Categories
property rights

Scurvy Tricks in Texas

It should be a truth universally acknowledged that your average crew of incumbent politicians in possession of a reform agenda must be in want of an actual reform.

Last summer, the Texas Legislature got hold of a bill intended to prevent abuse of the state’s eminent domain power. And legislators proceeded to mangle it beyond recognition.

The act of bad faith was quickly reported by the Institute for Justice, an organization that actively combats plundering of private property all around the country. IJ alerted supporters to the bill’s alterations, explaining how that at the very last minute, in a reconciliation conference, lawmakers dramatically weakened the measure.

Note, the weakening occurred after it had passed both houses in a much stronger form.

The bill’s point had been to prevent the use of eminent domain for private redevelopment. But the final language allowed lawmakers to confer eminent domain power to any private entity at any time, regardless of other language in the measure.

In November, voters eager for better protection of their property rights overwhelmingly approved Proposition 11, despite its lax provisions. Whether abuses of eminent domain will actually be curtailed as a result depends on the whims of lawmakers and the courts.

One thing is certain, though, were Texans to possess the right of citizen initiative they could act on their own to bring real reforms to the ballot.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
general freedom too much government

China’s Not-so-Great Wall

The Chinese government has been tightening its cyber-noose. Its officials fear  the ideas that can proliferate so easily on the Internet. So they’re making it ever harder for citizens to use the Net — even to visit nonpolitical websites.

Multiple-choice question: The new restrictions mean that Web surfers will have a harder time a) viewing pornography; b) watching streaming TV shows; c) starting an Internet-based business or personal web site; d) criticizing the Chinese government; or e) all of the above?

The answer is “all of the above.”

This year, China has blocked Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and many other sites. The latest round of restrictions has resulted in the shutdown of some 700 homegrown sites. Chinese dictocrats talk about combating pornography or piracy to justify restrictions that have a much wider scope. But they also freely admit their eagerness to block the flow of ideas they call “bad,” which is to say, inconvenient to themselves. China’s public security minister complains that the Internet “has become an important avenue” for “anti-China” forces.

Beijing can’t stamp out the Internet altogether. But it can certainly keep cooking up new ways to boil it down to an easier-to-control (or comprehend) size.

Chinese citizens who are determined to keep resisting the tyrants need more and better technology to circumvent the firewalls, and to protect their own anonymity and privacy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
property rights

Markets Without Mauling

Bribery, insider deals, political influence — must this be how we do business?

No.

Horror stories abound, featuring developers and governments in dark collusion, grabbing stunned innocent persons’ private property. This corrupt, banana-republic way of getting things done hardly serves the public interest. It serves, instead, the dealmakers and the politicians. Not many others.

Is there any way to expand your business other than by unleashing unfriendly bureaucrats and politicians on people who possess what you want? Well, yes, there is.

Former ABC news correspondent – and now Fox Business channel star — John Stossel, observes that cities like Anaheim, California, have figured out how to allow development to proceed without systematically trampling on property rights. In Anaheim, zoning and other regulations have been relaxed, making it easier for businesses to go where they want to. But also easier to expand by staying where they are.

If an owner doesn’t want to sell his property to make way for a project, a developer must build around him. Despite this heretical reliance on voluntary cooperation and respect for the rights of others, however, Anaheim has not withered away.

Stuff still gets done.

Amazing? Not really. This was once the usual American way. It’s only become unpopular . . . with politicians.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies too much government

Happy Healthcare

The funniest show on TV? Health care reform. It’s a laugh a minute.

More awkward pauses than The Office. The melodramatic back-stabbing that makes Desperate Housewives amusing. Plus, nearly as much deliberation as Wife Swap.

Boy, do we have great politicians. For Christmas they got us much better medical care and at lower cost. But wait, the federal deficit gets reduced in the process. They just vote it into being. Shazam!

How can they do it? By sticking it to the insurance companies!

Funny, the stock prices of health insurance companies have shot up . . . just as this legislation is passing. President Obama brought the House down, in his weekly television bit, proclaiming these bills are “the toughest measures we’ve ever taken to hold the insurance industry accountable.”

The more sophisticated humor is how polls show most Americans opposed to the plan Congress rushes to pass. So, who are the beneficiaries? Those who slipped special deals into this 2,000-plus page bill?

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says that’s what legislating is all about. But giving unfair deals to certain states to entice their senator’s vote looks, well, sorta blatantly crooked. Not to mention fiscally irresponsible. The sale of Senator Ben Nelson’s vote gained Nebraska a Medicare expansion on the federal taxpayers’ tab . . . forever.

The silver lining is that, at the rate they’re going, forever may not be so long.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
First Amendment rights U.S. Constitution

A Holiday Declaration

Ten days before Christmas, America noted the 218th anniversary of the Bill of Rights . . . and I hadn’t even finished my own holiday shopping. I might wish that I could get you a pristine, enforceable Bill of RIghts, but it’s not just up to me.

It’s up to Congress, the Judicial branch, and the Executive as well. That’s a lot of people who need to be “on the same page.”

But it shouldn’t be impossible. The Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments, are short and clear. They easily fit on one page.

What you may not know, however, is that these amendments were based, in part, on a previous version known as the Virginia Declaration of Rights. The earlier version is helpful to establish context and eludicate meaning.

Perhaps even more interesting is the fact that some of the Declaration’s enumerated planks lack specificity. They serve as general reminders of how government is supposed to operate. Consider the 15th plank, which states that “no free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.”

I hate to be the bearer of bad news on Christmas, but that sense of how government should work is no longer followed as the law of the land. Boy, I sure have a great idea for a New Year’s resolution.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets too much government

Browsing for Trouble

Microsoft is in less trouble today than it was yesterday.

