing she took, insisting that she wouldn't speak to Putin, comes across as demagogic and potentially dangerous. From an electability standpoint, she lost big to Barbara Boxer in the 2010 GOP wave election; she can't even win her home state.
On a pro-liberty front, Fiorina is one of those who made sure that the NSA got all the IT hardware they needed to spy of the American people. So I'm immediately wary of where she stands on liberty issues. I don't really see any vision of reducing or devolving the federal government footprint, any detailed innovative policy positions like Rand Paul's flat tax plan or spending plan, I want to see more attention paid to the unsustainable, growing 70% of the federal budget which is mandatory spending. I would like to see more scaled-back foreign policy, no more constant warfare and nation building.
It's difficult to see me supporting Fiorina unless she is the only alternative to Trump--or whoever left-fascist Democrats nominate.
NOTE: Facebook Immigrant Video At the Bottom of the Post
Image of the Day
Okay, to those of us with degrees in philosophy this cartoon is LMAO
The Trumpster Wants To Wish Your Family Happy Holidays Christmas....
"Progressive" Public School Administrative Idiocy
You know, bill the parents if necessary; use some common sense.
Misleading Statistics From the "Politics of Envy" Leftists
Choose Life: Daddy-Child Moments
Facebook Corner
(on a Libertarian Catholic post involving Pope Francis) Other than specifying mans part in climate change I don't see where he said anything that strays from other popes. He also welcomed dissenters to the table and that their voices should be heard (conveniently left out of media write ups). Everything else has been in line with other pontiffs. It really is tragic that everything is seen through a political lens. How can this event or that tragedy be spun to a party's benefit or detriment. Our left wing media is doing what it can to get a dem party bounce from the Pope's visit....and they clearly aren't studied up on church teachings (that said, many of us aren't either....I had learned quite a bit from research spurned by PF's visit). Bullshit. Citing St. John Paul II: "It would appear that, on the level of individual nations and of international relations, the free market is the most efficient instrument for utilizing resources and effectively responding to needs." If you don't see Francis' leftist claptrap for what it is, you're in a state of denial. (National Review). See video at the end of the post. We need to be respectful of all visitors and prospective residents to the United Stattes; that's a moral imperative. All the restrictionists can go straight to hell.
Political Cartoon
Courtesy of the original artists via Independent Institute
(Libertarian Catholic). See Image of the Day. Yeah, has the "sainted" Pope Francis done anything lately to stop declining Mass attendance and slumping vocations for priests or nuns/sisters? Has he done anything to shore up crumbling Catholic marriages and families? We have the straight-from-the-Onion story of a pro-abort Pennsylvania Democratic Congressman grabbing Francis' abandoned water cup after his Congressional speech and treating it like consumable holy water. Perhaps the pontiff should address the crisis in faith and morals rather than regurgitating economically illiterate soundbites.
(Catholic Libertarian). « the Pope’s visit this week reveals that Protestant and secular America still do not understand the way the Catholic Church approaches public life. Pundits and commentators insist on trying to comprehend Francis’s message in political terms. This is a wrongheaded approach. The Pope is not liberal or conservative. He is not a Democrat or Republican. He is a Catholic. And whatever he says about politics, culture, or the economy stems from this identity. Our propensity for trying to place the Pope in a political box says more about our culture than it does about the social views of the Catholic Church. Francis's visit has called attention to the tired, unimaginative, and intellectually stale way that we Americans think about public life. Americans are captive to ideological categories like "Left: and "Right." They are captive to political parties that allow little original thought that does not conform to rigid and limited platforms. » This is flatly a state of denial. He definitely has a leftist/populist/Peronist perspective. I'm a little pissed off, because the above OP blurb is intellectually dishonest. I've cited before his exhortation specifically. He is NOT talking about individual responsibility; he's talking about State "solutions" He is not stressing repentence, dwindling Mass attendance, sharply declining vocations to the priesthood, etc. He recently declared Oscar Romero, a prominent politically active priest, a martyr, which basically allows elevation to the sainthood without the miracle requirement, e.g., required for John Paul II. He has basically copied and pasted familiar "progressive" issue soundbites in a typically economically illiterate fashion (e.g., he's resorted to demonization of trade, while encouraging immigration (which are conceptually muddled); he has not engaged in a critique of morally hazardous public policy. Instead, he has engaged in polemical soundbites, ridiculing the invisible hand of the free market, even anointing the pseudo income inequality issue as the root of the world's problems. None of this garbage is rooted in Christ's message; Christ's message was based on an individual's free choice of responding to God's grace, not collective action. Francis I doesn't seem to be aware that coveting a neighbor's goods is sinful, that Christ himself chastised the jealous brother who pleaded with Him to divide his father's inheritance "more fairly" among the brothers. I don't really care about scoring points in Democratic or Republican terms; I'm far more concerned about scoring points for liberty.
