Categories
free trade & free markets national politics & policies too much government

A Million for Each Congressperson

A business filed for bankruptcy last week.

These have been tough times, so that’s not a shock. What makes the story juicy is that the FBI raided the company’s headquarters two days later.

The company? Solyndra, a solar panel manufacturer. A few months earlier, it had been boasting a profitable return on investment. And, as President Obama had proclaimed the previous year in a visit to the California outfit, Solyndra was precisely the kind of company that deserved federal government assistance. It was so cutting edge, so innovative, that it deserved a huge loan guarantee, to the tune of $535 million.

The raid occurred on the same day as the president’s “jobs” speech last week. Yet, Mr. Obama neglected to include an update on his administration’s previously self-praised policy of industrial subsidy pertaining to that very company.

Republicans are making much of this. They are themselves not immune to (indeed, during the Bush years they excelled at) just this sort of corruption.

And it is corruption. The Solyndra deal went down after major investors in the company gave millions in support of the Obama presidential campaign. It was fast-tracked as part of the federal government’s Keynesian “stimulus” spending.

This is how the politics of modern mercantilism — of systematic “business-government partnerships” — works. The moneymen support the politicians who support the moneymen.

It’s one way to get rich.

And gain (and maintain) power.

But it’s not good for the country.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Common Sense general freedom national politics & policies

The Same America

This episode was written immediately after the events of 9/11/01.

This is war. And on our shores. Thousands of American citizens murdered in cold blood. But despite our pain and suffering as a people, we are still strong. Not only militarily, but also in our love of freedom and our commitment to defend it come what may.

Some have argued that America will never be the same. In a sense that’s true: we’ll certainly never forget this savage and senseless attack. And we have much work to do to make certain it doesn’t happen again. But it’s important to be careful how we go about it.

In the wake of this unprecedented brutality, two out of three Americans say they would be willing to trade some civil liberties to get more security. But this is isn’t our real choice. Nothing about increasing our security requires abridging our civil rights. We don’t have to let the terrorists win, not in any respect. For these terrorists would like nothing better than to knock America off our foundation, our principles, the things that make us truly the greatest country the world has ever known. They hate our freedom. Let’s sustain that freedom. Let’s show the whole world: we are the same America.

The same America whose rifle shot for freedom was heard ’round the world in 1776, and is still being heard today. The same America that freed Europe from the Nazis and Asia from imperial Japan. Let it be known in the face of this terror today that we are indeed the same America, the land of the free and the home of the brave.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Categories
Accountability ideological culture

A Membership Group vs. Its Members

What is the American Medical Association for? The group claims, in public-relations-ese, that its function is “to promote the art and science of medicine and the betterment of public health.”

But ask a doctor. You are apt to get a very different diagnosis.

The September 2011 survey of “Physicians Opinions About the American Medical Association,” published by Jackson & Coker, a physician recruitment firm, makes that very clear. Here are a few highlights:

  • “The AMA’s Stance and Actions Represent My Views”: 77 percent of doctors disagree.
  • “I agree with the AMA’s Position on Health Reform”: 70 percent disagree.
  • . . . effectively supports “physician practice autonomy”: 69 percent disagree.
  • . . . effectively insulates “physicians from intrusive government regulations”: 78 percent disagree.
  • . . . “protects physicians from insurance company abuses”: 75 percent disagree.

Those percentages include non-member and non-practicing doctors. Understandably, members of the AMA are more positive than non-members. But even among member doctors, a majority disapproves of the AMA’s insurance protection (the last bullet point, above).

The AMA carries a lot of weight in public policy debate. Unfortunately, its history of lobbying government has been very . . . “progressive,” paternalistic, and heavy-handed.

For example, before the AMA dominated American national medical policy, doctors routinely engaged in extensive pro bono work for the poor. The AMA worked mightily to stop that.

The result of this prescription? Medicare, Medicaid . . . and an insolvent entitlement system.

Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies too much government

Off to See the Wizard?

Tonight, President Barack Obama will ride down Pennsylvania Avenue with his sinking approval ratings, to stand beside our most unpopular Congress ever, so he can give a speech about jobs (before the football game starts). Our prez is a good speaker, but I doubt this speech will do any more to soothe our economic stress than have past speeches.

Speeches don’t create wealth — or jobs.

But image can entice votes, and with the election year rapidly approaching, he needs to look like he has a plan.

Or at least a clue.

So, the White House back room boys have been busy re-packaging. News reports say the president will suggest spending $300 to $400 billion to stimulate the economy. But he won’t use the word “stimulus.” For some reason, that word rings hollow.

Rest-assured, his non-stimulus stimulus will be “revenue neutral.” In other words, the spending will happen now while the offsetting spending cuts (or tax increases) will happen . . . later.

Not every provision of whatever plan Obama orates will be a terrible idea, but the thrust of it — the notion that with proper central planning and fiddling by our wizard-in-chief the federal government can create prosperity — will be tragically mistaken.

We need a president who understands that Americans could pick themselves up, dust themselves off and get moving economically . . . if only Washington politicians would stop stage managing the whole show.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies

The High Rise Before the Fall

Many Americans who have never driven in ol’ London town have driven over the London Bridge — in Arizona. I’m an outlier, here, in that I’ve been over many a London bridge, but not to Lake Havasu’s.

But that doesn’t make me an expert on the Shard London Bridge, a London skyscraper (yes, skyscraper) nearing completion. Popularly called “The Shard,” it will be the tallest building in Europe.

So prepare yourself: Expect a major economic collapse in the old country.

Yes, for the last century, the building of record-height skyscrapers could have served as a leading economic indicator . . . of disaster. As Mark Thornton explains, record-setting skyscraper construction is

a sign of a looming economic crisis. The model has successfully identified the Panic of 1907, the Great Depression, the Stagflation of the 1970s, the Tech Bubble, and the Housing Bubble.

In a scholarly paper on the subject, Thornton cautions not to use this strange correlation “as a guide to fiscal and monetary policy” or, superstitiously, an excuse to regulate “skyscraper heights . . . to prevent economic crisis.”

But the connection between building heights and boom-and-bust remains suggestive. Extra-big skyscrapers rise during extra-big booms, themselves fueled by central bank credit inflation. That is, inflation — and its usual consequences (which include unexpected deflation and financial collapse).

If only our central banks could maintain a stable money supply, rather than constantly tinkering with money to fine-tune the economy, our biggest buildings might not serve as such good predictors of our biggest economic downturns.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Accountability national politics & policies

The Last Dark Chapter?

Last week, the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues revealed that United States federal government researchers purposely infected unwilling Guatemalans with deadly sexually transmitted diseases (syphilis, gonorrhea and chancroid) back in the 1940s.

Between 1946 and 1948, U.S. personnel experimented on more than 5,000 Guatemalans — including prisoners, mental patients, and even children — without their consent. At least 83 Guatemalans died during the project.

In at least one case, a woman dying from the syphilis she had been given was infected with other diseases to boot. Unconscionable.

One commission member, Raju Kucherlapati of Harvard Medical School said, “These researchers knew these were unethical experiments, and they conducted them anyway.”

Anita Allen of the University of Pennsylvania added, “These are very grave human rights violations.”

Commission chair Amy Gutmann pointed out that, “This is a dark chapter in our history. It is important to shine the light of day on it.”

She’s right. And note that this dark crime was committed by members of America’s “greatest generation.” When some people have power over others bad things seem to happen — throughout history, even among people like us. Not surprisingly, holding power accountable, especially when it’s exercised thousands of miles or oceans away, has proven mighty difficult.

This ought not be repeated. If we are the government, we must do something about it. But in an era of secret CIA prisons, what’s really to prevent it from happening again?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
property rights too much government

Oysters In, Soup Out

Oysterville Sea Farms in Oysterville, Washington — a small, coastal town that some of you may know from wordplay author Willard Espy’s memoirs — is in danger. The business has long sold soup and t-shirts and other items to tourists, as well as books, knives and buoys “since the 1970s,” according to a local paper. But Pacific County is putting the kibosh on all that. It turns out that the business isn’t zoned for retail sales.

“I’m really puzzled,” says the owner, who doesn’t see why the county would turn on a thriving business in the midst of a depression. He’s had to lay off six of his ten employees.

Considering that the county is just fine with his wholesale business, much of the complaint does seem a tad over-the-top. Indeed, the sea-food wholesale biz is nothing if not noisome, and this operation has been a going concern at that location since the 1930s.

I understand that zoning laws are often justified on property rights grounds, to defend neighbors against nuisances and the like in a consistent way. But there’s been a lot of research showing that zoning is usually just a means to reduce competition and deliver favors to some at the expense of others.

The complaint that inspired the crackdown was anonymous. In court, one sees one’s accusers. In regulation, one does not.

Finally, it is somewhat amusing, in a dark sort of way, that this business is being crippled by a “Department of Community Development.” Great job, guys.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall term limits

Nebraska Initiative: Open or Closed?

In 2008, State Senator DiAnna Schimek’s 20-year legislative career came to an end, thanks to the term limits initiative enacted by Nebraska voters. Third time proved the charm; the state supreme court had struck down the first two citizen-initiated term-limit measures.

Without the initiative process, no term limits. That’s reason enough for Schimek and other pseudo-solons to despise the initiative — not to mention that every initiative breaks legislators’ law-making monopoly

In 2008, Sen. Schimek and her fellow unicamereleons realized the voters had won. Unable to overturn term limits a third time, they did the next worst thing: wreck the path by which such popular reforms could be instituted in the future.

Schimek introduced Legislative Bill 39, which re-wrote the rules for petitioning initiative measures onto the ballot. Illuminatingly, more than 90 percent of state senators termed-out that year supported Schimek’s parting shot to punish the initiative petition process. When the governor vetoed this frontal assault on a fundamental democratic check, legislators overrode his veto.

Since passage of LB 39 in 2008, not a single citizen initiative has qualified for the ballot.

Then, on Tuesday, after a multi-year legal challenge brought by Citizens in Charge and Nebraska citizens, a federal judge struck down the law’s ban on out-of state petition circulators as unconstitutional.

One of the chains left around the neck of the Nebraska citizenry by Schimek and that last batch of career politicians has now been removed.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
general freedom too much government

The War Against an Infant Industry

In The Addams Family, young Wednesday sets up a sidewalk lemonade stand. A Girl Scout comes by and asks her if there are real lemons in her lemonade. After double assurances, the girl says she’ll buy Wednesday’s lemonade if Wednesday buys her cookies. Then comes the kicker: “Are they made from real Girl Scouts?”

The line works, in part, because of the historical setting. There is nothing more “American” than a kid selling lemonade by her home on a sunny day.

And yet, somehow, this traditional right of American life — a rite of passage — is under attack across the nation. Selling lemonade is a “business,” you see, which requires a license, and one may only engage in commercial enterprise in areas zoned for that, and . . . well, you get the idea.

Bureaucrats and over-policers feel it’s their duty to instruct the kiddies that they may only engage in nasty things like business with special permission.

Children must never see it as a right.

I know, there are problems (even in common law) about setting up a business in your home and stinking up the neighborhood or bringing in dangerous traffic. But, well, come on. Get real.

We’re talking lemonade stands!

So, a shout-out to Dave and Jenifer Roland and their Freedom Center of Missouri, for defending lemonade stands in their neck of the woods.

The issue may be more important than the size of the industry would suggest.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

We Can All Get Along

Our country is divided politically — or so we hear — right from left, liberal from conservative, progressive from libertarian. Nothing new.

Yet, don’t we all agree on the main points? Certain truths remain self-evident:

  • Government must have the consent of the governed.
  • ‘We, the People’ are the boss.
  • Our votes should count.
  • Our constitutional rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness count even more.

At Townhall last Sunday, I wrote about a government (ours) that lacks the approval of the people. Even cynical moi is amazed that, in response to their sizzling disapproval ratings, our politicians seem intent on attacking our most fundamental democratic rights to actively disapprove. Freedom of Speech. Assembly. Petition.

On the first day of this month, California Governor Jerry Brown vetoed a bill he called a “dramatic” assault on the initiative rights of Californians. On the last day, another bill rests on the governor’s desk. It would force petition circulators to wear a sign on their chests, reading, “Paid Signature Gatherer,” if they receive any compensation at all for their work.

This “reform” is the zenith of wisdom among the Golden State’s great solons.

Our country’s problems with representative government cannot be solved by legislating away the rights of citizens to speak out and participate politically. And by “representative government” we mean not only that the job of a legislator is to represent us, but also that we reserve the right to represent ourselves.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.