Category: free trade & free markets

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free trade & free markets too much government

Location, Location, Dislocation

Yuh-Line Niou, housing, regulations,

“While Lower Manhattan is desperately in need of affordable housing,” writes Yuh-Line Niou in an official statement of her re-election campaign for New York State Assembly, “we cannot pit the need for housing against the need for green space, especially when so many good alternatives are available. . . .”

Assemblywoman Niou (D-Lower Manhattan) is making the case against a housing project in her district. What she is really trying to do is save the Elizabeth Street Garden, a one-acre sculpture garden.

Uh, OK.

I have nothing against sculptures or gardens, but it seems like a strange sort of public space to exist in a high-demand real estate locale like Manhattan.

But you know what is stranger? 

Ms. Niou also supports the notion that “housing is a right.”

Christian Britschgi, of Reason, notes her pickle, drawing our attention to the similar predicament of a socialist city councilwoman on the other side of the continent, in Seattle. “Now, one can reasonably argue that open space is a precious commodity in a city, one that needs to be balanced against the need for shelter,” Britschgi writes. “But it’s hard to argue that while also asserting that housing is also a right that needs to be guaranteed by the government.”

Niou insists that “both need to be protected and expanded,” and somehow thinks the “best way to achieve this is by engaging the community from the start so decisions are made with a full knowledge of community sentiment and impact.” 

Not mentioned? Rent control.

It is almost as if pols have no idea that goals they promote might be exacerbated by existing policies they dare not criticize.

Or even bring up.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Yuh-Line Niou, housing, regulations,

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The 79¢ Lie

Kamala Harris, pay gap, lie

Sen. Kamala Harris successfully bears aloft the banner of Barack Obama.

As “a person of color”? Yeah, sure — but mainly by pandering to ignorant ideologues.

“Look, women are still not paid equal for equal work in America,” she said recently at a campaign stop.

The Daily Wire notes that a few months ago she dug herself deeper:

“The law says that men and women should be paid equally for equal work, but what we know is that in America today, women on average are paid 80 cents on the dollar of what men are paid for the same work. African American women, 61 cents on the dollar, Latinas 53 cents on the dollar. And these are actually not debatable points.”

Well, these points are not debatable . . . in the sense that they have no merit, and everyone who has studied this objectively knows this. Politifact titles its article covering her statement: “On Colbert, Kamala Harris flubs wage gap statistic.”

“Flubs” puts it lightly.

Lies is more like it.

Former President Obama surely fibbed, too, when, in 2016, he said, “[t]oday, the typical woman who works full-time earns 79 cents for every dollar that a typical man makes.”

He knew that he was misusing statistics. He has been made aware of the debunkings of the 79¢ myth. And he understood; he’s no dummy.

The stat is not about “equal pay for equal work.” It aggregates incomes. There is no job-for-job equality and no consideration of real wages (with benefits, for instance). It is just that women-as-a-class take home less pay than men-as-a-class, per capita.

“It is known,” as was said on Game of Thrones.

The lie continues because of America’s “game of thrones.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Kamala Harris, pay gap, lie

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Negative Logic

savings bond, family, interest rates, economics, savings,

“The idea that negative interest rates will produce loans and generate growth,” concludes Richard Rahn in a Washington Times op-ed, “is not supported by the evidence to date.”

Citing current markets for Danish and Swiss bonds, Rahn states that “approximately 30 percent of the global government bond issues are now trading in negative territory.”

Bonds used to seem the best investment. Government is the biggest, most reliable consumer, as J.B. Say and Destutt de Tracy (the latter being Thomas Jefferson’s favorite economist) argued, making the bond market the surest form of consumer credit. Governments last, weathering storms. So people loan them money not merely to earn interest, but to not risk their principal investment. 

Government bonds during America’s Great Depression were about the only form of investing going on: everything else was shaky. 

Which seems to be happening again. 

“In theory, as the interest rate falls, businesses and individuals should borrow and invest more,” Rahn explains. “In fact, as can be easily seen in Japan, as the interest rate falls, many save more — increasing the supply of savings and putting downward pressure on interest rates — in order to ensure they will have adequate funds for retirement. So, a low or negative interest rate policy becomes self-defeating.”

Could the logic of modern economic policy be . . . illogical?

Keynesian fiscal policy has always struck me as based on . . . evasions, the most obvious being that actual, real-world Keynesian politicians somehow never insist that deficits be turned into surpluses in good times, as John Maynard Keynes’ original program stated. 

Modern monetary policy also seems . . . well, if not evasive, at least . . . desperate.

Which I would be, too, were I riding on a growing debt as big as the federal government’s. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets general freedom too much government

Don’t Follow the Feds

body cam, camera, police, feds, federal, crime, law,

“Federal agents never wear body cameras,” The Washington Post reports, “and they prohibit local officers from wearing them on their joint operations.”

That’s why a growing number of local law enforcement agencies are doing what Atlanta’s police chief and mayor “decided late last month,” pulling “out of joint task forces with the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service.”

