Category: too much government

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nannyism responsibility too much government

It’s Never Too Late to Prep?

prepper, hoarder, hoarding, emergency

That’s the theme of a discussion at reddit​.com. “Someone told me it was too late last fall,” the original poster recalls. “I went on to build a moderate canned prep.… Someone told me it was too late to prep for the pandemic in February. I went on to gather [personal protective equipment] before the stores emptied.”

Most Redditors nodded. But one suggested that if things go kablooey and some products become scarce on shelves, “buying up those supplies is not being a prepper but being a hoarder.”

“Hoarding” is a word used to disparage somebody else’s foresight and concern for survival. If something you need is in short supply, it is reasonable to stock up, if you can. (Even if it’s toilet paper and comedians chortle.) If the market is allowed to function — so that sellers of highly demanded goods can charge what the market will bear — everyone who can scrape together the necessary extra dollars will be able to obtain those goods.

If a person buys up a supply only to resell it, not to restock his larder, he does us all a favor if the item is about to become desperately needed. He makes no money unless people can pay his price. But if we can afford the price, it is pointless to sputter about the extra expense — an expense we could have avoided had we prepared better for the future earlier on, saving more of the thing ourselves.

The cost of not being prepared can be quite high. Same with the value, hence purchase price, of necessities bought after disaster.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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tax policy too much government

California Schemin’

California, Democrats, taxes,

Is California a failed state? It has an electric grid problem. And a vagrancy problem. Both of which stem from the bizarre ideological blind spots of a political class “benefiting” from the state’s high legislator/​citizen ratio, which insulates politicians from feedback.

Driving them power mad.

And one form of madness flowers in political greed, hubris and overreach.

“A pack of Democratic lawmakers in California are proposing a wealth tax for the state’s richest citizens, forcing them to pay more essentially just for owning a lot of stuff,” writes Scott Shackford at Reason. “They also, amazingly, want the tax to follow Californians who flee the state in response, attempting to make them continue paying taxes on wealth that’s not even in the state.”

Rob Bonta, Oakland’s Democrat in the Assembly, says the Golden State needs more gold, and he has made a startling observation. Wait for it. “Rich people have money,” Shackford summarizes, and Bonta wants to take it. To expand services.

But surely service expansion is not only not the only option, it is often the worst option. 

Take the state’s rolling blackouts. Was that caused by not enough or really bad legislation? President Trump points his finger at the Democratic-​controlled Assembly: “In California, Democrats have intentionally implemented rolling blackouts — forcing Americans in the dark. Democrats are unable to keep up with energy demand,” the president tweeted on Tuesday. But the New York Post identifies as a cause not “intentionally implemented” blackouts, but “inadequate transmission and an over-​reliance on renewable energy and issues with natural gas plants during high heat.”

Bad policy. Not too few “services.”

And the proposal to tax the richest Californians — or former Californians — to pay for more disastrous programs? 

Hubris and greed.

Not Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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nannyism paternalism too much government

Five-​Hundred Hour Shampoo Sham

shampoo, license, regulations

Given everything that has happened over the last several millennia, you can’t be surprised by anything. But still.

I had to check the text of the bill, A06578 in the New York State Assembly, to make sure the stories are accurate. It checks out: some lawmakers really do want to compel aspiring “shampoo assistants” to take 500 hours of training before they suds up your hair. (Apparently, though, you will still be allowed to give yourself a home-​shower shampoo, even without training. Maybe future legislation will close this loophole.)

The culpable assemblymen are Carrie Woerner, (518) 455‑5404, and John T. McDonald III, (518) 455‑4474. A companion bill, S8862, is sponsored by co-​conspirator State Senator Jen Metzger, (518) 455‑2400.

According to the legislation, certificate holders may shampoo and rinse but not, you know, perform delicate surgical procedures like waxing or placing artificial braids.

One odd thing about the bill is this stipulation: “All shampoo assistant certificates shall expire one year from the date of issuance.” So … every year, shampoo assistants must put in another 500 hours?

On the other hand … come on, man. Think of the risk.

What if the water is too hot and the shampoo assistant is brand-​new and hasn’t had the 500 hours training, so she gets burned and burns the head of the customer, or even heats the water on a stove until it boils and then pours it over her own head and the customer’s head? 

How would she know not to do that without any training whatsoever?

