Posted 4:29 PM by Liberty Lover

WHERE WILL LIBERTARIANS GO? Following up on my previous post, David Boaz points out Bush’s rhetoric of the 2000 campaign with his governance. I like this bit of political history:

But Karl Rove, who is fascinated by the role Mark Hanna played in building the post-1896 Republican majority, should remember one aspect of that era: In the late 19th century, the Democratic Party of Jefferson, Jackson and Cleveland was known as "the party of personal liberty." More so than the Republicans, it was committed to economic and cultural laissez-faire and opposed to Prohibition, protectionism and inflation.

When the big-government populist William Jennings Bryan claimed the Democratic nomination in 1896, many assumed he would draw industrial workers from the Republicans and bring new voters to the polls. Instead, Bryan lost in a landslide, and turnout declined for the next few elections. As the more libertarian Democrats found less reason to go to the polls, the Republicans dominated national politics for the next 36 years.

At this point the record cannot be reversed. The Bush administration has traded the libertarian-minded for the dependent-minded. The question is, will it work?

Posted 4:13 PM by Liberty Lover

FROM GOP TO PIG: Deroy Merdock wrote (no link) what I was thinking about, complete with a new nickname acronym: the Grand Old Party (GOP) has become the Party of Increasing Government (PIG). He reviews the disastrous policies, but forgot the Farm Bill that completely obliterated the free-market policies enacted in the mid 1990’s. We should be seeing their perverse incentives soon.

The libertarian/free-market conservative wing has been thoroughly trounced by the neo-conservative wing. Some of you may object that neo-conservatives are also for limited government. My response to that is sure - when it suits their ends. President Bush cut taxes to “stimulate the economy”, not to prevent politicians from spending money and limit the growth of government. That it has not prevented Bush and the rest of the GOP from spending money is now obvious. Futher proof will be when the Bush administration calls for tax increases after the election. Yes, that is a prediction – and I hope I’m wrong. But if the budget deficit becomes a political liability the government has three options: cut spending, sell government assets, or increase taxes. As Richard Dawson used to say on some game program he hosted… “Survey says!”

As far back as 1997 William Kristol has been itching to extract the limited government gang from conservatism. In this Reason editorial Virginia Postrel quotes Kristol and the implications of his statement.

On a more serious note, Bill Kristol proclaims in Commentary that "conservatism's more fundamental mandate is to take on the sacred cow of liberalism-choice."

What is interesting about Kristol's discussion of abortion is what he does not say. Nowhere does he make the traditional argument against abortion: that it takes human life. Rather, Kristol completely concedes the pro-choice philosophical (as opposed to legal) case. Abortion, he says, is about women's lives and women's choices. It constitutes rebellion against nature and tradition. That's why it's bad.

It may seem odd to omit the most potent anti-abortion argument. But there's a good reason for this seemingly self-defeating rhetorical tack. Pro-life arguments apply only to abortion and possibly, though much more problematically, to suicide and euthanasia. You cannot invoke dead babies to stop gay couples from living together, record companies from selling songs you don't like, women from pursuing careers, Wal-Mart from building new stores, developers from putting up condos, biotech companies from selling life-extending drugs, black men from marrying white women, farmers from leaving the land, companies from moving plants overseas, or any of the myriad choices one or another stasis-craving conservative has condemned as untraditional, unnatural, and immoral. To attack markets, to preserve central authority, you must attack choice. You must ally yourself with the Kuttners and Greiders of the world.

My guess is that he has thought through the positive corollary of limited government, advocating for liberty. Being an advocate for liberty means you must tolerate behavior you don’t like, as Virginia chronicled above. These are the unpredictable, unplanned behaviors that emerge from the interplay among free people. As you can read from the magazine article Kristol is not the only one. One more: earlier this year on a Fox News program where Kristol is a commentator he said that the only part of conservatism that has not been carried forward from the Reagan Revolution is libertarianism.

Limited government is dead as a governing ideal for the foreseeable future.

Posted 10:01 PM by Liberty Lover

NEW THREATS TO LIBERTY: Glenn Reynolds posts a trenchant observation by Czech President Vaclav Klaus. It’s ostensibly about the European Union but Klaus identifies another form of collectivism that is prevalent in Western societies. It’s not really new, but the point is that instead of blatant, outright ownership of the means of production, Classic Socialism, the real enemy of liberty is bureaucratic administration, a topic I’ve written about before. As I have pointed out previously, Virginia Postrel and Brink Lindsey have developed this thesis in their books. Aside from the special interest vote-buying such as the Farm Bill and Prescription Drug Subsidy recently enacted, responsibility for solving society’s problems are vested in government agencies manned by experts who substitute their judgment for the decentralized choices of individuals. This is what the good folks at Bureaucrash are attacking. I’ll try to come up with some examples later. In the meantime you can get more info at the links I’ve provided.

Posted 2:30 PM by Liberty Lover

HAPPY THANKSGIVING: Jeff Jacoby explains the Hayekian insight of spontanous order of how things material and spiritual are made possible.

Today, in millions of homes across the nation, God will be thanked for many gifts -- for the feast on the table and the company of loved ones, for health and good fortune in the year gone by, for peace at home in a time of war, for the incalculable privilege of having been born -- or having become -- American.

But it probably won't occur to too many of us to give thanks for the fact that the local supermarket had plenty of turkey for sale this week. Even the devout aren't likely to thank God for airline schedules that made it possible for some of those loved ones to fly home for Thanksgiving. Or for the arrival of "Master and Commander" at the local movie theater in time for the holiday weekend. Or for that great cranberry-apple pie recipe in the food section of the newspaper.

Those things we take more or less for granted. It hardly takes a miracle to explain why grocery stores stock up on turkey before Thanksgiving, or why Hollywood releases big movies in time for big holidays. That's what they do. Where is God in that?

