Author: Redactor

Categories
national politics & policies too much government

Off to See the Wizard?

Tonight, President Barack Obama will ride down Pennsylvania Avenue with his sinking approval ratings, to stand beside our most unpopular Congress ever, so he can give a speech about jobs (before the football game starts). Our prez is a good speaker, but I doubt this speech will do any more to soothe our economic stress than have past speeches.

Speeches don’t create wealth — or jobs.

But image can entice votes, and with the election year rapidly approaching, he needs to look like he has a plan. 

Or at least a clue. 

So, the White House back room boys have been busy re-​packaging. News reports say the president will suggest spending $300 to $400 billion to stimulate the economy. But he won’t use the word “stimulus.” For some reason, that word rings hollow.

Rest-​assured, his non-​stimulus stimulus will be “revenue neutral.” In other words, the spending will happen now while the offsetting spending cuts (or tax increases) will happen … later.

Not every provision of whatever plan Obama orates will be a terrible idea, but the thrust of it — the notion that with proper central planning and fiddling by our wizard-​in-​chief the federal government can create prosperity — will be tragically mistaken.

We need a president who understands that Americans could pick themselves up, dust themselves off and get moving economically … if only Washington politicians would stop stage managing the whole show.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies

The High Rise Before the Fall

Many Americans who have never driven in ol’ London town have driven over the London Bridge — in Arizona. I’m an outlier, here, in that I’ve been over many a London bridge, but not to Lake Havasu’s.

But that doesn’t make me an expert on the Shard London Bridge, a London skyscraper (yes, skyscraper) nearing completion. Popularly called “The Shard,” it will be the tallest building in Europe. 

So prepare yourself: Expect a major economic collapse in the old country. 

Yes, for the last century, the building of record-​height skyscrapers could have served as a leading economic indicator … of disaster. As Mark Thornton explains, record-​setting skyscraper construction is

a sign of a looming economic crisis. The model has successfully identified the Panic of 1907, the Great Depression, the Stagflation of the 1970s, the Tech Bubble, and the Housing Bubble. 

In a scholarly paper on the subject, Thornton cautions not to use this strange correlation “as a guide to fiscal and monetary policy” or, superstitiously, an excuse to regulate “skyscraper heights … to prevent economic crisis.”

But the connection between building heights and boom-​and-​bust remains suggestive. Extra-​big skyscrapers rise during extra-​big booms, themselves fueled by central bank credit inflation. That is, inflation — and its usual consequences (which include unexpected deflation and financial collapse).

If only our central banks could maintain a stable money supply, rather than constantly tinkering with money to fine-​tune the economy, our biggest buildings might not serve as such good predictors of our biggest economic downturns.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Accountability national politics & policies

The Last Dark Chapter?

Last week, the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues revealed that United States federal government researchers purposely infected unwilling Guatemalans with deadly sexually transmitted diseases (syphilis, gonorrhea and chancroid) back in the 1940s.

Between 1946 and 1948, U.S. personnel experimented on more than 5,000 Guatemalans — including prisoners, mental patients, and even children — without their consent. At least 83 Guatemalans died during the project.

In at least one case, a woman dying from the syphilis she had been given was infected with other diseases to boot. Unconscionable.

One commission member, Raju Kucherlapati of Harvard Medical School said, “These researchers knew these were unethical experiments, and they conducted them anyway.”

Anita Allen of the University of Pennsylvania added, “These are very grave human rights violations.”

Commission chair Amy Gutmann pointed out that, “This is a dark chapter in our history. It is important to shine the light of day on it.”

She’s right. And note that this dark crime was committed by members of America’s “greatest generation.” When some people have power over others bad things seem to happen — throughout history, even among people like us. Not surprisingly, holding power accountable, especially when it’s exercised thousands of miles or oceans away, has proven mighty difficult.