The Justice Department supplies the usual excuses for their lack of transparency: they are “protecting sensitive or tactical methods” and “concerned about privacy interests of third parties.” But as Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo reminds, “if there’s a legitimate need to redact any [footage], there’s a process available for that through the courts.”

It is the height of hypocrisy, for the use of body cams has been “what they’ve been preaching,” St. Paul (Minn.) Police Chief Todd Axtell argues, referring to the Justice Department’s funding and training of local police forces in body-camera usage. “It’s ironic they aren’t complying with what they preach to be so important in policing.”

Ironic? Sure. 

Par for the course? Indeed.

The bad example federal police agencies set is hardly limited to body-camera use. In states where legislation has reduced or ended the outrageous practice of civil asset forfeiture — whereby police can take and keep cash and property from people never accused or convicted of any crime — the Feds are there again to facilitate the thievery known as “equitable sharing.”  

“Federal forfeiture policies are more permissive than many state policies,” a 2016 Post report explains, “allowing police to keep up to 80 percent of assets they seize.”

Make sure your local and state police don’t follow the Feds.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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body cam, camera, police, feds, federal, crime, law,

Photo credit: North Charleston

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Why Lie?

Kamala Harris, statistics, pay gap, sexism,

Democratic presidential contender and U.S. Senator from California Kamala Harris leaned in to the big lie.

Debuting a new proposal to “close the gender pay gap,” she declared that, “In America today, women for the same work, for the equal work, on average make 80 cents on the dollar, black women make 61 cents on the dollar, Latinas make 53 cents on the dollar — and this has got to end.”

In fact, Harris emphasized the untruthy part of her statement; her numbers do not represent the “on average” difference in remuneration between the sexes (or races) for the “same” or “equal” work at all. Such a gap has been illegal since the Equal Pay Act of 1963. Harris’s figures are, instead, an average of salaries and wages for all the millions of diverse jobs held by women compared to that same average for all the millions of diverse jobs held by men. 

Men and women tend to make different choices. More women spend time outside the labor market, often laboring in family households without salaries as such. And they tend to choose less remunerative careers: different work.

Why pretend otherwise? Well, such grievance against perceived injustice can sure serve as a motivator . . . for voters that presidential candidate Harris desperately needs to attract. 

And what about her new policy? 

“Harris’s plan puts the responsibility on companies,” MSNBC talking head Stephanie Ruhle explained. “Any company who cannot prove that they pay women at the same rate as men is going to have to pay a fine.”

Is that how the system should work: if you cannot prove your innocence, you are guilty?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Kamala Harris, statistics, pay gap, sexism,

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore

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Pick a Number

Bernie Sanders, 15, minimum wage, magic,

Is the number 15 “magical”?

The “democratic socialists” now dominating the Democratic Party first went for the $15 national minimum wage notion. Now it’s a cap on consumer credit interest rates, at 15 percent.

What’s next, 15 mph speed limits? Age 15 allowed to vote? 

Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest?

At Reason, Peter Suderman explains why “Bernie Sanders’ New Plan Will Make It Tougher for Poor People to Get Credit Cards.” The arguments proffered by Senator Sanders and his House co-sponsor, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, more than “suggest that people who choose to use payday loans don’t, and perhaps can’t, understand the choices they are making. . . . It is a form of benevolent condescension built on the belief that poor people can’t count.”

Now, it may be that, generally, poor people do not figure their finances as well as better-off people. In fact, that’s demonstrated in the literature. But is that really the point?

The problem is, the methods they choose to help the poor make the poor less well-off. Because they take away options: “What Sanders is actually bragging about is eliminating choices,” Suderman explains. “In essence, Sanders is proud of having eliminated useful financial tools for the poor.”

What’s really going on here is the magic of persuasion. Fifteen is a “sticky number.” It will be used again and again as self-described socialists push for more and more unworkable government.

A bit of enchantment that just so happens to make one persuader a three-house millionaire . . . and a bartender from the Bronx the talk of the nation.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets Tenth Amendment federalism too much government

Hairdressers Unbound?

Joe Biden, licensing, salon, Occupational licensing, cosmetology, license

Joe Biden, late of the U.S. Senate and Blair House, is not someone I typically rush to for policy advice. Were I looking for a weather vane to indicate whence bad ideas come a-gusting, in full poisonous gasbaggery, Biden might serve as well as any of the budding socialists now running for the presidency.

But he has a clue about one thing: Occupational licensing.

Last week, Biden came out against the cosmetology licenses so common in states throughout the union. “Joe Biden knocks licensing requirements for hairdressers,” Philip Wegmann summarized on Twitter, “says it’s ridiculous that licenses take ‘400 hours’ of training: ‘It’s all about not helping workers.’”

Now, this is hardly a federal issue for a president to tackle. And Biden sure seems to be itching to run for the top banana position that he was so close to for eight years.

But states can do something — about their own stupid regulations. As Arizona just showed when the legislature passed a bill to acknowledge the occupational licenses from other states when a person moves to Arizona. This allows more freedom of movement among the states, and brings the state back into line with the common market idea of the U.S. Constitution. Governor Doug Ducey is expected to sign (or may already have done so, by the time this is published): it sure fits with the governor’s proclaimed desire to roll back regulations.

