The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.
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Author: Redactor
In 2010, Newark, New Jersey, collected more than $3 million in fines based on the watchful (and programmed) work of red-light/amber-light intersection cameras. The next year there were even more violations.
Politicians love these Orwellian devices, while citizens remain extremely suspicious.
New Jersey recently suspended ticketing based on the results from 63 of the state’s 85 intersection cameras. It seems that these specific cameras (including all those in Newark) had not been properly configured according to the specifications set by the enabling legislation.
A Star-Ledger report neatly explains the calibration method, which requires intersection speed studies to set the proper duration of the amber lights. Figuring caution-light duration based on actual intersection speeds, not on posted speed limits — that is, the average actual speed of 85 percent of drivers — would seem to have something to do with safety. The 85 percent rule is an old highway safety engineering standard, and safety is allegedly why governments are involved in this at all.
A problem, though: This compliance procedure is great for setting speed limits, but in this case, wouldn’t it punish slower, legal drivers on streets where people tend to drive faster than the limit? Were the overwhelming majority of folks to speed through intersections, that would correspondingly lower the duration of the amber lights. Consequence? The folks most likely to receive tickets would be those who drove slowly through the intersections.
Hardly a good idea. As one driver commented, “Virtually from green it turns into red.”
More telling against the cameras is the increase in infractions, suggesting that the robotic cameras do not have a net instructional effect.
That is, they don’t make intersections safer.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Walmart to the Rescue!
Walmart is still taking kicks, especially in New York City. But as local politicians, union activists, and business bigots (people who develop hatreds for other people’s wage and consumer choices) continue to harass the company, it’s worth taking a step back and appreciating what it does right.
Indeed, it is so successful that it’s worth exporting. Or so suggests economist Tyler Cowen in an interesting interview on the Arabic Knowledge@Wharton website, where he says that companies like Walmart are exactly what the “poor people of Africa” need. Why? These big corporations make food
more accessible and more reliable. It’s not just the pricing at any one point and time. It’s what happens in the very worst periods. Companies like Walmart are very, very good at keeping up supply and being regular.
Anti-Walmarters in first-world countries tend to forget how bad everyday life is in poor countries, except when they are trying to find ways to increase foreign aid or pitch a Live Aid concert. They take for granted not only our vast markets, but the Industrial Revolution and our several agricultural revolutions.
And there’s the rub, for the Third World. The “Green Revolution” that staved off mass starvation in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, has “somewhat slowed down,” says Cowen.
This is an unreported story. Crop yields are stagnant. It isn’t a problem we can solve overnight but it’s really one of the biggest problems in the world. It hardly gets any publicity. But for poor people in India, the Middle East and parts of Africa, it really matters.
So Walmart could really help.
But then, so would an end to Third World kleptocracy and its replacement by a rule of law.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Herbert Spencer
The fact disclosed by a survey of the past that majorities have usually been wrong, must not blind us to the complementary fact that majorities have usually not been entirely wrong.
You have no doubt heard about Obama’s recent “gaffe” about “the private sector’s doing fine.”
The private sector, of course, is not doing well, not at all — and it’s suffering from a public sector gone mad: Bailouts, increased spending, increased debt, increased regulation.
But our beleaguered and benighted president was trying to make the point that it’s our public sector that’s doing badly.
And there is something to be said — carefully, with much caution — about public sector jobs. In many states and locales, government jobs are not increasing in number. Well, at least not increasing as fast as bailout mania might lead you to think.
And Josh Barro knows why. Public sector jobs are in decline because public sector compensation has been skyrocketing, depleting resources from state and municipal governments, preventing job increases.
San Jose, for instance, used to have 7.5 employees per 1,000 residents. Now the city’s down to 5.6 employees per thou, “with further cuts expected next year.” Why?
[C]osts for a full-time equivalent employee are astronomical and skyrocketing. San Jose spends $142,000 per FTE on wages and benefits, up 85 percent from 10 years ago. As a result, the city shed 28 percent of its workforce over that period, even as its population was rising.
