Tag: money

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initiative, referendum, and recall tax policy

The Green in the Evergreen State

money, global warming, carbon, tax, climate

We’re told of the scientific consensus on global warming. Whatever you may say about that consensus (I’ve expressed extreme skepticism), no such consensus exists for what steps would be best to take to deal with the identified problem — which is usually understood in terms of the “carbon footprint,” of carbon put into the atmosphere in excess of what is taken out.

Most proposals for curbing carbon emissions have been shown to be far more costly than efficacious.

Nevertheless, without such a consensus, activists in Washington State are pushing Initiative 1631, a measure to tax carbon.

They had pushed a very similar measure two years ago, as science writer Ronald Bailey notes at Reason. The measure failed, however, because environmental lobbies opposed it. You see, the collected funds were given back to taxpayers. Environmental groups didn’t get a cut of the action.

This time that defect has been alleviated, and those groups are on board.

Ah, money, money, money! 

The Evergreen State, indeed.

Would the tax be effective? The goal of the measure is “to reduce, by 2035, [the state’s] emissions by 25 percent below their levels in 1990,” Bailey explains. The state had “emitted about 88 million metric tons that year, so that implies a reduction of around 22 million tons by 2035. Assuming today’s emissions, that would mean that Washington State’s planned reductions would amount to 0.42 percent and 0.06 percent of U.S. and global emissions respectively.”

Not much bang.

Sure, the measure may win on hope … and bucks.

But will it do any appreciable good? I mean, other than creating a constituency with the green of dollars.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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ballot access general freedom initiative, referendum, and recall media and media people Regulating Protest

Three Bad Propositions

initiative, petition, power, money, elections

Two propositions on this November’s California ballot, Propositions 8 and 11, have found an opponent.

“Both would have voters decide very narrow union-​management conflicts in two relatively small medical service sectors,” explains Dan Walters, long the dean of California columnists. Unions are sponsoring Prop 8, which “purports to limit profits in clinics that provide dialysis treatments to sufferers of kidney failure.” Ambulance companies are behind Prop 11, which would “require ambulance crews to remain on call during meal and rest breaks.”

Walters thinks it “foolish to expect November’s nine-​plus million voters to make even semi-​informed decisions about their provisions, much less understand how dialysis clinics and ambulance services operate, or should operate.”

Well, yes, but this criticism applies to government universally. Legislators don’t understand how every business or industry functions, or should function, either. Even when politicians pretend to comprehend, by what right do they micromanage other people’s businesses and labor contracts?

Freedom, not government regulation, should be the default position.

But Walters’ fix runs against this logic. He thinks that upping the required percentage of signatures for ballot placement “by half … might discourage the misuse of the system for issues that cannot be fairly and rationally decided by voters.”

Don’t bet on it.

As Walters himself admits, making it tougher and more expensive to petition a measure onto the ballot won’t block the well-​heeled: “any interest group with a few million bucks and an axe to grind can qualify a ballot measure, regardless of their merits.”

But it would disenfranchise grassroots groups.

Defeat bad measures; don’t destroy the democratic process.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Accountability government transparency insider corruption local leaders media and media people nannyism national politics & policies political challengers Regulating Protest responsibility

Not Fine with Feinstein?

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, election, candidate, California, Democratic Party, money, campaign

Could it be that Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, may not be liberal enough?

The San Francisco Democrat has ostensibly represented the Golden State in the United States Senate for the last 26 years. Before that, Feinstein spent eight years on San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors and then a decade as mayor.

Now, after 44 consecutive years as a public official, what does the 85-​year-​old Feinstein seek? More. That is, another six-​year lease on her powerful perch in the U.S. Senate. 

But the Executive Board of the California Democratic Party — Feinstein’s Party — just said, “No way!”

A whopping 65 percent of the 333-​member board opted for State Sen. Kevin de León, a fellow Democrat seen as more “progressive.” Only seven percent supported endorsing Feinstein. 

Keep in mind that Feinstein is already on the November ballot. She was the leading vote-​getter in California’s primary last month. Yet, she received only 44 percent of the vote: a majority does favor someone else. 

In February, 2,700 activists at the State Democratic Party Convention in San Diego voted 54 to 37 percent for State Sen. De León over U.S. Sen. Feinstein.

“Feinstein, who spends much of her time in Washington, has had a distant relationship with party activists for years,” noted the Los Angeles Times report.

Still, what Democratic Party activists want may not matter so much. Mrs. Feinstein enjoys tremendous name recognition and, according to the Times, has “$7 million in campaign cash socked away as of May, ten times what De León had.”

That money seems to be Sen. Feinstein’s real base of support.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Accountability crime and punishment moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies property rights too much government U.S. Constitution

Watcha Gonna Do?

civil asset forfeiture, forfeiture, police, abuse, theft, Trump, corruption, incentives, illustration, money, cops

At a White House meeting last week between President Trump and law enforcement officials, a Texas sheriff raised a concern about legislation introduced by a state senator to require a conviction before police could take someone’s property.

