Category: moral hazard

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free trade & free markets general freedom media and media people moral hazard nannyism property rights too much government

Of Salt and Socialism

Venezuela, socialism, free markets, capitalism, poverty, celebrities, freedom, repression, starvation

Nearly 75 percent of Venezuelans have lost 19 pounds or more in 2016. “People have become so desperate,” the Miami Herald reported recently, “that they are butchering and eating flamingos.”

While acknowledging the problem, TeleSUR, a television network based in Venezuela and funded by governments including Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, called the Herald’s story “kooky” and suggested taking reports “like alleged flamingo eating with a grain of salt.”

If, in socialist Venezuela, one could find a grain of salt.

In America, salt is necessary, too, when listening to our socialist Hollywood celebs blather about their kooky diets, for which some are blaming President Trump.*

Socialism kills. The deprivations in Venezuela are no joke, for along with economic chaos, Venezuelans are experiencing political repression on a grand scale. A new report from Luis Almagro, secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS), documents the thousands arrested for protesting or “having posted something against the national government or a public official on Twitter.” The report details the “curtailment of civil, political and electoral freedoms” and “torture” and “censorship.”

Almagro calls for the suspension of Venezuela’s membership in the OAS, which is long overdue. The Human Rights Foundation demanded that nine years ago.

The Obama administration opposed such a move, as the Washington Post editorialized, in order to pursue “a legacy-​making détente” with “the Castro regime in Cuba.”

At Townhall,** I urged Trump to support the effort to boot Venezuela out of the OAS, which might provide some assistance toward political change there … and Venezuelans eating more.

And perhaps to socialists in Hollywood and elsewhere eating crow … but not flamingo.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* I covered this last week, when I compared their Trump Diet nonsense to the “Maduro Diet,” named for Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the socialist dictator presiding over the complete economic collapse of what, prior to socialism, had been South America’s richest country.

** From which this Common Sense is adapted.

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folly general freedom ideological culture media and media people moral hazard nannyism political challengers responsibility too much government

Dutch Election Oddities

Netherlands, Dutch, election, Geert Wilders, counting coup, party, parties, political, Freedom Party

There were many strange forces at play in the Netherlands’ elections on Wednesday. In my report, I concentrated on the biggest story, the possibility that Geert Wilders’s Freedom Party might take a huge number of parliamentary seats — though I quoted The Atlantic’s coverage predicting a narrow loss to Mark Rutte’s Liberal Party.

What I did not mention were some of the … oddities.

Did you know that Geert Wilders is the only official member of the Freedom Party?

Did you know that there is a 50+ Party in Holland — to represent folks … in my age bracket?

Irksome. A party organized just for an age group bugs me almost as much as the most extreme elements of Wilders’s anti-​Islamism. But then, all parties bug me a bit, for the same reason the founding fathers desperately feared “factions” … that is, political parties. Factionalism turns government into tribal warfare, with legislation counting as … counting coup.

But no one in the Netherlands is asking how “bugged” I may or may not be.

The outcome of the March 15 elections? Labour lost the most, and the Freedom Party did not do as well as predicted … or feared. Instead of over 20 seats, it won 16, according to Bloomberg (quoting i & o research).

Here’s a not-​so-​odd oddity: I had to wade through quite a few reports on the election before I found any actual numerical results. The papers all seemed too busy gloating that the Freedom Party failed. I guess that counts as enough reporting. For them.

More evidence that we live in a post-​fact society?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Pictured: Ledger drawing of a mounted Cheyenne warrior counting coup with lance on a dismounted Crow warrior, 1880s.

 

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Accountability folly free trade & free markets general freedom moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies responsibility too much government

DumpCare

healthcare, Trumpcare, Obamacare, medicine, costs, regulations, Medicaid, single payer

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan insists that his “TrumpCare” plan to replace ObamaCare will decrease medical insurance rates. Others argue that his American Health Care Act will increase those rates. Likewise, he expects it to reduce strain on federal budgets; others deny this outright. The “coverage” issue is just as contentious.

TrumpCare is a mess because it is isn’t “DumpCare.” What’s needed is not yet another regulation-​plus-​subsidy system. We need repeal and then … more repeals.

Unfortunately, President Donald Trump has never really been on board with this. He has promised that no one would lose “coverage,” assuming that “coverage” is “health care.”

It is not. State charity programs like Medicaid (upon which ObamaCare relied way too much) are merely ways to pay for services. Dumping a gimcrack payment system is not the same as decreasing medical services. “DumpCare” wouldn’t dump care, only insane government.

For example, we know that health care outcomes for poor folks without Medicaid turn out to be better than poor folks with Medicaid.* Increasing the number of people on formalized subsidy programs is no panacea.

Besides, ObamaCare severely under-​delivered on “coverage.”

New programs, nevertheless, are traps, regardless of demerit: once you provide a benefit, folks come to rely on it and demand more — objecting when it’s taken away. Which is why few programs are ever repealed, despite failing to meet original expectations.

So far, the “small government party” hasn’t found the courage to actually limit government. Do Republicans really believe what they say, that fewer regulations and subsidies will lead to lower costs and better service?

It seems Republicans won’t take their own prescription.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Oregon’s 2008 Medicaid “natural experiment” provides reasons to question the merits of the program. As the initial, randomized, controlled study found, “Medicaid coverage generated no significant improvements in measured physical health outcomes in the first 2 years, but it did increase use of health care services.…”

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Accountability crime and punishment folly ideological culture moral hazard nannyism responsibility

Walk on the Wilders Side?