(Acton Institute). Why Can't The Church See The Potential Of The Free Market? The Church is not against the free market , there is no such a thing anymore in the United States. It is against oppression of people and thats what we have now . The Goverment contols rent prices with their section 8 housing, food prices with stamp cards , fuel with political stands , utilities with environmental standards, medical with obama noncare, all of which are in.flationary. It takes an individual 65 thousand a year to mantain poverty at these prices. Using common core i believe it will take three full time 12 dollar an hour salries to maintain this low level non homelessness. Be fair, that is what the church is for. Don't be a retard. Economic fascism is more reflective of the State-dominated banking and healthcare industries. The problem is that "progressive" regulation and taxation are barriers to economic growth, the tide that raises all boats. The economically illiterate pope is a product of the failed Argentinian system; at the beginning of the twentieth century, the US and Argentina had roughly comparable living standards. Argentina's economy has suffered because of Statist meddling (even more than US). The Church is not against Free Market. The Church is against greed and exploitation. Don't be a retard. Greed and exploitation is socialist claptrap nonsense and has ZERO to do economic reality or the Church.
Quote of the Day It isn't really important to decide when you are very young just exactly what you want to become when you grow up. It is much more important to decide on the way you want to live. Golda Meir
Tweet of the Day
NOT the Onion: pro-abort Catholic Bob Brady (D-Pa) treats @Pontifex's abandoned water glass like the Holy Grail. http://t.co/sux10Nb4Oh
I mentioned in a recent post a spat I had on a Tom Woods Facebook thread a while back. He had posted a birthday message to Ron Paul with a 'thank God you're the real thing vs. all the phonies out there [like Mitt Romney]'. I rebuked him for an unnecessary cheap shot of Romney, while he dug in his heels, insisting that Romney has no discernible political principles. [It's not that Woods is alone in this belief.] A Fortune op-ed contributor (with a name similar to a well-known MSNBC host) took on Tom Woods on one of his signature contributions to modern libertarianism, the Catholic Church and the free market. Perhaps most salient to my discussion here is the author's statement: "So, how can the 48% of Catholic-American voters who voted for Mitt Romney in 2012 justify their support for the candidate’s economic policies?" He then goes after Woods. Now I think Woods does a credible job refuting the piece, but he just can't pass up the opportunity to comment on the Romney reference. He says at a point in the broadcast how he had to make a point recently of Romney's vacuous political principles to someone; I'm 100% sure that he was referring to me. (I cited a copy/paste I republished of the thread in question.) I suppose I should be grateful that he didn't identify me, although I would have welcomed extra eyeballs to my blog. If he mentioned me on a podcast after I started boycotting them, I'm not aware of it. Now, personally, I have a different political perspective than Romney and disagree with a number of his positions but I disagree that he's unprincipled. It's not my responsibility to flesh out his perspective; I would probably describe it as a variation of pragmatic conservatism. But note that Woods is a self-described AnCap; AnCaps typically regard us minarchists as unprincipled (although I should point out Woods' hero, Ron Paul, is not an AnCap), like if we allow for State involvement in common defense and a court system to enforce contracts, we have given the State unlimited power through these exceptions.
Rev. Sirico Addresses Critiques of the Pope's Visit
Lord Acton is a prominent nineteenth century British historian and Catholic, perhaps best known for his quote "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Acton wrote powerfully on the history of liberty and religious liberty/tolerance and is regarded as a classical liberal by many, including Deirdre McCloskey. I also consider myself a classical liberal; we focus on negative rights/liberty, i.e., things where the government or others cannot constrain us from exercising.
Choose Life: A 6-Year-Old Girl Wants Her Divorced Parents To Be Friends
I recently promoted Woods' free ebook on Bernie Sanders' economically illiterate perspect. Real Dissent is a type of apologetics for libertarianism. This free (limited time) offer is available at Amazon.com; I believe that this link gets you to a relevant product page. Depending on the product page you get, you want to look for a "buy" $0.00 hyperlink under/near the Kindle version; it may be sandwiched between other links. (This discussion assumes that you have a prerequisite Amazon account to make purchases.)
First, Do No Harm: The Folly of Democracies
RE: The Law of Comparative Advantage: The $1500 Sandwich
Facebook Corner
(Catholic Libertarians). I never thought I'd applaud John Boehner. Do you think he had a Matthew 9:9 experience, or more like Pope St. Leo the Great vs. Attila the Hun? I wonder what the Jesuit conspiracy theories have to say about this one... No doubt after the Pope heard Speaker Boehner's confession, he was going to assign penance but decided 5 years as speaker under Obama was hell on earth.
Political Cartoon
Courtesy of the original artist via Catholic Libertarians
Courtesy of Henry Payne via Reason
Courtesy of the original artist via IPI
Courtesy of the original artist via the Independent Institute