And yet, isn't there something wondrous -- something almost inexplicable -- in the way your Thanksgiving weekend is made possible by the skill and labor of vast numbers of total strangers?

To bring that turkey to the dining room table, for example, required the efforts of thousands of people -- the poultry farmers who raised the birds, of course, but also the feed distributors who supplied their nourishment and the truckers who brought it to the farm, not to mention the architect who designed the hatchery, the workmen who built it, and the technicians who keep it running. The bird had to be slaughtered and defeathered and inspected and transported and unloaded and wrapped and priced and displayed. The people who accomplished those tasks were supported in turn by armies of other people accomplishing other tasks -- from refining the gasoline that fueled the trucks to manufacturing the plastic in which the meat was wrapped.

The activities of countless far-flung men and women over the course of many months had to be intricately choreographed and precisely timed, so that when you showed up to buy a fresh Thanksgiving turkey, there would be one -- or more likely, a couple dozen -- waiting. The level of coordination required to pull it off is mind-boggling. But what is even more mind-boggling is this: No one coordinated it.

No turkey czar sat in a command post somewhere, consulting a master plan. No one rode herd on all those people, forcing them to cooperate for your benefit. And yet they did cooperate. When you arrived at the supermarket, your turkey was there. You didn't have to do anything but show up to buy it. If that isn't a miracle, what should we call it?

Adam Smith called it "the invisible hand" -- the mysterious power that leads innumerable people, each working for his own gain, to promote ends that benefit many. Out of the seeming chaos of millions of uncoordinated private transactions emerges the spontaneous order of the market. Free human beings freely interact, and the result is an array of goods and services more immense than the human mind can comprehend. No dictator, no bureaucracy, no supercomputer plans it in advance. Indeed, the more an economy is planned, the more it is plagued by shortages, dislocation, and failure.

It is commonplace to speak of seeing God's signature in the intricacy of a spider's web or the animation of a beehive. But they pale in comparison to the kaleidoscopic energy and productivity of the free market. If it is a blessing from Heaven when seeds are transformed into grain, how much more of a blessing is it when our private, voluntary exchanges are transformed -- without our ever intending it -- into prosperity, innovation, and growth?

The social order of freedom, like the wealth and the progress it makes possible, is an extraordinary gift from above. On this Thanksgiving Day and every day, may we be grateful.

All that happens countless times for the countless stuff we buy, and at the same time the work we do contributes to make someone else’s stuff that they buy. I’m thankful.

Posted 2:29 PM by Liberty Lover

BUSH IN IRAQ: I’ve criticized the president on many occasions but this trip to Iraq was ballsy, as Liberty Spouse put it. Bush’s management style demands enormous trust of the people in his organization. He trusts them to perform their jobs well, and in return, he can do a lot of things, such as a surprise visit to the troops on Thanksgiving. I thank you for giving thanks to our freedom fighters on my behalf, Mr. President.

Posted 9:31 AM by Liberty Lover

TRUCK AND BARTER: I added Kevin Brancato's Truck and Barter to my "Blogs:" blogroll.

Posted 9:21 AM by Liberty Lover

ECONOMIC MUSINGS: Megan McArdle ties some useful economic theories into real-world situations.

For those who haven't heard the term before, the Principal-Agent Problem describes the inherent difficulties of hiring an agent to manage some piece of your affairs, whether that agent be the CEO of WorldCom or the night manager of your 7-11: the interests of the agent are not the same as your own, and he will be tempted to pursue his interests at your expense. It is very difficult, for example, to keep your agent from giving free six-packs, or free stock options whose value has been artificially inflated by fraudulent earnings reports, to his buddies.

This problem can occur in many types of organizations, not only corporations. Next up:

So why don't we do just that, instead of seeking, as the Bush administration currently is, a way to continue these disastrous tariffs? Paying off displaced steelworkers directly seems like that rarest of birds in American political economy, a Pareto Optimal solution: a policy that makes steelworkers better off, without making anyone else worse off. Perhaps it sounds, politically, too baldfaced -- but surely no more so than paying farmers not to farm.

It will remain a rare bird with this administration. Megan’s admonition to libertarians considering voting for Howard Dean to take “a long, hard look” echoes what I wrote when I posted Jim Powell, author of FDR’s Folly.

Republican partisans should note that when Megan writes, “This is a campaign platform straight out of 1972” she is referring to more then only George McGovern’s campaign. Do not get caught up in McGovern’s bombed out campaign. Calling for more regulation had a lot more intellectual appeal back then because markets were viewed with even more suspicion then today. Don’t get me wrong, there is popular appeal for regulation today, but the intellectual arguments in favor of markets since then has been supplemented with mounds of actual evidence. What are needed to help this cause are comparisons of industry before and after deregulation.

Posted 4:43 PM by Liberty Lover

BUREAUCRASH: I added Bureaucrash to my "Organizations:" blogroll list, an energetic organization whose mission begins:

Bureaucrash is an international network of activists of all political persuasions who believe that bloated, sprawling governments and the bureaucrats and politicians who control them ought to be mocked. Mercilessly.

Take a look.

Posted 9:21 PM by Liberty Lover

STOCK MARKET UPDATE: The major indexes ended mixed today on average volume, but the S&P 600 hit an all-time high and the S&P 400 came close. Up volume beat down volume and leaders continued.

Posted 8:41 PM by Liberty Lover

MEDICARE: Not even Sen. Ted Kennedy’s (D-MA) demagoguery could dissuade his colleagues from voting with Big Pharma and Big President to pass this brilliant strategic legislation.

Posted 5:38 PM by Liberty Lover

FDR’S FOLLY, CONT’D: Jim Powell summarizes findings from his book on FDR.

Government cannot create sustained growth and productive jobs.

It's simplistic to imagine that government intervention in a complex economy will work as intended.