Blame it on pensions, grossly over-promised.
It’s a problem politicians have: They like to dole out favors. And pensions are something they can promise without funding fully, making “future politicians” (uh, taxpayers) pay (like, uh, now). It’s the scandal of the age.
But I wonder if Obama would ever ’fess up to the real nature of the problem
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Václav Klaus
We must say openly that the present economic system of the EU is a system of a suppressed market, a system of a permanently strengthening centrally controlled economy. Although history has more than clearly proven that this is a dead end, we find ourselves walking the same path once again. This results in a constant rise in both the extent of government masterminding and constraining of spontaneity of the market processes. In recent months, this trend has been further reinforced by incorrect interpretation of the causes of the present economic and financial crisis, as if it was caused by free market, while in reality it is just the contrary – caused by political manipulation of the market. It is again necessary to point out to the historical experience of our part of Europe and to the lessons we learned from it.
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Samuel Butler
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but a little want of knowledge is also a dangerous thing.
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The Real Whopper
“Today, government at all levels consumes 37 percent of the total economy, or GDP,” Mitt Romney said earlier this month. “If Obamacare is allowed to stand, government will reach half of the American economy.”
Glenn Kessler’s Fact Checker column at the Washington Post slapped that statement with four “Pinocchios,” the worst possible condemnation for telling “whoppers.”
Yet, Kessler acknowledges Romney’s point. In 2011, local, state and federal “government expenditures amounted to 37.34 percent of the gross domestic product.” That percentage is expected to climb to just over 39 percent by 2020.
“But Romney goes way too far,” writes Kessler. Romney counts private medical expenditures, which will supposedly account for 10 percent of the projected 2020 economy. Romney’s campaign spokesperson argues Obamacare in part mandates that spending and thus the 10 percent is part of government’s “reach.”
Of course, the vast majority of all private payments for medical care — the 10 percent — would happen with or without Obamacare. So Romney’s figure does exaggerate. Still, government commandeering 37 or 39 percent of our economy seems a whopping amount.
Moreover, in making his case against including private health care spending, Kessler argues, under Romney’s notion of government reach, “a wide variety of industries, such as banking or housing, should also be counted as part of this government-controlled economy.” Well, yes. Government spending accounts for nearly 40 percent of America’s GDP. Plus, government heavily regulates and interjects itself into major parts of the private sector.
Kessler thinks Romney’s statement is a real whopper, but Romney is on to something. What’s really whopping is government’s full reach, which includes over-reach.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Townhall: Winning the Lottery
This weekend on Townhall.com — it is Father’s Day!
Winning the lottery
Paul Jacob
June 17, 2012
My dad was trained as an accountant. So, why didn’t he just do the math?
According to the Department of Agriculture, it costs those American families categorized by Uncle Sam as “middle income” a whopping $234,900 to rear a child from birth to age 18. Families with household incomes of less than $59,000 supposedly spend $169,080 per kiddo; wealthier families (those earning more than $102,870 per annum) will fork out $389,670 per heir.
Wow. Mom and Dad had six kids. That’s almost $1.5 million.
Apparently the price tag has been greatly inflated since my parents’ day. Which naturally conjures up the next question: how have my wife and I financed our three?
It gets worse. These sticker shock numbers don’t even include the cost of pre-natal care, the birth itself or, on the back-end, putting the youngsters through college. And remember, college costs have increased ten-fold from when I went to school. Add another $50,000 to $80,000 to child-rearing if college costs are included . . . and the student chooses a less expensive university.
Of course, birthing in bulk creates some economy of scale. “Families with three or more children,” the Los Angeles Times reports. “spend 22 percent less on each child than parents with two or fewer.”
Be thankful, of course, that these are government statistics, which must be ingested with a healthy skepticism… (click here for the complete article)
And here are some links to the column in question:
- “Cost of raising children up 3.5%, U.S. says” — Los Angeles Times
- “A Good Father” — Common Sense
- “Benefits Are Priceless” — Common Sense
It is simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences.