Categories
First Amendment rights free trade & free markets too much government

Unfree Financial Speech

Can you get in trouble with the law — or at least a government agency’s unlimited regulatory power — for peacefully telling the truth?

You can, despite the protections articulated in the First Amendment and the greater respect sometimes accorded to freedom of speech than to other constitutionally protected rights.

It is possible because when they assault speech, government officials claim to be opposed not to the right to speak freely but to something else. They say they’re combating lung cancer, the influence of money on politics, or the unequal distribution of information to investors.

This summer, Reed Hastings of Netflix committed the sin of boasting on Facebook that monthly viewing of Nexvids “exceeded one billion hours for the first time ever in June.” Sounds innocent enough.

Come December, though, and the Securities and Exchange Commission has threatened to bring civil charges against Netflix for allegedly violating “public disclosure rules.” SEC Regulation FD requires public companies to make “full and fair disclosure” of “material” information that is not already public.

The SEC still thinks that 244,000 Facebook subscribers don’t fully and fairly constitute the public, but the communication cannot by any reasonable, modern construal be a case of offering “insider information.” How much more “outside” from the back rooms of a corporation can you get than Facebook?

The absurdity, here, lies in the SEC’s rules and its interpretations of those rules — and in the blind, confused, bankrupt way bureaucracies, which don’t go bust as the companies they oversee can, enforce their rules.

That is why Bernie Madoff slipped through the SEC’s fingers for years, while Netflix finds itself in hot water for a Facebook posting.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
folly general freedom ideological culture national politics & policies

The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Our Youth

Adults have expressed disappointment in the behavior of young people since civilization began. You can read complaints about “the kids these days” on cuneiform tablets.

That being said, I have some sympathy for U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.)., who has asked MTV to cancel its latest “reality TV” extravaganza, Buckwild, slated to debut in January. This West Virginia-based show show emulates Jersey Shore, a low-level satire on low-life New Jersey twentysomethings that I know too much about . . . without ever having watched.

“As a U.S. Senator, I am repulsed at this business venture,” Manchin asserts. He seems especially troubled by the fact that “some Americans are making money off of the poor decisions of our youth. I cannot imagine that anyone who loves this country would feel proud about profiting off of” the presumably horrid show.

First, as Ed Krayewski notes on Reason’s Hit and Run, were the senator really to take pride in business, he could mind his own: “The Senate . . . hasn’t passed a budget in more than 1,200 days. And, unlike MTV, it’s their job.”

Second, this is “Reality TV” here, folks. Not much to see. The truth is that Americans, for reasons ranging from Schadenfreude to mirth, like watching people make fools of themselves. And the youngsters hired on to play the foul-mouthed, inebriated, uncultured, promiscuous ninnies of Buckwild will be well paid for their efforts, and, as Americans chortle at them, they’ll chuckle all the way to the bank.

Third, they perform a useful service. Most folks watching fools don’t want to become fools themselves. They laugh. And, in so doing, begin to grow up.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Thought

F. Marion Crawford

The artist may doubt his own work, but he is bitterly disappointed if other people doubt it also.

Categories
Thought

F. Marion Crawford

To expect defeat is nine-tenths of defeat itself.

Categories
free trade & free markets

The Right Not to Be Ripped Off

Michigan’s state House and Senate passed Right-to-Work bills last week, because, as Governor Rick Snyder said, workers “should be able to decide whether to join a union or not.”

Which exact bill will wind up on the governor’s desk is anybody’s guess, but one could be signed into law by Snyder as early as tomorrow. Both would prevent unions from requiring workers to join as a condition of employment.

Predictably, Michigan Education Association President Steve Cook argues that legislators “want to force unions to . . . provide se+rvices, benefits and the protections to non-members who will not pay a penny for them. It defunds unions.”

That’s a rather one-sided way of looking at the issue. The cases of Michigan day care workers and home health care workers, both railroaded into union, tell a different tale.

Two years ago, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy challenged the bizarre unionization of 40,000 self-employed day care providers by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the United Auto Workers, with dues skimmed “from the Michigan Department of Human Services subsidy payments made to some providers on behalf of qualifying low income parents.”

Then, there’s the $33 million SEIU has nabbed “from the elderly and disabled in Michigan . . . through a unionization scheme it orchestrated when Jennifer Granholm was governor.” Jarrett Skorup writes in Michigan Capitol Confidential that “tens of thousands of people are being forced to send money to the Service Employees International Union simply because they care for a friend or family member who receives a Medicaid stipend.”

After reviewing these two cases, the right-to-work is clearly part of an even bigger right: the right not to be ripped off.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Thought

John Milton

Truth never comes into the world but like a bastard, to the ignominy of him that brought her birth.

Categories
links

Townhall: Falling on Soft Times

We have entered a new era, and perhaps nothing expresses this better than the worry, by those who define themselves as “of the left,”  that the poor are being “left behind” in the recent economic recoveries.

For some reasons, the cause for this is assumed to be “markets.” But what if the cause for this new social stratification were nothing other than government itself, as advocated and run by those who say they “most care”? What if they were responsible?

Go to the Townhall column, and come back here to consider a few more ideas. Here are some references:

  • All quotations from Casey Mulligan are from his talk with Russ Roberts of EconTalk. Listen. It’s fascinating.
  • The Mohs scale, mentioned early on, is a scale of mineral hardness. Glass, we were told in school, is 5.5 on the Mohs Scale; diamonds rate a 10.
  • The importance of the Basel agreements in setting off and ramping up the monetary aspect of the current depression can also be found on EconTalk, this time a conversation with Steve Hanke.
  • The crucial role played by the triple-A ratings system was identified by Lawrence J. White, and is briefly dealt with in David Henderson’s review of a book on the origins of the current crisis.

I urge my readers to look into Mulligan’s book, and the book cited immediately above. Tell me what you think.

 

Categories
video

Video: How Not to Help Families with Disabled Children

I bet most folks really want to help families with disabled children, with the kind of “kids” (many of whom are adults) who need round-the-clock help. I am sure that is why the State of Michigan pays family members to care for their children that have such extraordinary and demanding needs.

But does it help family members to force them to join the SEIU?

This is a strange and disturbing story, a story of a power grab … of naked ambition corrupting the last bit of charity out of the system. And it is certainly an affront to justice.

Categories
Thought

John Milton

No man who knows aught, can be so stupid to deny that all men naturally were born free.

Categories
Thought

John Milton

He who reigns within himself and rules passions, desires, and fears is more than a king.