Government jobs don't help people develop values and skills needed in the private sector.

Government spending, widely touted as a depression cure, doesn't come out of thin air.

Public works are no shortcut to recovery.

People tend to spend their own money more carefully than they spend somebody else's money.

Whatever the high-minded purpose of a government spending program, it's likely to be allocated in ways that will help current office-holders win the next election.

Far from assuring more public control, government takeover of private enterprises tends to mean evasion of public control.

Once a government program is established, it's almost impossible to reform or phase out, regardless of the problems.

Read the whole things for the details of these findings. This, combined with Howard Dean’s nostalgic campaign for re-regulation, should halt Libertarians for Dean in their tracks.

Posted 5:20 PM by Liberty Lover

REPUBLICANS GOVERNING? Fred Barnes writes about the responsibilities of actually governing. I post this because it gives some context to what Republicans are doing with Medicare and other statist impulses. I don’t know. Maybe Barnes has a better grasp of these things than I do. He quotes Newt, who was a history teacher, after all:

When Gingrich addressed the House Republican caucus last week, he lauded the Medicare bill as the work of a governing majority with a long-term view of politics and policy. He got a standing ovation and prompted House members to chant, "Vote, vote, vote." The key to being a governing majority, he said, is "you take half a loaf and go back to the bakery in the morning." If Republicans deliver a drug benefit, "who do you think AARP is going to sit down with in January" to discuss further modernization and reform of Medicare? Not Daschle. And the political benefits of the issue are wonderful, too. By opposing the bill, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi "is doing to Democrats what [Democratic leaders] Bonior and Gephardt did in 1994," when Republicans won 52 House seats, Gingrich said.

We'll see about that. In the meantime, behaving as a governing majority has a cost. M. Stanton Evans, the conservative writer, used to say that our people--conservatives--cease being our people when they get in a position of power. There's an element of that here, particularly in Republicans' eagerness to compromise. You don't have to be a libertarian to believe that inventing a prescription drug entitlement clashes with the idea of limited government. The assumption by Republicans that they'll get stronger reforms, even significant privatization, of Medicare later by working with their new best friend, AARP, is dubious. AARP is a staunch defender of traditional government-run Medicare. With a drug benefit in hand, AARP may balk at further reform.

I’m still dubious of this strategy. AARP can turn around and support Democrats if Republicans refuse to make the subsidy even more generous later on. Is the drug subsidy the price Republicans must pay in order to get market reforms of Medicare and Social Security? That implies a deal, which I have not read about. I think Republicans need to hear from their base – loud and clear. They have moved away, way away, from limited government and trust in the people to conduct their own lives responsibly.

Posted 5:03 PM by Liberty Lover

KRUGMAN’S CROCK: Welcome to another edition of Krugman’s Crock. This time the cover of Paul Krugman’s book is in question. It’s difficult to believe Democrats and the New York Times legitimize Krugman’s analytical critique of the Bush administration. Don Luskin has insightful commentary and the U.S. and U.K./Australian covers of Krugman’s book here. This is supposed to be a serious non-fiction book. For contrast, Don provides covers of the U.S. and U.K. versions of other left-of-center writers here.

Posted 7:25 PM by Liberty Lover

CONTRADICTORY CONSERVATISM: It really is difficult to square the Bush administration’s commitment to liberty abroad and the Republicans’ rush towards statism at home. Rush explained the strategy the other day, but its still missing the Next Step. The Rove strategy is to “decimate the Democrats”, Rush’s phrase, by peeling off a few percentage points of the Democrat’s core groups. Hence, the embrace of statist program after statist program. The farm bill (remember that?) was a battle for farmers. The prescription drug benefit is a battle over seniors. The steel tariffs have not been repealed, thereby hurting the economy. What are they waiting for? Now, the Bush administration applies quotas to women's bras and other textiles made in China. And how about those campaign finance restrictions? And now a porker energy bill?

What’s missing is what happens after the Democrats are decimated? The Republicans are in charge of everything as they are now, but with bigger majorities, and left with a mess of programs. Will they be able to pursuade them that they'd be better off with a free market alternative rather then the concentrated government benefits they enjoy now?

Posted 7:12 PM by Liberty Lover

DEAL: A. Sullivan speculates that English conservative Edmund Burke, along with F.A. Hayek, would probably have supported gay marriage, then concludes with "But that's the point of federalism, isn't it? It can be tried out in one state before it is tried out in another. The flip-side of leaving Mississippi alone is that we should also leave Massachusetts alone. Deal?" Yes, hence the title of this post. A constitutional amendment limiting marriage to a man and woman seems a sloppy attempt at social engineering, like say, Prohibition.

UPDATE: After re-reading this post I realized there was a federalism issue here, and that is what I was agreeing to.

Posted 6:43 PM by Liberty Lover

VACATION: I was away all week whitetail deer hunting with Liberty Papinski (my father) in the Catskill Mountains. I have a lot to report and comment on.

We counted seven dead deer on the side of the road on the trip up, hit by various automobiles. In the woods I saw does and yearlings but not any bucks; hence no success. But the hunting trip was not without benefits. As for wildlife, besides deer I saw ruffed grouse, woodcock, geese, a rabbit, as well as crows and songbirds. Ruffed grouse are quite an experience. Often you don’t see them; but when they flush their strong wings make a rapid drumbeat sound that startles you. They are usually in pairs, but one time I kicked up three.

The weather was mixed; the beginning of the week it rained but Friday and Saturday were warm, in the 50’s, and sunny. When the temperature is too warm the deer do not move. Hunters must change their hunting tactics as well as their wardrobe.

The scenario is something to behold. Some mornings were overcast, but Friday the sunrise was burning orange, pinkish. Che bella. The woods were filled with browns, grays, greens, some white from birch trees, some red from berries. There are hills, rises, hayed and unhayed fields of yellowish hue.

