Category: too much government

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education and schooling general freedom too much government

The State vs. Homework

school, education, teaching, home work

Oy, the stress. Of doing stuff. It’s nonstop.

If a California lawmaker gets her way, it will stop, though, at least in the schools. Or at least slow way down.

Consider the pressure, the horrible grinding pressure of having to practice math problems, peer at chemical formulas, read assigned readings, summarize, spell, grammarize, memorize names and dates and Spanish vocabulary, and on and on and on . . . en casa. . . .

It’s the kind of thing that can curdle a kid’s physical and mental health. Not to mention cut into playtime.

So is the legislation AB2999 justified?

Is Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo warranted in hoping to require school boards to ponder the “reasonable amount of time spent on homework per student that should not be exceeded” or whether “homework should be assigned . . . in any elementary school grade, inclusive” or perhaps that homework be “optional and not graded,” et cetera?

Well, if we think about this, we must admit that there is one and only one reason to ever require students to spend time at home mastering what is introduced in class. Only to prepare them for earning a living and living life by helping them obtain knowledge and skills and realize their potential.

But that’s it. That’s the only reason.

Of course, individual teachers, if competent and conscientious, already think about what homework is appropriate to assign. They must, we hope, want their students to function capably in life. And maybe also to learn that learning is not torture.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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inflation and inflationism international affairs too much government

Is Milei Making It?

After libertarian economist Javier Milei surprised the rest of the world by winning the presidency of Argentina in 2023, the question became whether — or how quickly — he could slash government programs, privatize nationalized firms, and set free a flatlining government-controlled economy.

A president can do some things on his own. But Milei requires the cooperation of the legislature to institute many substantial reforms. And for months his legislative agenda has stalled.

Now some of it is being enacted. On June 28, the Chamber of Deputies passed a sweeping package of bills that Reuters dubbed Milei’s “first big legislative win” and Bloomberg’s Manuela Tobias characterized as “deregulat[ing] vast swaths of the economy and boost government revenues. . . .”

The enacted reforms include provisions to make it easier for employers to fire workers and to deregulate the oil and gas industry. Milei was able to privatize only a few of the dozens of state firms that he wanted the government to unload.

Tobias notes that the passage of Milei’s reform package, “albeit significantly watered down,” is impressive considering that members of Milei’s own party constitute less than 15 percent of the lower chamber.

Milei’s most obvious success has been fighting inflation, which according to Deutsche Welle is “down from around 25 percent per month last December to 4.2 percent this May.” This is a major achievement for a figure outside the mainstream of globalist standard opinion, who has called himself an “anarcho-capitalist” (of all things) and was labeled by the German paper “right-wing populist and economically liberal.”

Terms mean different things in different countries: it’s pretty obvious that Milei’s program has nothing to do with that of American “liberals” such as President Biden and his partisans.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets general freedom too much government

Doctoring Malady

medicine, healthcare, medical care, hospital, doctors

There is a doctor shortage. Economists who study such issues project that the shortfall will continue to grow.

That is, the pool of available professionals for advanced and general practice medicine is shrinking relative to demand.

A report last year at Definitive Healthcare provides a list of reasons:

  1. Shifts in physician and patient populations
  2. Most healthcare workers prefer not to work in rural hospitals 
  3. Medical school and residency programs are limited 
  4. Healthcare workers are burnt out 

What wasn’t mentioned? The COVID response debacle. When an elephant makes a deposit on the waiting room floor, don’t ignore it.

But, instead, the list of causes and cures was predictable: “too many administrative tasks” (need more assistants, or at least AI?); “poor work-life balance” (but that’s always been the case); “insufficient salary” (you could see that one coming a mile away, right?).

A study published in March, “The Complexities of Physician Supply and Demand: Projections From 2021 to 2036,” prepared for the Association of American Medical Colleges, dips its timid toes in that topic, but says little of significance. 

And as I scrolled through a report on the study, I thought: this is none of my business. Just as it’s none of my business to fret much about the supply and demand for toilet tissue or garbage trucks. This is all supposed to be taken care of by “the market.” 

Trouble is, we do not have a free market in medical care. We have an over-regulated, vastly subsidized healthcare system.

The key to the future supply of doctors is getting the government out of doctors’ business. Hesitating to turn that key, or saying that government “must do more,” merely makes the malady worse.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets ideological culture political economy too much government

Sweden’s Electric Sense

Sweden, climate change, nuclear power, energy,regulations, wind power, solar power

Common sense in Sweden! Energy in Sweden!

Under the policy of Sweden’s current government, the Swedish people are to be allowed to illuminate and heat their homes and do all the other things they use electricity for. The Swedish parliament has formally relinquished the government’s former target of somehow reaching “net-zero” renewable energy by 2045.

Such unreliable means of generating power as erratic wind and erratic sunshine just don’t cut it, says Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson.

“We need more electricity production, we need clean electricity, and we need a stable energy system. In substantial industrialized economies . . . only a gas-to-nuclear pathway is viable to remain industrialized and competitive.”