This ought not be repeated. If we are the government, we must do something about it. But in an era of secret CIA prisons, what’s really to prevent it from happening again?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
property rights too much government

Oysters In, Soup Out

Oysterville Sea Farms in Oysterville, Washington — a small, coastal town that some of you may know from wordplay author Willard Espy’s memoirs — is in danger. The business has long sold soup and t‑shirts and other items to tourists, as well as books, knives and buoys “since the 1970s,” according to a local paper. But Pacific County is putting the kibosh on all that. It turns out that the business isn’t zoned for retail sales. 

“I’m really puzzled,” says the owner, who doesn’t see why the county would turn on a thriving business in the midst of a depression. He’s had to lay off six of his ten employees.

Considering that the county is just fine with his wholesale business, much of the complaint does seem a tad over-​the-​top. Indeed, the sea-​food wholesale biz is nothing if not noisome, and this operation has been a going concern at that location since the 1930s. 

I understand that zoning laws are often justified on property rights grounds, to defend neighbors against nuisances and the like in a consistent way. But there’s been a lot of research showing that zoning is usually just a means to reduce competition and deliver favors to some at the expense of others.

The complaint that inspired the crackdown was anonymous. In court, one sees one’s accusers. In regulation, one does not.

Finally, it is somewhat amusing, in a dark sort of way, that this business is being crippled by a “Department of Community Development.” Great job, guys.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall term limits

Nebraska Initiative: Open or Closed?

In 2008, State Senator DiAnna Schimek’s 20-​year legislative career came to an end, thanks to the term limits initiative enacted by Nebraska voters. Third time proved the charm; the state supreme court had struck down the first two citizen-​initiated term-​limit measures.

Without the initiative process, no term limits. That’s reason enough for Schimek and other pseudo-​solons to despise the initiative — not to mention that every initiative breaks legislators’ law-​making monopoly

In 2008, Sen. Schimek and her fellow unicamereleons realized the voters had won. Unable to overturn term limits a third time, they did the next worst thing: wreck the path by which such popular reforms could be instituted in the future.

Schimek introduced Legislative Bill 39, which re-​wrote the rules for petitioning initiative measures onto the ballot. Illuminatingly, more than 90 percent of state senators termed-​out that year supported Schimek’s parting shot to punish the initiative petition process. When the governor vetoed this frontal assault on a fundamental democratic check, legislators overrode his veto. 

Since passage of LB 39 in 2008, not a single citizen initiative has qualified for the ballot.

Then, on Tuesday, after a multi-​year legal challenge brought by Citizens in Charge and Nebraska citizens, a federal judge struck down the law’s ban on out-​of state petition circulators as unconstitutional.

One of the chains left around the neck of the Nebraska citizenry by Schimek and that last batch of career politicians has now been removed.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
general freedom too much government

The War Against an Infant Industry

In The Addams Family, young Wednesday sets up a sidewalk lemonade stand. A Girl Scout comes by and asks her if there are real lemons in her lemonade. After double assurances, the girl says she’ll buy Wednesday’s lemonade if Wednesday buys her cookies. Then comes the kicker: “Are they made from real Girl Scouts?”

The line works, in part, because of the historical setting. There is nothing more “American” than a kid selling lemonade by her home on a sunny day.

And yet, somehow, this traditional right of American life — a rite of passage — is under attack across the nation. Selling lemonade is a “business,” you see, which requires a license, and one may only engage in commercial enterprise in areas zoned for that, and … well, you get the idea.

Bureaucrats and over-​policers feel it’s their duty to instruct the kiddies that they may only engage in nasty things like business with special permission.

Children must never see it as a right.

I know, there are problems (even in common law) about setting up a business in your home and stinking up the neighborhood or bringing in dangerous traffic. But, well, come on. Get real.

We’re talking lemonade stands!

So, a shout-​out to Dave and Jenifer Roland and their Freedom Center of Missouri, for defending lemonade stands in their neck of the woods. 

The issue may be more important than the size of the industry would suggest.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.