We stayed in the motel we usually stay in, complete with a kitchen and living room. We prepared meals every night but the last. Liberty Mominski (my mother) prepared lasagna and beef stew in tins for dinner. I made dumplings to go along with the stew on the nights we ate that. Papinski brought cold cuts for lunch, plus we had oatmeal, pancake mix, eggs, and bread to make different breakfasts. For entertainment the motel receives only broadcast television – no cable. In the middle of the day when the deer don’t move we’d leave the woods and go back to the motel and listen to Rush on WGU 810 out of Albany. I brought the latest copy of Reason magazine and The Substance of Style. I finished both of them. We bought the New York Post every day, with the same mug on the cover all week! At night we watched The Simpsons, which is hilarious, then on to Wheel of Fortune, and my favorite, Jeopardy.

There is a pond on the private property we hunt on. Fifty or so geese were hanging out there all week. Sometimes they would take a ride to somewhere, and then return later. One time I watched them land. In groups they would circle the lake about a half-mile around then make their way closer in tighter and tighter circles. They landed almost vertically, like say at 75 degrees with their wings outstretched as they drift down to the water. Then they flutter their wings to fine tune the last moments as they get closer before touching down.

We re-acquainted ourselves with a dairy farmer in the area. I had not seen them in, it must be, thirty-plus years. Frank and Sherry have four sons, and the entire Hull family has quite an operation going. They are sharp as tacks. Peruse their website. It’s a real working farm, and they invite downstate urbanites and hunters alike to stay there. They have a few different homes in which to stay. They serve meals. On the farm itself besides milk cows, you can find chickens and cats walking around. They have mixed breed English Setter/German Shorthair pointers dogs in a pen. They’re as friendly as can be. They have domestic (white) turkeys and Ringneck Pheasants penned. Memories from way back when include... a milk cow named Blossom that accidentally stepped on a kitten. A barn once stood where the turkey and pheasant pens are. In it was a vat that held milk before it was picked up. One morning we woke up early to ambush a flock of geese that were resting on their lake. Geese take off into the wind similar to an airplane to help gain altitude faster. As we snuck up the bank of the lake they sensed us and paddled to the other side of the lake, but we were upwind from them which meant they had to fly over us to escape. They finally flushed, right over us, but we all missed!

All in all I’m thankful I’m able to enjoy my dad’s company, the hospitality of our hosts, the camaraderie of my fellow hunters, and nature’s beauty.

Posted 5:18 PM by Liberty Lover

BACK FROM VACATION: I just returned home from vacation deer hunting in NY's Catskill Mountains. I'll resume posting shortly.

Posted 9:30 AM by Liberty Lover

A CALL FOR TECHNOCRACY: I’d like to respond to Felix Rohatyn’s article calling for sweeping economic change. He opens with broad statement about the last three decade’s governing credo of “small government and deregulation”. He devotes the remainder of his article trying to persuade us that we need more government.

Fair enough. States and local governments have privatized and outsourced some services but the budget savings from those initiatives went to other spending. What has been done at the federal level to shrink the government besides cutting taxes? Spending has increased over that period more then population growth plus inflation, and few, if any, departments have been closed. Oh yes, the House barber shop was privatized. Spending has not been tamed. In the 1980’s the federal government built up the defense budget to end the Cold War. With that task completed, the defense budget was reduced and spending re-directed to other domestic areas. It was not ended.

He points out the lack of fiscal discipline (read: tax increases) then suggests greater government resource consumption in the same paragraph:

Our dependence on foreign capital and our budget deficits must be reduced by greater fiscal discipline at home including the politically painful reform of entitlements such as Social Security. Our dependence on foreign energy is both an economic and security risk to our country. Our government must become an active partner with business to reduce this dependence, encouraging energy-saving technology as well as penalizing excessive energy uses.

Government becoming an active partner is a euphemism for centralized direction, and for increased spending or subsidies, both of which discourage fiscal discipline. He moves to his lament:

I had always believed that this country's basic goals consisted of the primacy of freedom, the objective of fairness and the creation of wealth. This concept seemed to hold until the '80s, when greed overcame fairness and the creation of wealth became an individual fever that knew no limits.

Belief in this conceptual balancing act came to a screeching halt because it ceased working. Fairness had become the dominant theme.

Mr. Rohatyn is after more then simple budget numbers. He wishes to emulate the societies of Europe with their elite, pseudo-omniscient, technocratic public servants who are not swayed by that very human emotion known as greed. Oh no, greed can only overwhelm the grubby elites in the private sector. Public servants can impartially substitute their superior judgments for the decentralized give-and-take of the market. They just have to take from each according to their abilities, and give to each according to their needs. Hmmm. Where have I heard that before?

We have examples of his model right here at home, both historically in the period of time leading up to the 1980’s, and presently in states like California and New York. Active government is supplied by huge government payrolls and supported by high taxes, just like Europe. The corruption in the public sector takes different forms, such as the cozy relationships between politicians, regulators, and the regulated. And what little reform that has occurred at the federal level has not dented the relationships there or at the local levels. No, we are still trying to escape Mr. Rohatyn's world.

Posted 2:04 PM by Liberty Lover

MAYOR BLOOMBERG STRIKES AT EVIL EMPIRE: NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg said that the teacher’s union rules reminded him of how things were done in the Soviet Union:

"The union contract is half an inch, three quarters of an inch thick," Bloomberg said. "It covers enormous number of things, many of which really shouldn't be in a labor contract.

"The Soviets tried that. They tried to have organizations where every single thing was voted on by every worker and management had no prerogatives to move resources around, set standards, pick the people that they thought would do the best job."

