Author: CS Admin

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Accountability crime and punishment folly general freedom government transparency local leaders moral hazard nannyism porkbarrel politics privacy property rights responsibility tax policy too much government

Progress, DC-​Style

gentrification, renewall, Washington D.C., corruption, crony capitalism, housing, dirigisme

Is the black, Democratic mayor of Washington, D.C., actually a “racist”? What about the city council, which is 46 percent African-​American, 85 percent Democrat, and 100 percent liberal/​progressive?

That’s what a lawsuit argues — the DC ‘powers that be’ are racist in their development and housing policies. Filed on behalf of several African-​American DC residents, it alleges that Mayor Muriel Bowser and the council have been striving mightily, as the Washington Post reported, “to ‘lighten’ African American neighborhoods and break up long-​established communities.”

“Every city planning agency,” states the complaint, “. . . conspired to make D.C. very welcoming for preferred residents and sought to displace residents inimical to the creative economy.”

Nothing that a billion dollars couldn’t make right, of course — for which the plaintiffs ask. 

But is gentrification a crime?

As American University professor Derek Hyra told the Post, “Developers want to maximize their return. This is not a conspiracy. This is capitalism.”

But no, this certainly isn’t laissez faire “capitalism.” It could be described as dirigisme — or “state capitalism” or “crony capitalism” or just a bad old-​fashioned mercantilism, revised to work at the city level, where governments partner up with particular groups to extract as much wealth for the insiders as they can. Professor Hyra acknowledges that Bowser and the council were “providing subsidies” to bring in richer citizens and push out poorer ones. 

Most importantly, we discover yet again that the power politicians claim they need to help the poor, is used to help the rich. 

Way to go, “progressives.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

Note: The mayor is a Democrat and the 13-​member council is composed of eleven (11) Democrats and two (2) independents. There are no Republicans.

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crime and punishment free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture media and media people moral hazard national politics & policies privacy property rights responsibility U.S. Constitution

Wouldn’t Freedom Be … Easier?

cake, gay rights, Supreme Court, freedom of association, discrimination, law. nanny state

To bake or not to bake, that is the question.

Actually, the question was may a state discriminate against Christians in regulating “public accommodations”? The Supreme Court has decided, in a supermajority 7 – 2 ruling, that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission wrongly prosecuted a Christian baker who would not make a special wedding cake for a gay couple — while the Commission shrugged when it came to bakers who wouldn’t bake Bible verse cakes.

The ruling came down along the lines I suspected in December: Equal protection. This narrow ruling focused “on what the court described as anti-​religious bias on the Colorado Civil Rights Commission when it ruled against baker Jack Phillips,” Fox News informs us.

In his majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy censured the “Commission’s hostility” to Phillips. And Kennedy recognized the root problem, the “difficult questions as to the proper reconciliation of at least two principles”:

  1. “the authority of a State and its governmental entities to protect the rights and dignity of gay persons”;
  2. “fundamental freedoms under the First Amendment, as applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment.”

Ah, discrimination. Has picking at this, like a scab, really increased comity? It sure would be easier were we to stick to freedom of association. 

Wouldn’t that dredge up less animus?

States should not engage in invidious discrimination. Sure. Vital.

But businesses? Must they serve anyone and everyone? Even when it requires the baker or florist to create something custom — or the pianist to perform? Especially when customers can easily go to a competitor? 

Besides, in Colorado, anti-​discrimination laws were used by government to persecute Christians. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

 

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Accountability crime and punishment folly general freedom moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies privacy too much government

Good Pot, Bad Law

Brill, family, marijuana, pot, prohibition, seizures, epileptic, goFundMe

Should you let your son suffer, perhaps even die, if the medicine he needs — the only medicine that helps — is illegal to administer? 

The question answers itself. It’s the answer that Matthew and Suzeanna Brill acted on when they let their 15-​year-​old son David smoke marijuana to help control his epileptic seizures. Nothing else was doing the job. 

“For 71 days our son rode his bike, woke up, went to school, played with friends, played outside; and the terror for his life that gripped our hearts and souls began to lift,” says Suzeanna. “We were breaking the law. We saved our son.”

But because the Brills did what they did — and because a thoughtless therapist tattled on them — Georgia’s Family and Children Services took David away, with the help of the sheriff’s office of Twiggs County. So David has been living in a group home, forcibly separated from his parents and presumably from any effective treatment for his life-​threatening seizures.

“Whatever the law is, it’s my job to enforce it,” says Sheriff Darren Mitchum in rationalizing his deplorable conduct. (Whatever the law is?) After all, “somebody’s got to stand up for the child’s welfare.” Because, as everyone knows, preventing destructive seizures could not possibly be in the best interest of the person suffering from those seizures … right? 