The new energy policy is an about-face for Sweden, which decided in the ’80s to nuke nuclear power and pursue 100 percent “renewable” energy.

Sweden is now following the lead of Finland. After Finland’s latest nuclear power plant went on line in April, reports Peta Credlin, “wholesale power prices dropped 75%, almost overnight. The Olkiluoto 3 plant is . . . delivering 15 percent of the country’s power needs. Nuclear now provides around half of the country’s total electricity generation.”

Nuclear power has gotten a bad rap in many countries, including the United States. But if societies and governments are rightly or wrongly determined to retreat from reliance on fossil fuels while also not pulling the plug on industrial civilization, a steady supply of electricity has to be obtained somehow or other.

Nuclear power is one major way to do the job.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets general freedom too much government

Exemptions, Not Repeal

If you light the fuse of a bomb, after warnings that this will cause it to explode, you should not be surprised at the explosion.

California’s lawmakers and governor recently imposed super-high minimum wages for workers in fast-food restaurants ($20 an hour) and workers in healthcare facilities ($25 an hour). When the legislation was in process, the impact on companies, customers, and job applicants was deemed irrelevant. What mattered was appeasing the labor lobby.

Governor Newsom is suddenly “realizing” (he’d been warned) that these new costs will also burden the state government, currently facing a $45 billion budget deficit.

But this isn’t causing him to seek repeal.

No. Instead, he has signed legislation granting an exception to the new minimum for fast-food restaurants that are on government land. “Democrats don’t want the mandate interfering with government concession licenses,” The Wall Street Journal observes.

And Newsom also wants to defer the kick-in of the new minimum wage for workers in healthcare facilities — which he projects would cost the state $4 billion more annually because of the impact on Medicaid and state-paid health workers — until state revenue is in better shape. He would also permanently exempt state-owned facilities from having to pay the new minimum.

Carveouts and minor delays are as far as the governor and lawmakers are willing to go. Whatever gets them past the uncomfortable present — the next moment and the one after are things to worry about later. With any luck, with time the voters will have forgotten the issue, and who caused what.

Exemptions are the order of the day for politicians and bureaucrats. Private sector businesses must remain on the rack.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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local leaders too much government

Brave New Budgets

Denver, migrants, police

“Stay here and you will suffer.” 

That’s the message Denver’s Newcomer Communications Liaison Andres Carrera delivered to migrants last month, according to the city’s NBC 9 News.

“You don’t have to walk anywhere, we can buy you a free ticket,” Carrera offered. “You can go to any city,” he said, mentioning New York and Chicago, specifically. 

“We can take you up to the Canadian border, wherever!”

Denver is now preparing to spend $90 million on migrant programs this year. 

In the last fiscal year, New York City spent $1.5 billion “for asylum seeker shelter and services,” and those expenses are going up. Chicago’s “City Council is set to vote on spending another $70 million in city funds for migrant services,” Block Club Chicago reported last week, “just five months after Mayor Brandon Johnson’s 2024 budget allocated $150 million for new arrivals this year.”

We hear about the costs of the border crisis; these whopping numbers certainly clarify that matter. 

Still, something else caught my attention. 

Denver is making a 2.5 percent cut to most city agencies, while reducing the police department budget 1.9 percent, an $8.4 million dollar decrease for cops. Some charge that’s de-funding the police.

“The City of Denver’s adjustment to the Denver Police Department’s budget was carefully crafted with safety leaders and Mayor [Mike] Johnston,” a spokesperson explained, “to ensure there would be no impact to the department’s public services,” 

Crafted with care. And having precisely zero impact.

Imagine had you or I suggested to politicians and government officials that we slice millions of dollars from their budgets. We’d be accused of gutting education and undermining public safety . . . if not starving the children.

Who knew it could be so easy and painless for them?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets general freedom too much government

Supermarket Slavery

grocery store, police

How to sue supermarkets for shutting down:

One. Move to San Francisco.

Two. Support a proposed ordinance “amending the Police Code to require large supermarkets to provide six months notice to their customers and the City before permanently closing, and to explore ways to allow for the continued sale of groceries at the location.”

Three. If the ordinance passes, wait for a large supermarket to go out of business without having known six months in advance that it would need to do so.

Four. Sue.

That the proposed law would amend the police code is perversely apt. The idea is use the state’s police power to penalize ending an activity that as a free man, not a slave, you have no obligation to continue.

Ending any project may inconvenience people who benefit from what you’re doing. But unless you are bound by contract, these other people have no right to your further efforts. 

Not for six months, not for six seconds.

The San Francisco ordinance would exempt supermarkets that must close because of a natural disaster or other circumstance not “reasonable foreseeable.” These exemptions don’t solve the problems that the ordinance could cause for innocent businessmen. As Reason magazine notes, any stores that closes “without providing the proper notice” could still be sued for damages, supposedly exempted or not.