But that’s not what he wrote in his prepared notes. I was able to secretly obtain a copy of those notes from my well-placed sources of what the mayor actually wanted to say:

Teacher’s union leader Weingarten: if you seek truth, if you seek a superior education and a better future for the children of New York City, if you seek improved teacher performance, scrap those rules. Ms. Weingarten: rip up that rule book. Ms. Weingarten: tear - up - those - rules!

Well said, mayor.

Posted 9:08 PM by Liberty Lover

TED KENNEDY, NEANDERTHAL: After today’s U.S. Senate debate on Bush’s judicial nominees Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) said, "What has not ended is resolution and determination of members of the U.S. Senate to continue to resist any Neanderthal that is nominated by this president of the United States for any court."

So, an Ecuadorian immigrant, Harvard Law educated, is a Neanderthal. A black woman judge, re-elected with 75% of voters in California, is a Neanderthal. Kennedy’s language is that of someone with no fear of reprisal – the press will not interrogate him or his colleagues. What do the presidential candidates think of such language? How about you, Carol Mosley-Braun? How do you feel about your former colleague, Senator Kennedy, calling another ambitious black woman, judge Janice Brown, a Neanderthal? If any of you become president, would you mind if Republicans call your judicial nominees Neanderthals?

Posted 8:25 PM by Liberty Lover

NEW YORK STATE SPENDING: These suggestions are insufficient. A balanced budget requirement can be interpreted as a reason to raise taxes. As long as the budget is balanced taxes must be kept high, which will feed continued spending. When the public pressure to high taxes is too great, the tax raisers can either stop, or give back just a little.

What is needed is an actual constitutional cap on spending, restricting spending growth to population growth plus inflation. That, combined with the elimination of "off-budget" items might prevent politicians from spending too much. If the tax raisers exceed spending an individual or organization can take legal action against them. Then again, even that might not prevent these irresponsible people from overspending.

Posted 8:21 PM by Liberty Lover

NEW YORK CITY EDUCATION: Education committee chairwoman councilmember Eva Moskowitz (D-Manhattan) took a load of abuse at her education hearings from union thug and United Federation of Teachers head Randi Weingarten. She tried changing the subject: "I was frankly shocked to see the chair's reference to Frank Serpico," Weingarten said. "Serpico risked his own life to expose very serious corruption in this city."

"You're not going after the work rules. You're going after the American worker," said [ Central Labor Council head Brian] McLaughlin. "Stop ridiculing and mocking protections in place to safeguard working men and women from economic, physical and emotional harm." Wrong. Labor unions do not represent the American worker. Less then 10% of employees are unionized. Second, “protecting” the “American worker” reduces incentives to work more effectively and treat your customers well. Employees become imperialistic if they are protected.

Posted 5:13 PM by Liberty Lover

35 HEROES OF FREEDOM: Banner day in the Liberty Lover house: the December issue of Reason arrived and RPPI's Privatization Watch. Both are celebrating 35 years of the magazine, and include tributes to 35 of the many individuals "who have made the world a freer, better, and more libertarian place by example, invention, or action." On the cover is a quadrant composite of four of the 35 faces: Maggie, Milton, Clarence, and Madonna. A must read.

Posted 7:40 PM by Liberty Lover

ART CARNEY, RIP: I liked his Ed Norton character, and used to imitate him when I was... well just last week!

Posted 7:38 PM by Liberty Lover

HAPPY VETERAN'S DAY: Thanks freedom fighters.

Posted 7:36 PM by Liberty Lover

LOCK, LOAD, AND TAKEOFF: The U.S. Senate passed a bill to let cargo pilots carry guns. Nothing motivates a politician like fear.

Posted 6:04 PM by Liberty Lover

THE MYTH OF THE PERFECTLY COMPETITIVE MARKET: Kevin Brancato examines competitive markets.

Let me state my views bluntly: perfect competition is a myth! I would be shocked to find any markets that function like some ridiculously simplistic model. First, no market meets the almost impossible criteria of zero transactions cost, perfect & symmetrical information, homogenous product, non-decreasing marginal cost, zero fixed cost, and indefinite numbers of suppliers and demanders. Competition in the real world is a battle between real producers as they vary prices, quality, service, and the total experience.

Cool. I’ll remember this when I get into a discussion with someone about markets. Via Lynne Kiesling.

Posted 5:42 PM by Liberty Lover

GET RADICAL: Getting to the bottom of an issue requires knowing your principles and not being distracted trying to ascertain someone’s motives. That’s what Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy and Humanities, The University of Texas at Arlington explores.

Now suppose a law is introduced in my jurisdiction requiring motorcyclists to wear safety helmets. Can I, qua liberal, support such a law? Before answering this question, stop and think. Should I care about the motives of those who introduced the legislation? Or should I ignore their motives and ask whether my own principles justify it?

Interesting.

Posted 5:35 PM by Liberty Lover

TEACHERS GETTING FIRED? The NYC City Council Education Committee Chairwoman, Eva Moskowitz (D-Manhattan), is holding hearings on union contracts covering teachers, supervisors and custodians to try to find out why fewer than 1 percent of instructors get unsatisfactory ratings, although a majority of students in some grades flunk standardized math and English exams. Good idea. Public employees must be held accountable, and this is one way of doing it. I hope the hearings are publicized; they might be shown on a local cable access station. A major network would be better, along with newspaper reports. Best of luck, Eva.

Posted 5:34 PM by Liberty Lover

NEW YORK: TAX HELL: Welcome to New York. You settled in your new home, now pay for the privilege.

ALBANY - New Yorkers are smacked with the largest local tax burden in the country - an alarming 72 percent above the national average, according to Citizens Budget Commission study released yesterday.

New Yorkers believe politicians when they say they need money for a program, or to fix the local economy. Yes, citizens think tax increases help the local economy. There is a professional political class that perpetuates this fallacy.

