On April 30, 1902, future Nobel Laureate for his work in economics, Theodore W. Schultz, was born.
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Author: Redactor
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Legislator Knows Best?
In Florida, microbreweries are growing, creating customer demand, profits and new jobs. In 2007, there were only seven such craft breweries in the entire state; by year’s end, nearly 90 will be open for business.
Don’t worry, though, Sunshine State legislators are hard at work . . . getting in the way of work, snuffing out any whiff of economic success and the jobs that come with it.
Sen. Kelli Stargel’s Senate Bill 1714 just passed the Republican-dominated upper house. It slaps new regulations on brewers to the delight of beer distributors.
Sen. Jack Latvala dubbed SB-1714 “an attack on craft beer to protect distributors.”
“We’ve got this industry that’s growing,” noted an official with the Florida Brewers Guild. So, he wondered “why are we putting arbitrary restrictions on how they can grow and how their business model operates?”
“This bill is not going to limit their growth,” maintained Sen. Stargel. “We are not restricting one single craft brewer and we are not limiting what they can do. I know they don’t believe it.”
Yet, currently Florida’s craft breweries can sell as much of their beer as they want. Under the bill, they’re limited to 20 percent of total production. The remaining beer would have to be sold through — you guessed it! — a distributor.
“I know my kids don’t believe it when I tell them they can’t do something, but sometimes I know it is what’s best,” Stargel offered. “I believe this is what is best for their industry.”
Beer is a good business . . . that only politicians could screw up.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Herbert Spencer
Speaking broadly, every man works that he may avoid suffering.
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Dachau, April 29
On April 29, 1945, U.S. troops liberated the Dachau concentration camp.
Tyrants traditionally lash out at any number of people and groups they find dangerous or inconvenient: churches, entrepreneurs, voluntary associations, you name it. In America, our government has been having difficulty not showing some amazingly tyrannical leanings. Mass spying and data accumulation, partisan tax programs, and now …
Operation Choke Point.
In the Wall Street Journal, Frank Keating, CEO of the American Banking Association, wrote that government officials in this wing of the U.S. Department of Justice are “asking banks to identify customers who may be breaking the law or simply doing something government officials don’t like. Banks must then ‘choke off’ those customers’ access to financial services, shutting down their accounts.”
One target? Porn stars, according to a variety of reports.
Teagan Presley, “adult film” actress and stripper, had her Chase account abruptly closed — along with her husband’s. She was told that she was “high risk.” Other adult industry professionals have revealed similar treatment.
Don’t blame the banks; they’re being coerced by the DOJ. According to Keating, a bank that won’t “shut down a questionable account when directed to do so, Justice slaps the institution with a penalty for wrongdoing that may or may not have happened.”
As distasteful as the porn industry may be, this DOJ program is worse. It’s full-blown rogue government.
It may have been designed to prosecute those breaking the law via fraud and identity theft, but its modus operandi is outside the law, bullying regulated banks into punishing other businesses and people, without any court proceedings taking place.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Herbert Spencer
It is not … chiefly in the interests of the employing classes that socialism is to be resisted, but much more in the interests of the employed classes.… Under that compulsory cooperation which socialism would necessitate, the regulators, pursuing their personal interests with no less selfishness, could not be met by the combined resistance of free workers; and their power, unchecked as now by refusals to work save on prescribed terms, would grow and ramify and consolidate till it became irresistible. The ultimate result … must be a society like that of ancient Peru, dreadful to contemplate, in which the mass of the people, elaborately regimented in groups of 10, 50, 100, 500, and 1000, ruled by officers of corresponding grades, and tied to their districts, were superintended in their private lives as well as in their industries, and toiled hopelessly for the support of the governmental organization.
In 2012, President Obama caused an uproar among those of us who praise individuals for their individual achievements. Sneering at persons proud of their success, Obama stressed the truism that in a society, achievers get help from other people. On his short list of invaluable assistance: government’s helpful building of roads and other infrastructure.
Like many of us, Donald Boudreaux criticizes the president’s philosophical assumptions. But he adds that Obama is also wrong to imply that it’s government which makes most or all of the infrastructure on which we rely.
“[A] great deal of infrastructure is built privately. FedEx, for example, is infrastructure: It’s a combination of vehicles, warehouses, organizational knowledge and other specific capital that businesses and households rely upon to transport freight and packages. . . .
“Of course, FedEx isn’t a road or a bridge. But so what? FedEx, no less than a road or bridge, enhances our abilities to pursue our private goals. [I]nfrastructure isn’t only those things supplied by government.”
Moreover, we don’t benefit from government’s monopolization of the segments of infrastructure provision that governments do monopolize. If government hadn’t permitted competition in packages from UPS, Fed-Ex and others, Obama could have added “you didn’t ship that package” to “you didn’t build that road.” But how could this justify disparaging individual achievement, or be anything to boast about? Government’s commandeering of enterprises reduces quality and alternatives.
The answer to “You didn’t build that,” if and when it’s true, is: “Well, let us.”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Mutiny on the Bounty, April 28
On April 28, 1789, Lieutenant William Bligh and 18 sailors were set adrift by the rebel crew of the HMS Bounty, which returned briefly to Tahiti and then set sail for Pitcairn Island. On the same date in 2001, millionaire Dennis Tito became the world’s first space tourist.
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Herbert Spencer
The present social state is transitional, as past social states have been transitional. There will, I hope and believe, come a future social state differing as much from the present as the present differs from the past with its mailed barons and defenceless serfs.
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Herbert Spencer
To the question — What is representative government good for? our reply is — It is good, especially good, good above all others, for doing the thing which a government should do. It is bad, especially bad, bad above all others, for doing the things which a government should not do.