This is … I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies too much government

A Modest Anti-Capitalism?

Sawant, Seattle, socialism,

Socialists are so “modest”!

But how modest?

Ask Rep. Ilhan Omar, who recently proclaimed to be “fighting to tear down systems of oppression that exist in housing, in education, in health care, in employment, in the air we breathe.” 

Gasp?

Well, maybe that isn’t so clear. So listen to Seattle City Councilwoman Kshama Sawant.

“I have a message for Jeff Bezos and his class,” Sawant warned. “If you attempt again to overturn the Amazon Tax, working people will go all out in the thousands to beat you. And we will not stop there.”

Does that sound like a threat? Or is it really just a harmless expression of politics-as-usual?

“You see, we are fighting for far more than this tax,” the self-​proclaimed socialist elaborated. “We are preparing the ground for a different kind of society, and if you, Jeff Bezos, want to drive that process forward by lashing out against us in our modest demands, then so be it. Because we are coming for you and your rotten system. We are coming to dismantle this deeply oppressive, racist, sexist, violent, utterly bankrupt system of capitalism. This police state. We cannot and will not stop until we overthrow it, and replace it with a world based, instead, on solidarity, genuine democracy, and equality: a socialist world. Thank you.”

And thank you, Ms. Sawant, for making yourself ultra-understandable.

You want to destroy private property and free markets and robust political debate and replace them with … well, let’s just say that if you complain about a police state now, wait’ll you get a load of what follows from your “modest” demands.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies political economy too much government

The Slow Bullet

slow motion bullet, debt,

Modern government finance is like Russian Roulette … but with incredibly slow bullets.

We spend money. We create money out of thin air. We borrow it. We promise the Moon. We deliver rocks. With each action, we spin the chamber and pull the trigger. That slowround doesn’t immediately hit, so we do it again.

Calling the perennial deficits and ballooning debt a “predictable crisis,” Nick Gillespie at Reason writes that our federal government’s debt “is already choking down economic growth, but in the future, it could lead to ‘sudden inflation,’ and ‘a loss of confidence in the federal government’s ability or commitment to repay its debts in full.’” And worse: “‘Such a crisis could spread globally’ causing some ‘financial institutions to fail.’ That’s all according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which has been warning Americans about the long-​term consequence of the ballooning debt for years.”

This is an old warning. I have been talking about it for years, too. So have you. But once politicians start playing the game, it’s hard for them to stop. They see and we see the benefits, but that slow motion slug has yet to strike the target. 

Gillespie makes a better analogy than “slow bullets” (which don’t exist): “Like the coronavirus, the debt problem has the potential to seemingly appear out of the blue and turn our world upside down in a matter of weeks.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb gained fame talking about “black swans,” major events we cannot predict. But he insists that the financial crisis resulting from government overspending is not a black swan. It’s predictable. We just do not know when.

Here’s a fourth analogy:

In free fall, you don’t feel a thing … until you hit the pavement.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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subsidy too much government

Precedented Payments

CARES Act, Coronavirus, Covid,

I idly wonder who cooks up the initialisms for the big federal legislative packages (“laws”) — you know, like the recent “CARES Act” that distributed $2.3 trillion conjured out of thin air … and the faith and credit of a wobbly reputation. CARES stands for “Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security,” and I say “idly” because I am not googling this. 

If I can resist searching for (as I am instructed to do daily) “any three numbers and ‘new cases,’” I can let others do that initialism research.

Whoever it is, though, does a pretty good job. Usually. Good P.R. But they missed the boat a bit on CARES. It should have been CORPSE, standing for “Coronavirus Overpayment, Relief, Prodigality, Stupidity and Eeeeek!” Act.

For, you see, $1.4 billion was sent to dead people.

More than a million of them.

At least we can be thankful that the IRS wants that money back.

Well, “wants” is a funny word to use for a bureaucracy. Especially since the IRS has no current plan “to notify ineligible recipients on how to return payments.” According to the General Accounting Office.

You can read about it all at Reason.

I would say it makes for fascinating reading, but it doesn’t really. This is the same-​old/​same-​old. The Department of Kludge and Fubar, you know, which would be a better name for most government bureaus.

The Reason piece call the CARES Act “unprecedented emergency spending,” but I think we could find plenty of precedents. 

If we googled.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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