Posted 5:33 PM by Liberty Lover

GANG VIOLENCE: More gang members have guns but the NY Police Dept says gang violence is on the decline. This baffles some people, but the first place to examine is the deterrence effect. Wouldn’t that be ironic, politicians who run one of the most heavily regulated cities finds out through gangs that gun ownership deters crime? That’s old news to some of us.

Posted 5:26 PM by Liberty Lover

WTO RULES AGAINST U.S. STEEL TARIFFS: Yea! Let's see if the Bush Admin. dumps them.

Posted 5:17 PM by Liberty Lover

EXPOSED CRUISE BOATS? Pardon my cynicism, but this looks like another easy play for Senator Schumer (D-NY). By playing on people’s fears he gets to bash a Republican Administration, and possibly increase the public sector unions that support Democrats. The reasoning of what “could” happen even though the word is not mentioned in the article leaves a range of zero percent to 100% likelihood of the event occurring.

"There's a reason why we took airport security away from private companies and gave it to [the Transportation Security Administration]," he said, suggesting a similar move may be needed with cruise ships.

Yes, the reason was to increase union membership. That is the price you extracted from Bush in order for them to get the new agency.

Posted 5:04 PM by Liberty Lover

FISHING AND PROPERTY RIGHTS: What do they have in common? Read on to find out.

Ocean fishing is a poster child for what Garret Hardin famously but incorrectly called the "tragedy of the commons." To see the argument, think of a common pasture in a medieval village. Suppose the village has 50 residents. If we treat this pasture as an open access resource, we each can pasture as many sheep as we want on the pasture. Individually, each one of the 50 of us weighs the benefits of pasturing an additional sheep against the cost. The benefit is clear -- having another well-fed sheep -- and the cost is negligible (except for the purchase price of the sheep, of course).

But what happens as the pasture becomes more crowded? Once we have a lot of sheep congestion on the pasture, every additional sheep grazing on the pasture imposes a cost on all of the villagers who are pasturing sheep on this open access resource. After that congestion point, additional sheep grazing reduces the food available to all other sheep. That means that if I pasture more animals, my sheep may not all get to each enough, but I am not bearing the full marginal cost of my decision to pasture an additional sheep -- my fellow villagers who also use this open access resource also bear some portion of the cost, even if they have not themselves pastured additional sheep.

Problem is, we each individually face this incentive. So every villager will, in the absence of any rules or exclusion from the open access resource, have an incentive to pasture more animals than the pasture can sustain.

That is how treating a resource as an open access resource leads to overuse, in this case overgrazing.

When Democrats talk about “universal” healthcare or childcare, this is the likely result. Read it here.

Posted 4:51 PM by Liberty Lover

TIME-WARP DEMOCRATS: Pete DuPont writes with a little more oomph what I wrote about in August: the Democrats keep reverting back to the economics of the 1930’s. That’s over seventy years! Lots of new ideas supported empirically have emerged since that time. And still.

Posted 9:47 AM by Liberty Lover

STUDENTS IN FREE ENTERPRISE: SIFE is a college and university organization where students volunteer, design, implement, teach business, mentor, and run projects at a grass roots economic level. A global organization, they teach the principles and values of market economics. Working in partnership with business and higher education, SIFE organizes and motivates teams of university students who teach others an understanding of these principles and values. They seems to be an optimistic, healthy alternative to the Marxist-inspired, union-backed anti-globalization freaks.

Posted 5:01 PM by Liberty Lover

JOBS: The U.S. economy added hundreds of thousands of jobs in the last three months: 126,000 in October, 125,000 in September, and 35,000 in August. Here's a historical table of monthly job changes.

For a concise analysis of how job growth occurs, read this column by W. Michael Cox, chief economist of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, and Richard Alm. They are co-authors of "Myths of Rich and Poor."

Posted 7:54 PM by Liberty Lover

STOCK MARKET UPDATE: Another strong day for the stock market. The indexes rose on increased volume. What’s more, the S&P Small- and Mid- caps hit all-time highs. Stocks are breaking out of bases. Three and a half years ago the Nasdaq peaked. As can be seen from the all-time highs of the other indexes big stocks are not where the action has been. This is solid evidence that the economy is currently and will be strong in the future.

Posted 5:31 PM by Liberty Lover

FDR: How much did FDR worsen the economy of the 1930’s? Pretty bad. This book cuts through the veneer of FDR’s leadership style and supposed compassion for poor people. If any of you left-liberals out there wish to question my motives… Well, that line of questioning does not change the facts or the evidence presented.

Posted 5:29 PM by Liberty Lover

PATRIOT ACT: Naively, I believed the critics of the Patriot Act were exaggerating the dangers. Here's a report that shows it was used against non-terrorists.

The investigation of strip club owner Michael Galardi and numerous politicians appears to be the first time federal authorities have used the Patriot Act in a public corruption probe.

You may object to what these people were doing, but they were not involved in terrorism. That is beside the point.

Posted 5:27 PM by Liberty Lover

ABORTION: During Wednesday’s radio program a caller to Sean Hannity said she voted for President Bush in 2000 but will not in 2004 because he supported and signed the partial-birth abortion ban bill. She said she thinks that is part of a larger agenda of restricting abortions. Hannity disputed that. That was the end of the conversation because it was towards the end of the program. Fred Barnes confirms that caller’s suspicion in a column praising Reagan for rallying anti-abortion people.

Posted 5:49 PM by Liberty Lover

TRADE AND TERRORISM: Alan Oxley argues that the former can help us fight the latter.

Posted 5:44 PM by Liberty Lover

REAGAN BIOPIC: Patti Davis, daughter of President Reagan writes a powerful piece on CBS’s movie of her father. This carries extra meaning because Ms. Davis was estranged from Ronald and Nancy for several years, and finally reconciled a few years ago. Her concluding paragraph:

My father would probably say, “This too shall pass.” And it will. We will continue to come to his bedside, knowing that death waits in the doorway and will one day reach for him. We will continue to cherish the fact that we walked away from our old battlegrounds and discovered how much better peace feels. We will look at each other through the clear glass of the present, not the mud-spatter of the past. What a pity the producers missed out on that part of the story.