Mr. Trump asked for that senator’s name, adding, “We’ll destroy his career.” The room erupted with laughter.

“That joke by President Trump,” Fox News’s Rick Schmitt said on Monday, “has the libertarian wing of the Republican Party raising their eyebrows, instead of laughing.”

Not to mention the civil libertarians in the Democratic Party and the Libertarian Party itself.

Civil asset forfeiture, as we’ve discussed, allows police to take people’s cash, cars, houses and other stuff without ever convicting anyone of a crime — or even bringing charges. The person must sue to regain their property.

Lawyers aren’t free.

Two bedrock principles are at stake:

  1. that innocent-​until-​proven-​guilty thing, and
  2. Our right to property.

Since police departments can keep the proceeds of their seizures, they’re incentivized to take a break from protecting us — to, instead, rob us.

“Our country is founded on liberties,” offered Jeanne Zaino, a professor at Ionia College. “[G]overnmental overreach is not something that is natural for Republicans to embrace.”

Schmitt acknowledged that “Libertarians would hate this. They don’t want big government. But they don’t have a lot of pull.”

Libertarian-​leaning Republicans like Sen. Rand Paul and Rep. Justin Amash are trying to end civil forfeiture, but the president will likely veto their legislation.*

Let’s not wait. Activists in three Michigan cities put the issue on last November’s ballot and won. You can, too.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* FoxNews​.com reported that, “Trump signaled he would fight reforms in Congress, saying politicians could ‘get beat up really badly by the voters’ if they pursue laws to limit police authority.”

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Categories
general freedom nannyism national politics & policies Popular privacy too much government

Inconvenient Cash?

currency, money, binary, electronic, cash, illustrattion

Everywhere I turn these days, I am hearing something about the push to get rid of cash.

Yes, cash. Greenbacks. Federal Reserve Notes.

You might think that getting rid of cash is a no-​brainer. Cash makes up only 11 percent of the money supply. Most of the money stock is already those 1s and 0s in bank computers, on debit cards, and the like. So why not go all the way?

It is the “logical next step,” after all!

But not every “next step” is advisable. When walking towards a cliff, that next step might be a doozy. And when you are dealing with government and the banks, jumping off a cliff proves an apt metaphor.

Don’t go lemming on me, man.

You can probably guess the usual arguments for getting rid of cash. Convenience, for one. It sure would be convenient for government and central bankers if they could just seize control of money “magically” in the banks’ computers.

Somehow, I am not persuaded. Neither is economist Pierre Lemieux, who provides us with a helpful survey of anti-​cash arguments. And when the experts argue that it would be more convenient for consumers, incredulity is the best response. “To argue against the usefulness of cash is to deny the revealed preferences of many individuals,” Lemieux insists. “The fact that cash has not disappeared even in non-​criminal hands means that it is convenient for many individuals.”

He expands the thought with an important truth: “Economic efficiency is defined in terms of what individuals want.”

And the purpose of governments is to follow individuals, not corral them, manipulate them … for bureaucratic convenience.

Let’s keep cash.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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currency, money, binary, electronic, cash, illustrattion

 

Originally (cc) photo by FamZoo Staff on Flickr

Categories
general freedom ideological culture national politics & policies too much government

The Drinking Gourd

$20, currency, twenty dollar, Jackson, Hamilton, Tubman, illustration

By now, most people are probably OK with Treasury’s plan to oust Andrew Jackson off the face of the $20 Federal Reserve Note and replace him with Harriet Tubman.

I certainly am. Ms. Tubman was a great hero of freedom. President Jackson has a more … mixed legacy.

The original plan to rotate Alexander Hamilton off the ten spot met with pushback as a result of his rising popularity from the Broadway play, Hamilton. Besides, Hamilton deserves blame — er, placement on the nation’s official paper money. Hamilton devised the first national banking system. Andrew Jackson, decades after Hamilton’s death, nixed that insider-​mercantile scheme by refusing to re-​authorize the central bank of the day, setting up a very different system for the Treasury and America’s banks.

Less than a century later, Hamilton’s idea was revived in the form of the Federal Reserve. Which we benefit/​suffer from to this very day.

But in a bizarre twist, Jackson was not simply replaced. He was demoted. Tubman is to be placed on the note’s obverse, and Jackson moved to the back of the bus, er, note. The reverse.

I would have preferred to revive Old Hickory years from now, after the Federal Reserve dissolved, to be featured on a private bank’s note. After all, private banks did that for years between Jackson’s time and the modern period.

Bank notes don’t need the imprimatur of government.

That would allow us to place, on the flip side of the sawbuck, a more suitable image — of the Big Dipper, which served escaped slaves as a direction, to go north: “follow the Drinking Gourd.”