In the 1980s, when this notion was originally proposed (unsuccessfully), supermarket executives argued that making it harder for them to shut down would also discourage them from opening a store to begin with.

True. But that’s just common sense.

I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment ideological culture too much government

Fifteen Days to Flatten America

Fauci, Trump, Covid

The most important lesson of “Fifteen days to flatten the curve!” occurred on the 16th, when  governors kept lockdown measures going.

No state limited its lockdown measures to a mere 15 days.

The public rationale for the lockdowns had been to save hospitals from being swamped with COVID patients — though the Army Corps of Engineers had built emergency COVID care centers near pandemic hot spots around the country, which were unceremoniously dismantled, without having been used, even as governors continued their hysterics.

And tyrannies.

Out west in Washington, for example, Governor Inslee shut down the whole state with a March 24, 2020, order, and, on April 3, unilaterally extended it to May 4, despite the fact that most of the state had hardly experienced the virus yet. On May 29, the stay-at-home order was still in effect, with the governor dictating a county-by-county re-opening order that he fiddled with incoherently for the next year. 

Across the country, most hospitals suffered from under-use.

John Stossel just “celebrated” the four-year anniversary of the lockdowns with an article titled “‘15 Days To Slow the Spread’: On the Fourth Anniversary, a Reminder to Never Give Politicians That Power Again.” Mr. Stossel provides a concise litany of the idiocy of that brief, if far too long, epoch of . . . . what he calls “government incompetence.

But does incompetence exhaust the fault?

At the beginning I had expressed caution, even suggesting a little lenience for our leaders. Then came the enormity of the mass liberticide.

It was President Trump who put out the “guidelines” for shutting down the country; it was Trump who stuck to his guns on the efficacy of the lockdown “mitigations.” Trump did so because he was mesmerized, perhaps, by Drs. Fauci and Birx — whom he had promoted into the spotlight.

Little did Trump know, however, that Fauci had funded the very disease he was allegedly fighting, and that Birx, privately, had pushed lockdowns not in good faith for reasons stated, but with every intention of pushing “longer and more aggressive interventions.”

Trump? Played, yes; incompetent, sure. 

But Birx and Fauci? Malevolent. Evil. Pick the word.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment folly too much government

Ban These Energy Bans

Colorado, Climate, energy, oil, drilling

Several bills pending in the Colorado legislature target the state’s oil industry.

State Senator Kevin Priola, responsible for two of the bills, says he’s acting to stop climate change. To prevent the mass extinction of species, he claims.

One of his proposed statutes would outlaw new oil wells in Colorado after 2030. Another bill would, among other things, outlaw fracking from May through September unless drillers use special hard-to-get electric equipment. The same bill would also direct an agency to reduce the number of vehicle miles traveled.

Another lawmaker’s bill would make it harder to produce new wells.

Priola explains that since 50,000 wells already operate in Colorado, his legislation would not much impair production. But Dan Haley, president of Colorado Oil & Gas Association, observes that the highest production of oil wells comes in their first 18 months. Within two years of the 2030 ban, then, the state’s oil industry would sharply decline.

We’re seeing this more and more. Bans and plans to ban gas-powered lawn mowers, gas-powered cars, gas, coal, oil. Lawmakers working to shut down civilization. Not all at once, but via ever faster and bigger Interim Steps.

Don’t they see that they too will be harmed when things are no longer permitted to function? Do they imagine that if they achieve all their industry-killing dreams, all the food, clothing, shelter, transportation, communication will continue just as smoothly and abundantly as ever?

Don’t they think about the day after tomorrow?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom judiciary too much government

The Vaxxers’ War on Truckers

Justin Trudeau, Canada, truckers, vaccine, Covid

It’s always good when a federal court tells a federal government that it shouldn’t have done some horrible autocratic thing.

Much better had it never been done in the first place — but at least now there is official acknowledgement and, hope against hope, a chance that it won’t recur. 

Hey, a guy can dream.

According to a ruling by Canadian Federal Court Justic Richard Mosley, although truckers’ protests a few years ago against insane pandemic mandates “reflected an unacceptable breakdown of public order” (he seems to be forgetting that the government unacceptably broke things first), invoking of an Emergencies Act “does not bear the hallmarks of reasonableness — justification, transparency and intelligibility.”

No, it doesn’t bear those hallmarks. There “was no national emergency justifying invocation of the Emergencies Act.”

The truckers were clogging traffic to bring attention to a plight caused by the government. That’s it. The truckers weren’t nuking cities or anything. But in reply, the government nuked the rights of truckers by, among other things, freezing their bank accounts and even penalizing people who had donated five bucks to help the truckers out.

Truckers were protesting the fact that they were not being allowed to decide for themselves whether to risk an experimental vaccine. The government banned them from crossing the Canada–U.S. border unless they got the shot.

Luckily, Canada’s federal government has announced that it has seen the error of its ways and — ah, who am I kidding? It is appealing the decision.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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