Reagan was nothing like the movie portrayed him. He possessed a live-and-let-live attitude - until the behavior became truly harmful. That’s a lot more then can be said about both Reagan’s liberal enemies and some of his conservative admirers.

Posted 5:29 PM by Liberty Lover

IPO’s, MUTUAL FUNDS, AND JOB GROWTH: The Initial Public Offering (IPO) market is showing signs of life. The quality of companies coming public is high.

"We were told by various investment bankers that you need several quarters of profitability and a strong outlook in a growing market," said Ron Edgerton, chief executive of SigmaTel, (SGTL) an audio chip firm that went public in mid-September. "You just can't go on a story and a theory anymore."

Edgerton spent more than two years getting SigmaTel in shape for its public debut. He says he made sure it focused on its core competencies in audio chips and listened to its customers, many of them makers of MP3 players.

A vivacious IPO market bodes well for future job growth because new companies and better funded companies are a crucial source of new jobs, as opposed to established companies like Microsoft and General Electric. As I have written previously, they churn jobs; add a bunch, drop a bunch. The stock market rally is luring companies into the capital markets for funding.

A concern of mine that could hinder the IPO market is heavy-handed regulation of the mutual fund industry. Politicians would do well to do no harm. Mutual funds are one source of demand for IPO stocks, and more regulations might hinder their ability to buy those stocks. It might force them to invest in more established companies, leaving promising new companies starved for capital.

Posted 5:28 PM by Liberty Lover

NYC POLITICS: NYC re-elected the same crew if misfits; expect to stay in a left-wing time warp of more taxes, more special interest pandering, and cries of social justice. Blah, blah, blah. They also rejected Mayor Bloomberg's ballot measure to create non-partisan elections.

Posted 9:25 PM by Liberty Lover

DOCTOR ZHIVAGO: I watched the first part of a remake of the classic on Sunday night. While a tragic love story, I want to point out a hilarious political scene that was meant as serious.

Recall this is the period at the turn of the last century when Russia was ruled by a Czar. There was wide discontent, and people were staging social uprisings with talk of ‘revolution’. In one particular scene, a young couple is observing a mob rushing local merchants and stealing things off the shelves. The camera cuts to a crowd stealing loaves of bread, then back to the couple. The woman says, they’re stealing the bread! The man, who’s caught up in the revolutionary fervor, says no, they’re liberating the means of production! Oh.

Posted 9:33 PM by Liberty Lover

GOVERNMENTIUM: The heaviest chemical element known. Very clever.

Posted 9:08 PM by Liberty Lover

IBD QUOTES INSTAPUNDIT: Investor's Business Daily borrow's Reynolds' suggestion to the Democratic Presidential candidates to take a pledge:

For that reason, we have a simple request to make of the Democrats (borrowed from blogger Glenn Reynolds of InstaPundit.com):

Take the pledge, now.

Make it absolutely clear — so that the Baathists, al-Qaida and al-Jazeera get the point — that you would not, as president, cut and run. That you will give our troops the tools to fight, and that you will bring them home only after they have achieved total victory.

For as long as I have read it IBD has been pretty hip for a business newspaper.

Posted 5:35 PM by Liberty Lover

LIBETARIANS FOR DEAN? Deregulator Rick Henderson weighs in on the idea. He's not biting.

Name a single libertarian principle (other than gay civil unions) to which Dean demonstrates significantly more fidelity than Bush; I can cite a half-dozen in which the Bush administration and its policies are head-and-shoulders above the positions of the good doctor. As I've pointed out earlier, Bush offers plenty of causes for concern. But at the margins, a second Bush term enhances individual liberty; a first Dean term erodes it. I just don't understand.

He cites a few issues to back his point.

Posted 11:31 AM by Liberty Lover

METROSEXUALS, JOHN KERRY’S INSULTS: Mark Steyn defines a “metrosexual”, and gives me a chance to bash John Kerry. First, the definition:

A metrosexual is a heterosexual man who has a gayish sensibility in his dress, cologne, home decor and album collection; if men are from Mars, it doesn't mean they can't be in touch with their Venusian side.

Now the Kerry part.

''This president has done it wrong every step of the way. He promised that he would have a real coalition. He has a fraudulent coalition.''

What's ''fraudulent'' about the coalition that toppled Saddam? The principal players -- the Americans, British and Australians -- are three of only a handful of countries to have been on the right side of every major conflict of the last century: the First World War, the Second, the Cold War and now the war on terror. I bet on form. When it comes to standing up against totalitarianism, the heavy lifting has been done by America and the British Commonwealth. Kerry's the first to get all hoity-toity if he feels someone is insufficiently deferential to his war service. So who's he to mock the brave Royal Marines, Desert Rats and other British forces who took and held southern Iraq? Who's he to mock the Australian SAS who did such a great job in seizing so many Baathist bad guys in northern and western Iraq? Or the Polish troops leading the multinational contingent in central Iraq right now?

It's taken as a given among Democrats that somehow this administration has needlessly offended the French and Germans. But insulting Britain, Australia and Poland as a cheap way to get at Bush demonstrates your superior sense of the subtleties of foreign policy?

Kerry insults our allies in the war against terrorists to take cheap shots at Bush.

Posted 11:17 AM by Liberty Lover

FLAT TAX IN IRAQ: L. Paul Bremer will impose a 15% flat tax in Iraq. Lucky them! Incredibly, left-liberals prefer the current convoluted tax laws to a simple tax system. They’d rather Americans finagle here and there, and pay accountants and lawyers to figure out ways to avoid paying excessive income taxes.