Additionally, the Big Dipper suggests bailouts, doesn’t it?

We’ll have plenty more before the system is changed.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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$20, currency, twenty dollar, Jackson, Hamilton, Tubman, illustration

 

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Categories
ideological culture national politics & policies

A New Leaf

There’s apparently more than one way to mess up money.

Canada’s new plastic banknotes don’t work in all vending machines, I hear … and there’s a less practical problem with the new C$20 note: It has the “wrong” maple leaf on it.

Some botanists are complaining that the stylized leaf logo is not Canada’s native species, but one hailing from Norway.

I’ve not seen one of these bills up close (donations would be appreciated, though), but from the photo, the thing I’d be worrying about is that the Queen, on the basis of her appearances on bank notes, looks more like Dwight D. Eisenhower every year.

Here in America, our Washington insiders mess up money both symbolically and substantively.

In the old days, before president-​worship had become something of the country’s official religion, Liberty was represented by female representatives or Indians. (The fact that the U.S. government killed off and hounded remaining populations of native Americans in that time put the latter practice into some cognitive dissonance.) Now, both coins and notes feature dead presidents. Frankly, I think we should junk the presidents and go back to stylized, classical representations of Liberty.

The biggest symbolic problem is having Andrew Jackson, America’s most successful and vehement anti-​central banking president, placed on our central bank’s $20 note.

That’s an insult, not an honor.

Another way to mess up money is to devaluate it by over-printing.

Or creating too much credit. Or good old-​fashioned seignorage. With the Quantitative Easing and “trillion dollar coin,” we’ve got these last two covered. Alas.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets ideological culture

Competition in Currency

Monopoly control of money is at the root of all kinds of evil.

As the Euro faces collapse, and the dollar’s value becomes increasingly unsteady, central bankers the world over worry about what to do next.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Last Thursday I mentioned monetary experimentation, including Ron Paul’s support for F.A. Hayek’s idea of competing currencies. In my Townhall column this weekend, I noted that Rep. Paul has done more than promote the idea “that government policy should allow all currencies to float, favoring none.… Last year he introduced the Free Competition in Currency Act, as Hayekian a piece of legislation as you could imagine.”Monopoly Money

Paul’s proposal is not merely a sign of the times, it is a sign of intellectual seriousness — in a politician, no less. In the early 1980s he had introduced a measure to return the United States to the gold standard. But now he is willing to let “the market decide” which monies should circulate.

We may know a lot more about money than we used to, but one of the things we’ve learned is that no one knows for sure how to manage an entire monetary system, the whole kit and kaboodle.

So, just as we don’t need a grocery czar or an “industrial policy” to micromanage either technological production or R&D, centrally managed money is just too hard for any one set of persons … to manage.

Competition in money and banking (sans today’s progressivist doctrine of “too big to fail”) would not only work, it would keep politicians from the extremity of irresponsibility.

For yes, today’s politicians rely upon the Federal Reserve. They need to keep the “printing presses” running to supply that special, hidden tax that funds their deficits: inflation.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets links

Townhall: The Next Thing in Money

More about Ziggy?

This weekend’s Townhall column takes off on a subject broached here at This Is Common Sense last week. But there’s a lot more to it, so check it out. And come back here if you want a complete, easy-​to-​access full list of the column’s links:

For further reading, please consider:

Categories
free trade & free markets too much government

Ziggy Stardust Bucks

Josiah Warren Time Store note for Three Hours Labor

When times get tough, the tough … switch currencies.

A fascinating report in The Atlantic tells of the upswing in “local currencies.” In the United Kingdom, the Brixton Pound is being floated, engraved on its paper notes the likes of “David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust era.” Pegged to the British pound, it serves mainly as a scheme to promote local business and trade, though maybe it’s a tad more than mere boosterism.

Bavarians are also “enthusiastically using the local currency as a protest” — the local currency being the Chiemgauer. And “similar currencies have popped up around the world,” including in Canada and the United States.

The Atlantic story also mentions the idea of a “time bank,” a one-​step-​up-​from-​barter method based on labor hours and (in some cases) accounting for a variety of skill levels. Such “systems are in use all over the world … though the organizers are careful to make sure that the time is never given a specific value in a hard currency, which would open the door to taxation from governments.”

That caveat shows how barter and labor time exchanges might seem the more “revolutionary,” from, say, an establishment point of view. It’s worth noting that the idea’s greatest early proponent was Josiah Warren, America’s genius utopian experimenter and theoretician of “individual sovereignty.”

Less of a radical, Rep. Ron Paul echoes eminent monetary economist and Nobel Laureate F.A. Hayek by promoting the “denationalization of money,” arguing that government policy should allow all currencies to float, getting rid of all taxation on trade amongst currencies as well as repealing all legal tender laws.

For my part, I would greatly enjoy spending a Ziggy Stardust banknote.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.