And this notion of openness and inclusion could be extended to other issues. You know, like concealed carry permits.

After all, states universally recognize all others’ drivers’ licenses. If you may navigate a metal-and-glass mortician’s little helper based on your state’s licensing, surely you can clip hair safely enough.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Joe Biden, licensing, salon, Occupational licensing, cosmetology, license

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Just Like That!

socialism, magic wand, economics, healthcare, prescription drugs, drugs,

“We will do that,” he said.

Do what?

“We will look at the average costs of prescription drugs in Canada, the UK, Germany, Japan and France,” says Sen. Bernie Sanders (I/D-Vt.), “which are 50 percent lower than they are in the United States,” he told Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation. 

And Sanders promises: “if I am elected president I’m going to cut prescription drug costs in this country by 50 percent so that we are not paying any more than other major countries are paying. Maybe we can do better than that.” 

When Ms. Brennan asked how, he replied as above — looking at “average costs” as directly priced to consumers (patients) —  and then . . . “we will do that.”

Socialism is so easy!

Why have we waited so long for utopia?

Well, saying is not the same as doing. We must think “beyond Stage One,” as Thomas Sowell advises. For if “Medicare for All” tells a company it will pay only so much for a drug, that company cannot just sell that drug and all others below cost. No wonder that in socialized medicine schemes around the world, not all drugs are even available.

The world prescription drug market is set up . . . peculiarly. Americans in effect pay more (because of patents and trade agreements) thereby covering development costs. If we pay less, others may have to pay more (which would be an odd thing for a “socialist” to want) and we would all come to get even less.

Bernie is no wizard, and socialism has no magic wand with which to wave away scarcity.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Bitcoin to the Rescue

Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, Venezuella, freedom, privacy, cash, money

I own no Bitcoin; it’s not my thing. The blockchain concept Bitcoin is based upon seems clever, sure, but I often curse at my “devices,” so only my politics prevents me from full-blown Luddism. 

Besides, when I think “the people’s money” I don’t think “private fiat currency.” Which is what Bitcoin sure looks like to me.

But to quote from these very pages, “When times get tough, the tough . . . switch currencies.”

And times cannot get much tougher than in Venezuela right now. No wonder “many are turning to digital assets such as Bitcoin as an alternative to the Venezuelan bolivar,” writes Matthew Di Salvo for the BBC.

“Critics say Bitcoin and other cryptos — there are more than 1,600 globally — are unstable, use too much energy, and are used by money launderers or those wanting to buy illicit goods on the web,” Di Salvo explains.

These points need addressing. I’ll try:

  1. A wannabe money will be as unstable as investor demand. When actually used as money, though, we may expect more stability. And Bitcoin is deflationary, so it should be more stable than government money.
  2. As if our banks and ATMs don’t use energy!
  3. Used by bad people? Well, you can say that about cash. But if we get rid of cash — as many experts want to — you can kiss any hope for freedom goodbye.

Venezuelans, by turning to keeping “their money in a digital wallet in the form of Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dash or any of the others,” are grabbing at something much better than what their malign inflation-happy government provides.

It is a pity that the “free-market” alternative is called “crypto” — meaning secret.

Freedom is the world’s best-kept secret?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, Venezuella, freedom, privacy, cash, money

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Finns Fail at Fix

Bernie Sanders, Finland, health care, socialism, single payer, costs, spending

Finland’s government-run health care system is a mess. 

This normally wouldn’t faze me much. I have to navigate our American mess, er, system. But Finland’s medical service delivery system is relevant to Americans — as is Denmark’s and Norway’s and Sweden’s — because the current crop of Democratic presidential hopefuls tout these “Scandinavian socialist” programs as models to follow.

Yet Finland’s program is in crisis.

How bad is it?

Bad enough for Finland’s government to fold early, before an election, with Prime Minister Juha Sipilä throwing in the towel earlier this month. He had been struggling “to get social and health-care reforms that he made the cornerstone of his government’s four-year term through parliament,” The Wall Street Journal informs us. Finland’s health care system is somewhat decentralized, and that quality of service varies district by district. Silipä had been trying to centralize administration while also allowing for some privatization.

Left-leaning parties have balked at this, hence the impasse.

So, what is the lesson? A medical delivery system should be anti-fragile, capable of functioning despite incompetents or corrupt officials in government, despite voting blocs at loggerheads. A vast segment of the service industry should not be held in hock to the political machinations of special-interest groups.

Behind all of it, though, is the looming demographic crisis: the population of Finland, like here in America and throughout the First World, is aging. This puts heavy stressors on welfare-state systems run on a Ponzi-like re-distributive basis.* Of course costs will increase and service levels will fall, given how it’s all set up.

But once in place, government-run medical systems do not heal themselves.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* An endemic problem for socialists, which they try to ignore. See “Finland: Government Collapses Over Universal Health Care Costs, #Bernie2020 Hardest Hit.”

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Bernie Sanders, Finland, health care, socialism, single payer, costs, spending

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