Posted 11:05 AM by Liberty Lover

SOCIALIZING, AND SOCIAL SECURITY: Me and the Liberty Spouse went out with another couple last night. We ate dinner in Little Italy, then proceeded to a place called Burp Castle. Burp Castle is a bar run by monks. They serve an impressive selection of beers, mostly from Belgium. The dark bar has beautiful murals painted on its walls. The conversation inevitably turned to politics, and I said something about the Social Security program I do not believe was accurate. I said, essentially, people who pay into the program are legally entitled to the money accumulated under your Social Security number. But I do not believe they are legally entitled to that money.

In two important cases, Helvering v. Davis and Flemming v. Nestor, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Social Security taxes are simply taxes and convey no property or contractual rights to Social Security benefits.

This might explain why Democrats invent things that try to convey a bond between themselves, the program, and the people who want the program. People who pay into the program do not have a legal claim on the funds in the program, so Democrats try to create an illusion of one in its place. They use phrases such as a Lock Box (remember Al Gore during the 2000 Presidential campaign?), and the program being a Sacred Trust between America and its seniors. Those phrases are reassuring but, as you can read from the above link, they are not legally binding.

Posted 10:25 AM by Liberty Lover

END OF THE WEST? Thomas Friedman pens an American-European geo-political piece worth a read. The U.S. and Europe are motivated for different ends.

Today, however, we are motivated by different dates. "Our defining date is now 1989 and yours is 2001," said Mr. Bildt [Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister]. Every European prime minister wakes up in the morning thinking about how to share sovereignty, as Europe takes advantage of the collapse of communism to consolidate economically, politically and militarily into one big family. And the U.S. president wakes up thinking about where the next terror attack might come from and how to respond — most likely alone. "While we talk of peace, they talk of security," says Mr. Bildt. "While we talk of sharing sovereignty, they talk about exercising sovereign power. When we talk about a region, they talk about the world. No longer united primarily by a common threat, we have also failed to develop a common vision for where we want to go on many of the global issues confronting us."

This analysis leaves out important ties that began before 1945, such as France’s giving of the Statue of Liberty to the U.S. in 1886. The title of the statue is "Liberty Enlightening the World". Or the role European countries played during the founding of the U.S.? Or the role European philosophers such as those responsible for the British Glorious Revolution or the Scots played in the founder’s developing an American Enlightenment here and here? I don’t know enough to piece together a significant rebuttal.

Posted 9:53 AM by Liberty Lover

ENDING STEEL TARIFFS? Robert Novak is reporting that the Bush administration will end the tariffs when the WTO rules against them.

President Bush is ready to roll back his steel tariffs as soon as the World Trade Organization (WTO) rules against them by rejecting a formal appeal by the U.S. government.

Although the Bush administration was split down the middle when the tariffs were imposed last year, all key policymakers now agree the move has been an economic failure. The question has been whether Bush political adviser Karl Rove would go along, but sources now say he is on board for repeal.

The steel tariffs are regarded inside the administration as having done more harm than good, both politically and economically. Whatever help they gave the ailing steel industry was overridden by damage to steel-purchasing manufacturers -- especially the auto parts industry.

This is excellent news for the economy, and maybe for politics. Here we have an actual experiment, backed by actual experience and evidence of protectionism’s unintended consequences. Recall that the tariffs were intended to protect the steel industry from competition and give them time to restructure, and help Republicans win elections. Well, more jobs in steel-consuming industries were lost then saved in steel-producing, and the price of steel rose to levels that restrained firms from being able to buy steel to make products for their customers. Economic growth and job growth suffered. Maybe now the Bush administration will get rid of the others.

Posted 9:24 AM by Liberty Lover

POLITICAL ECONOMY: The stock market’s performance is good news because it provides positive information about the health of the economy. If you have been following politics recently, you might think the economy was still mired in the dumps. Democratic politicians keep comparing the current period of time with the period when Herbert Hoover was president. But the stock indexes at these levels (see below) tell a different story. What is it about Democrats that they like this president so much? For one, Hoover was a Republican, so I can see partisanship there. But they don’t mention Hoover’s party affiliation. Hoover preceded Franklin Roosevelt, the Democrat’s fading hero. Maybe they are trying to recall the glory days of Total Control, when the U.S. experimented with central planning. Hoover centralized many government functions, and raised taxes to balance the budget, among other things. Roosevelt did the same and more. So maybe the Democrats are wishing for bad news so they can repeat those days. But that would require millions of Americans to be miserable, homeless, penniless, starving. Hmm. Who wants to trade what they have now and the prospects of a better future for the above scenario?

Posted 8:38 AM by Liberty Lover

STOCK MARKET UPDATE: The indexes were mixed on lower volume then the day before on Friday. There have been three distribution, or selling, days on higher volume then the day before on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq over the past two weeks, including the reversals when the indexes touched their 50-day moving averages. It’s tough to count positive reversals as selling days because stocks in the indexes get heavy buying to support them at that point. Whoever wanted to sell did so and exhausted their supply. All their supply got absorbed and the market turned around.

The indexes have been consolidating over the past two weeks since hitting new highs. Over that period they bounced off their aforementioned 50-day moving average. The composition of stocks that comprise the leaders has rotated from the first early batch, and has broadened to include more.

From a longer term perspective, the S&P Small- and Mid- Cap indexes are at or near all-time highs. That’s right – all-time highs. These indexes contain stocks with small and middle size capitalization, which is found by multiplying the stock’s price by the number of shares outstanding. They are subsets of the more popular indexes. If you paid attention to stocks only in the S&P 500, Dow Industrials, and Nasdaq, you would have missed some of the biggest moves. The Nasdaq is still more then 60% off it’s all-time high after a hugh climax-run in 2000, the S&P 500 is about 32%, and the Dow less then 20%.