The software maker has been in hot water with the European Union because Microsoft integrates a browser with its operating system. To avoid costly litigation, the firm has “settled” with European regulators and agreed to “offer customers a choice” of browsers in addition to its own Internet Explorer.

In the annals of crime, coupling operating systems with web browsers ranks right up there with uxoricide, armed bank robbery, and using the wrong fork with your salad. But the prospect Microsoft faced if it didn’t cave to the EU was pretty serious. The firm has already shelled out more than two billion dollars in fines to the Europeans as a result of previous bogus antitrust litigation.

Neelie Kroes, who fills the post of “European competition commissioner,” says millions of European consumers “will benefit” now that they have a “free choice about which Web browser they use.” But every online computer user has always been free to compare browsers and pick a competing one. You surf. You click. You download. Not hard.

So what’s the deal here? Big target, deep pockets. Competitors without scruples willing to enlist government guns to force Microsoft to do their marketing for them. Nothing to do with justice or anyone’s legitimate rights.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Accountability national politics & policies U.S. Constitution

Ron Paul’s Gold Standard Version of Principle

They call him Dr. No.

But medical doctor and Congressman Ron Paul does more than vote against awful and unconstitutional legislation. He has also proposed many bills to roll back the government’s assault on our liberties — bills to get rid of the income tax, minimum wage laws, antitrust laws.

Of course, to advocate undoing decades of ever-more-brazen governmental interference in our lives is to swim against the tide. To most congressmen, the idea of limiting federal governance to constitutionally authorized functions is so old-fashioned as to be perverse. So Paul hasn’t had much luck with his initiatives.

But one of them is now back on the table: A bill authorizing the GAO to audit the Federal Reserve. Paul first advanced it in the early ’80s, and since then it’s been gathering dust. But thanks to the way the Fed has been conducting itself during the financial crisis, with all its massive yet secretive bailouts and interventions, the bill is now popular.

It has a good shot at passing.

Ron Paul himself won’t be voting for it, however. It’s going to be packaged with other legislation to impose new financial regulations, regulations he opposes. Paul says: “I won’t vote for a bill that’s a disaster because one or two or five percent of it is an improvement.”

Can’t argue with that. If only all our representatives had such scruples.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets responsibility

Economist-in-Chief

I’m not an economist. So take my advice with a grain of salt. Or two.

But hold the pepper. I’m not the only non-economist. Our president isn’t one, either.

Sure, he has economists on his staff, but I’ve more than just begun to doubt their wisdom.

Take his latest advice to banks: “Go back and take a third and fourth look” at operations . . . and “explore every responsible way” to put their money in the hands of small and medium-sized businesses with current loan applications.

We can all agree it’d be nice to get rolling like we were before the bust.

But I bet bankers are trying to learn something from the bust, something about booms. They have every reason to be super-cautious. What if the current situation remains a house of cards, one that could come a-crashin’ at any moment? Lending money out now, in questionable cases, would be a horrid waste of capital.

I know that presidents are now cheerleaders for prosperity. One of their jobs, in the modern interventionist economy, is to pretend that prosperity is always right around the corner. Even if it isn’t.

But bankers have a different job. That job is to not lose money. And if they are now afraid tht in making a loan they might not get their money back, no amount of “advice” from our alleged economist-in-chief should change their minds. It’s called “fiduciary responsibility.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets too much government

Head Over Heals for Stimulus

Which thinker is more relevant right now, Lord Keynes or Naomi Klein?

We’ve hit hard times. The Keynesian advice is to spend a lot of taxpayer money to make up for the lack of private spending, thereby jump-starting the injured market order.

Naomi Klein, on the other hand, is best known for her book “The Shock Doctrine,” in which she charged that free-marketers were conspiring to use social and economic crises as excuses to “take over” and remake the world in their favor.

Let’s look at the evidence, shall we? We’ve hit a crisis. The government has done the Keynesian thing. Unemployment went up, but . . . who has made the biggest gains?

USA Today reports that federal workers are enjoying a boom in both employment and salaries. “Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession’s first 18 months” — and that’s not counting overtime and bonuses!

It’s not markets being stimulated, here, but government.

Not only is this Keynesianism on its head, but Naomi-Kleinism, too. Those who have taken advantage of the crisis are the ultimate insiders. As a Washington Examiner editorial puts it, “bad times for the rest of us are good times for the federal establishment.”

We could wish Naomi Klein were right.

But things aren’t getting better because she’s wrong.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets too much government

Virgin Galactic’s Latest

It seems like only yesterday that Burt Rutan flew SpaceShip One into near-orbit and received the Ansari X-Prize for piloting the first manned private craft into space.

But it’s been five years.

Things have happened in the meantime. To be specific, SpaceShip Two, just unveiled.

It’s a much larger ship than the original, capable of carrying six passengers as well as two pilots. It has more windows. I like windows.

A year or so ago the company, Virgin Galactic, had shown off their White Knight Two, a twin-fuselage aircraft designed to ferry SpaceShip Two high into the atmosphere.

There’s still a lot of work to be done before rich people can actually trek up into space. Yes, space tourism is a few years away. But it’s coming, and it’s important.

As long as space is a government-subsidized and -organized industry, it will suffer from the usual problems associated with bureaucracies and politics.

But let’s give NASA its due: Those scientists and engineers took the risks, squelching the screechings of many folks who, these days, don’t approve of burning any kind of fuel, really, or risking anyone’s life. Think of the lawsuits that would have happened — the OSHA violations, for instance — had private industry been allowed to start this!

Now, it’s high time for private enterprise to take over. To make space flight rational. And fun, again.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.