Fighting to get their son back, the Brills are raising money for the legal costs through a GoFundMe campaign. 

Let’s help them succeed. Fast.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Accountability general freedom incumbents insider corruption local leaders moral hazard political challengers Regulating Protest term limits

Missouri Shows Article V Action

Missouri, show me, Article V, term limits, legislature, congress,

There’s good news and there’s good news from the Show Me State.

First the good news. The Missouri House declined to follow the lead of the Missouri Senate during its recent legislative session in advancing a ballot measure to make a travesty, mockery and sham of state legislative term limits.

The proposed weakening of the limits would have doubled maximum legislative tenure from eight years to 16 years. Further, it would also have excluded terms already served from counting toward the new limit. 

Had the measure ultimately been enacted, some incumbents would have been able to sit in a single seat for up to 24 years. This assault on term limits is dead … at least until next year.

Now the good news. The lawmakers deserve high praise for issuing a formal call for an amendment convention to consider the single subject of congressional term limits, making Missouri the third state to do so (after Florida and Alabama). In mid-​May, the resolution for a Term Limits Convention easily passed in both chambers.

Thanks to a provision in Article V of the Constitution, if two thirds of the states (34 states) submit a similar application to convene a term limits amendment convention, the convention must be convened. The amendment that the convention produces would then be submitted to the states for ratification. Three fourths (38) are required to ratify. 

We’re only in the first-​steps stage here, but first steps are crucial. 

Thanks for showing us how to do it, Missouri.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Missouri, show me, Article V, term limits, legislature, congress,

 

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Accountability crime and punishment folly moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies Popular responsibility too much government U.S. Constitution

Where the Beef Is

cheese, law suit, justice, McDonald's, hamburger, Florida, class action

In South Florida, two McDonald’s customers are suing the fast food behemoth for charging them for cheese they say they do not want.

“According to a class-​action lawsuit filed in Fort Lauderdale federal court on May 8,” informs the Miami Herald, “Cynthia Kissner, of Broward County, and Leonard Werner, of Miami-​Dade, say they have had to pay for cheese they don’t want on their Quarter Pounder sandwiches.”

Before you upchuck every last greasy, chemical-infused/​extra-​beef morsel of this story, let’s look at the facts:

The Quarter Pounder went national in 1973.

The fast-​food franchise used to charge extra for the cheese.

But “at some point” the junk food purveyor stopped “separately displaying these products for purchase on menus.” These days, only the Quarter Pounder with Cheese and the Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese are listed.

McDonald’s joints in Florida, at least, provide no discount for removing the cheese.

Rip-​off, say these two customers. How big? A $5 million injury! 

That’s what they are suing for.

It’s mad. The lawsuit, that is. You are not entitled to set the pricing and menu policies of stores you do not own. 

In a celebrated analysis of loyalty in markets, an economist revealed that consumers have a continuum of options, including “voice” and “exit.”

“Voice” is what you express when you argue your case in a family or a democracy — and fast food provisioners. Decent people will, if disgruntled, choose “exit,” driving down the street to a Wendy’s.

McDonald’s could rightly charge extra for withholding the cheese. 

That it doesn’t do so? Chalk it up to savvy. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Accountability crime and punishment folly free trade & free markets insider corruption media and media people moral hazard national politics & policies porkbarrel politics property rights responsibility too much government

Déjà vu All Over Again

housing, bust, financial, meltdown, Government-Backed Mortgages, jail, punishment, cause

One of the stand-​bys of the post-​2008 mortgage finance bust, at least from left-​of-​center policy mavens, has been to ask: why has no banker gone to prison? They played a game of fraud and got rich. What a protected class — Cronyism! Plutocracy! Capitalism!

The why is much easier to understand if you read up on Round Two of the aughts’ boom-​bust scenario, as in Prashant Gopal’s coverage in Bloomberg, “Getting Rich on Government-​Backed Mortgages.” Gopal spotlights a non-​bank mortgage broker, Angelo Christian, who is making a killing selling houses to people with horrible credit, just as happened before 2008.

“Christian can do this kind of deal because he is, in effect, making the loan on behalf of the federal government through its most important affordable housing program,” Gopal writes. “It’s a sweet deal: He gets his nearly risk-​free commission. [His client] puts no money down. If things go south, the government ultimately bears the risk.”

So, should he go to jail?

Not really. He’s merely doing Congress’s bidding. 

Gopal notes that it is not banks that dominate this round. They are under too much scrutiny. But non-​banking loan intermediaries like Mr. Christian are swarming like flies on a cow’s behind.

There’s a problem in Gopal’s account though. “No one is saying the system is close to another collapse.” 

Well, plenty of people are saying that.

The Cassandras are just not being heeded.

Of course, they don’t know when the bust will happen.

They just know it will.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Photo by Images Money on Flickr.