Category: folly

Categories
folly free trade & free markets

Finding Common Sense in China?

Las Vegas gambling entrepreneur Steve Wynn says that “common sense” has “disappeared in Washington, DC.” In a recent interview on CNBC, he complained about the federal government’s “wild, uncontrolled spending” and “unbelievable, unsustainable debt.”

Good point, of course, but nothing new. Still, Wynn’s rant went further. 

Wynn is opening a new headquarters for his casino empire in Macau, China, and was asked if he expected to find “common sense in Macau.” He didn’t mince words, arguing that the “opportunities” were “far superior abroad than in America.”

But what about the regulation and government oversight in Macau, China, versus the U.S.?

“Macau has been steady,” he replied. “The shocking, unexpected government is the one in Washington. That’s where we get surprises everyday. That’s where taxes are changed every five minutes. That’s where you don’t know what to expect tomorrow. To compare political stability and predictability in China to Washington is like comparing Mount Everest to an ant hill.

“Macau and China is stable. Washington is not. Is there a businessman or a media person in America … that isn’t frightened about what the next crazy idea is coming from Washington? … Everything is cuckoo and God knows what’s next.”

Wynn closed by saying, “The uncertainty of the business climate in America is frightening, frightening to everybody.… there’s a sense of fear that the politicians are ruining us …  It’s got to stop.”

Amen.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Accountability folly general freedom too much government

How Dare You Say We Waste Our Time?

Businessmen tend to be extremely concerned about efficiency, even to the point of talking incessantly about things like “performance metrics.”

Bureaucrats? Not so much.

Indeed, the merest suggestion that a program isn’t cutting the mustard can bring on protests of outrage. John Payne, writing on The Lesson Applied, caught my attention to one such instance. Quoting from the Associated Press, he reveals the passion and “logic” of former “drug czar” John Walters:

“To say that all the things that have been done in the war on drugs haven’t made any difference is ridiculous,” Walters said. “It destroys everything we’ve done. It’s saying all the people involved in law enforcement, treatment and prevention have been wasting their time.”

Payne’s no-​nonsense response? “Yes, that is exactly what critics of the drug war are saying.”

Why did Walters take such umbrage? Could it be to intimidate us into not thinking about the evidence that drug-​war critics present? Or questioning the logic of the whole program?

And the logic is a tad shaky: Allegedly to prevent some people from ruining their lives, we ruin those lives and many, many others. 

Hundreds of thousands of people in prison. Billions in property confiscated without due process. Innocents shot in no-​knock raids — including dogs, little girls … and the police themselves from innocent Americans defending themselves from seemingly anonymous attackers in the night. 

Drug abuse can be very bad. I know. But Constitution-​abuse can be worse.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
folly free trade & free markets

Hedging Our Bets

Do congressmen know anything about anything?

Perhaps that’s an unfair question. These guys demonstrate a whole heckuva lot of savvy when it comes to logrolling, porkbarrelling, taxing, spending. Oh, and sniping, grandstanding and griping, and of failing to read bills they pass. I apologize if I implied any deficiency of proficiency in such areas.

I just wonder whether they know anything about real life outside the ways and byways of Capitol Hill.

For example, on the question of whether altering investment strategy in response to changing economic news constitutes “fraud.” If risk management equals fraud, lots of firms should close down tomorrow to protect themselves from congressional subcommittees eager to pretend that government policies have played no major part in screwing up the economy.

Power Line blogger John Hinderaker, after wading through transcripts of the senatorial interrogation of officers from Goldman Sachs, concludes that the senators, “seemingly without exception, are embarrassingly ignorant of modern risk management techniques.… [of] how and why firms like Goldman Sachs hedge their exposure to various economic trends … [They seem] to think that there was something ‘evil’ about taking a short position — that all investors were somehow required to try to keep the housing bubble going.”

Hinderaker’s observations are more detailed than I can recapitulate here. But the bottom line — that those who would run our lives don’t understand the bottom lines of those who actually work and trade for a living — is nothing new.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
folly

The Finger of Terror

One of the most chilling spectacles ever to confront a Houston middle school functionary recently turned the legs of Taylor Trostle’s math teacher to jelly.

And her heart to stone.

According to the unnamed teacher’s write-​up of the incident, Taylor was caught “putting her hand in the shape of a gun, making the firing noise with her mouth and pointing it in my direction.”

Could the teacher honestly have perceived the gesture as a “terroristic threat”? Index fingers rarely fire; clipped fingernails contain no ammo clips.

Turns out, Taylor and a few classmates had been fooling around a few minutes before the bell, pretending to be police. Taylor says, “I was shooting the markers at the front of the board.… I was like ‘pow pow’ and then she just turned around.”

Others playing the game escaped penalty because they were facing another direction. But the school suspended Taylor for three days. Thus, even the unpremeditated restlessness endemic among those navigating their awkward years can get you labeled a terrorist, courtesy of the deliberately dumb “zero tolerance” policies of many schools.

Had this been an actual “terroristic threat,” more would presumably have been done to secure the premises, like calling in SWAT teams and violence consultants. But the school wasn’t countering a genuine threat. Just “following the rules.”

Maybe a spate of lawsuits against schools that mindlessly harass students would encourage educrats fearful of litigation to make a few concessions to common sense.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.