Tag: power

Cronyism Pays

CATO, FEE, crony, cronyism, Washington, corruption, elites, lobbyist, politicians, privilege, power

Daniel Mitchell, a senior fellow in fiscal policy at the Cato Institute, is a nice guy. But he’s sort of depressing, too.

Weeks ago, writing for the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), Mitchell offered that “The Washington, DC Gilded Class Is Thriving.” He even provided a “depressing chart” graphing “median inflation-adjusted household income for the entire nation and for the District of Columbia.”

There is a graphic divide: while “the nation’s capital used to be somewhat similar to the rest of the nation . . . over the past 10 years, DC residents have become an economic elite, with a representative household ‘earning’ almost $14,000 more than the national average.”

Dan Mitchell highlights that “the entire region is prospering at the expense of the rest of the nation.” Among the nation’s counties, the top four wealthiest are in suburban Washington, D.C. The nation’s capital region boasts nine of the country’s top 20 richest counties.

Now Mitchell’s back with another FEE column exclaiming more bad news: “The ROI for Cronyism is Huge.” (ROI is “return on investment.”)

Mitchell cites a study entitled, “All the President’s Friends: Political Access and Firm Value,” conducted by University of Illinois professors Jeffrey R. Brown and Jiekun Huang. “Using novel data on White House visitors from 2009 through 2015,” they explain, “we find that corporate executives’ meetings with key policymakers are associated with positive abnormal stock returns. . . .”

The authors find a lot evidence showing that “political access is of significant value to corporations.”

None of this should surprise. Cronyism pays, and it sticks close to power, even geographically.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags Cato, corruption, crony, cronyism, elites, FEE, lobbyist, politicians, power, privilege, Washington

crime and punishment free trade & free markets general freedom meme moral hazard national politics & policies too much government

Which is more dangerous?

Corporations cannot and do not tax, conscript, and kill under claim of legal authority to do so.

Only governments do that.

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Tags corporations, corruption, danger, government, government vs. corporation, law, meme, power, which is more dangerous

general freedom insider corruption media and media people national politics & policies political challengers responsibility too much government

We Take the Bullet

debate, Hillary, Donald Trump, the scream, bullet, illustration

“[I]f someone puts a gun to your head,” argues David Boaz of the Cato Institute, “and says you have to choose between Clinton and Trump, the correct answer is, take the bullet.”

Then, proving the axiom “it can always get worse,” came Friday’s twin revelations: the Washington Post broke the story of Donald Trump caught on a hot microphone bragging about groping women, and WikiLeaks released hacked emails with unflattering revelations about Hillary Clinton “principled” duplicity.

The Clinton camp huffs about the hack of campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails, but denies nothing.

In those speeches for which Wall Street firms paid her millions, Clinton’s progressivism evaporates. She suggests Goldman Sachs and other large financial firms should regulate themselves, because they “know the industry better than anybody.”

While publicly bashing the rich, she privately complains before her wealthy audience about the “bias against people who have led successful . . . lives.” Moreover, Hillary explains that it’s bad “if everybody is watching” public policy being made, adding: “[Y]ou need both a public and a private position.”

And to think some folks don’t trust her.

Mr. Trump likewise confirmed our worst fears. During a 2005 taping of a television soap, he boasted that “when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”

And then gave a “rapey” example of what “anything” means.

This man deserves political power?

Forget which is worse. Note how much alike they are. Both seem to think they can say — even do — anything. Without consequences.

Without caring one whit about the rest of us.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags debate, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, lie, lies, morality, power, rape

meme

Term Limits and Jefferson

Post author By CS Admin
Post date September 27, 2015
No Comments on Term Limits and Jefferson

“My reason for fixing them in office for a term of years rather than for life was that they might have an idea that they were at a certain period to return into the mass of the people and become the governed instead of the governor, which might still keep alive that regard to the public good that otherwise they might perhapsbe induced by their independenceto forget.”

—Thomas Jefferson

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Tags Jefferson, meme, politicians, power, quote, term limits, Thomas Jefferson

general freedom U.S. Constitution

An 800th “Birthday”

Magna Carta, free speech, collage, photomontage, http://cognitivebiasparade.prosite.com/, political, politics, King John

Something happened 800 years ago yesterday, something of note.

The much-loathed and legendary — but real-life — King John signed a document with his barons that limited his power. It was later called the “Magna Carta,” the great charter.

Strange history. It was signed, made a big deal of, and then quickly repudiated. But it was never completely dead, possessing a zombie afterlife, and eventually helping give birth to the Enlightenment idea of limited government, as well as to the United States Constitution.

Most of the document is concerned with the king’s relationship with his subordinate (and insubordinate) barons. There’s a lot of power-wrangling in it, it’s all about divvying up prerogatives and responsibilities and taxes and fees. But it does contain a few passages of note (I’ve listed them on my “Today in Freedom” feature, in the past, and revive one for today’s).

My friend Sheldon Richman quotes scholar John Millar (1735-1801), one of Adam Smith’s most illustrious students, to put the document in its best perspective: “A great tyrant on the one side, and a set of petty tyrants on the other, seem to have divided the kingdom . . . who, by limiting the authority of each other over their dependents, produced a reciprocal diminution of their power.”

They were selfish men, Millar notes, not much concerned with ordinary folk, “But though the freedom of the common people was not intended in those charters, it was eventually secured to them. . . .”

Britain and then America stumbled onto liberty — a general and shared freedom — by the jealousy of competing powers.

We, the people, win when our “rulers” are divided, not united.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags freedom, kings, liberty, magna carta, power

ideological culture

Another Worthwhile Lesson for Muggles

Post author By Redactor
Post date July 19, 2011
4 Comments on Another Worthwhile Lesson for Muggles

We in middle-class, muggle America can learn something from Harry Potter.

My daughter got me reading the J.K. Rowling’s fantasy series years ago. I eagerly followed the growth of an 11-year-old to a young man of 18. This “boy who lived” was orphaned as a baby when He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the evil, dark Lord Voldemort killed Harry’s parents. For seven books, Voldemort tries to kill Harry. For seven books, Rowling imparts some important lessons.

At the end of the second book, the wise headmaster Dumbledore, tells Harry, “It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” The fourth outing even made the case for term limits. “You are blinded,” Dumbledore tells a selfish government minister, “by the love of the office you hold.”

So, when the final movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—Part 2, was released last Friday, I was one of those buying tickets . . . at a cheapskate Sunday showing with two of my kids.