Muslims, Islam, Sharia law, Netherlands, Dutch, Theo Van Gogh, terrorism, immigration, Europe

The Dutch were among the first to witness Islamic extremist violence against free speech. The November 2004 murder of Theo van Gogh by a Dutch citizen of Moroccan descent — a man whose first name, Mohammed, almost no one thinks is merely coincidental — stirred the nation.

And the world.

Van Gogh made a short film, with Somalian émigré Ayaan Hirsi Ali, about the unjust treatment of women in Islamic countries. The film criticizes Islam as well as the Muslim majority countries, and was considered an affront by many Muslims.

After van Gogh’s death, Ms. Ali fled to the United States.

This event is only the most famous of many similar conflicts between free-​speech Dutch values and regulated-​speech Islamist ones. The fact that the country has anti-​blasphemy and anti-​insult laws on the books, and these have been directed against a popular politician, has exacerbated the growing antagonism.

That very politician is today’s big news. According to The Atlantic, the “center-​right People’s Party (VVD) for Freedom and Democracy is projected to win 24 seats in [today’s] election, slightly ahead of Geert Wilders’s far-​right Dutch Freedom Party (PVV), which is expected to gain 22.”**

The Dutch center-​left, like similar ruling groups in Britain, Germany, France and Sweden, often seems weak and timid before the rising illiberalism of Islamist terrorism and Sharia law.* Many suspect that the recent decision to block Turkish ministers from speaking at rallies in Holland, before Turkey’s referendum next month, is designed to counter this narrative.

Meanwhile, though Wilders is generally liberal (not “far right”) on most cultural issues, his “de-​Islamization” program seeks to close mosques and outlaw the Quran***.

One extreme to another.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* This is not just a bugaboo. In 2006 the Minister of Justice floated the possibility of incorporating Sharia law into the constitution.

** The projection is within the margin of error, and with mass immigrant Turkish protests taking place over the weekend, the chance of a Trump-​like upset is more than possible.

*** Geert Wilders compares the Quran to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

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Accountability folly ideological culture media and media people moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies too much government

Almost Right

Politifact, Snopes, facts, fact check, bias, propaganda, lie, truth, interpretation, analysis

The popular fact-​checking sites, such as Snopes and Politifact, cannot stick to the facts.

When Sen. Rand Paul (R‑Ky) predicted that a recent repeal of “three regulations” would save “hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of jobs,” Politifact rated the statement “Half True,” on the grounds that, well, not all experts agreed.

In 2015, objecting to a reported low figure for the Clinton Foundation’s grants to other groups that actually did things, PunditFact gave a “Mostly false” judgment despite admitting that the statement was “technically true.”

NBC engaged in a similar move, admitting to the technical truth of a claim about unemployment, but said it was “extremely misleading.”

Snopes found reasons to tag a “Mixture” rating onto the simple fact that Omar Mateen, the Pulse nightclub mass murderer, was a registered Democrat. He was*.

The funny thing is, these sites are “Almost Right”: fact checking isn’t enough.

Facts can be true, but deceptively used.

Unfortunately, these “fact-​checkers” repeatedly fail to clearly distinguish matters of fact from matters of context. They could offer a double analysis and double rating: True/​False for the factual; Clear/​Caution, to cover interpretations and implications.

Why don’t they?

Perhaps for the same reason the CIA is planning a Meme Warfare Center — to provide a “full spectrum meme generation, analysis, quality control/​assurance and organic transmission apparatus”** — instead of a Center for the Analysis of Popular Argument: the idea is not to increase knowledge.

It is to maximize influence.

Which leaves us on meme patrol, ever vigilant.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* What Snopes did was speculate that the terrorist perhaps changed his mind after initially registering a decade before the shooting.

** I wrote more about this in Sunday’s Townhall column (from which this Common Sense foray is adapted; see relevant links here), and first broached the goofy/​ominous CIA proposal with Saturday’s featured video.

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Accountability media and media people moral hazard national politics & policies responsibility

War on Page A‑10

war, news, newspapers, defense, spending, Iraq, bombs, drones, soldiers

War was once big news. Now? Not so much.

Which may be a function of the never-​ending War on Terror, no end in sight in Afghanistan and an Iraq War that is officially over … except for the fighting.

Last October, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein busied fact-​checkers by claiming the U.S. was “bombing seven countries.” True, declared PolitiFact: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen.

Yemen is better known after January’s raid that killed Navy SEAL Ryan Owens, wounded three other SEALs, and killed 14 to 25 Yemeni civilians, including children. Last week, during President Trump’s speech to Congress, Owens’s widow, Carryn, received a thunderous ovation.

But, as I argued at Townhall, “Ryan Owens and his widow and her three now fatherless children deserve more than applause.“ How about thoughtful policies and a Congress that holds the executive branch accountable?

Invading Iraq was a mistake. So was President Obama’s swerve over to destabilize Libya.

“We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10 thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves,” President Lyndon Johnson once said … right before he sent more American soldiers to Vietnam.

Consider that U.S. Special Forces were deployed to 70 percent of the world’s nations in 2016. And, in recent weeks, President Trump asked for a $54 billion increase in military spending, and we have learned of Pentagon plans to seek a “significant increase in U.S. participation” against ISIS.

We owe it to those in uniform to ask tough questions, including: Is what we’re doing really worth a single American life?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

Further reading:

Reason: Is the Military Really “Depleted” After Years of Record-​High Spending?

The Atlantic: Fighting Terrorism With a Credit Card

The National Interest: America Is Never (Ever, Ever) Ending the War on Terror

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