Represent constituents

How does an elected official represent constituents well?
* Makes known his views before the election and don't radically change them. After all, the election is the most widespread poll.
* Make decisions based on feedback. If most feedback is for one thing, should he always do that? Even when there is a ton of feedback, that is much less than the number of people who voted so how much weight should be given to feedback?

Transportation: From the Top Down or Bottom Up? | Randal O'Toole | Cato Institute: Commentary

Transportation: From the Top Down or Bottom Up? | Randal O'Toole | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Fifty years ago, America's transportation system was almost entirely funded from the bottom up. Airlines, railroads and most transit systems were private and funded out of fares and fees. Airports and highways were public but funded out of user fees such as ticket fees and gas taxes; highway managers knew bridges to nowhere would not generate any fees, so they had no incentive to waste money on unnecessary projects."

"No matter how well intentioned, top-down transportation planning quickly turns into a combination of social engineering and pork barrel. It is time to return to a bottom-up funding system that rewards transport agencies and companies for reducing costs and increasing mobility."

Illegal War? Congress Doesn't Care | Gene Healy | Cato Institute: Commentary

Illegal War? Congress Doesn't Care | Gene Healy | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Remember when President Obama assured us his Libyan adventure would be over in 'days, not weeks'? To employ a Clinton-era euphemism, 'That statement is no longer operative.' (Translation: I lied.)

On Friday the 60-day clock ran out, leaving Obama in clear violation of the War Powers Resolution, passed in 1973 to 'fulfill the intent of the framers of the Constitution ... [and] insure that the collective judgment of both the Congress and the President will apply to the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities.'

Instead of withdrawing U.S. forces, the president sent a letter to congressional leaders insisting — bizarrely — that drone attacks and 'suppression and destruction of air defenses' don't qualify as 'hostilities' under the resolution."

What Drives Higher Unemployment? - Patrick Barron - Mises Daily

What Drives Higher Unemployment? - Patrick Barron - Mises Daily: "Mises explains that machinery replaces men only when the market is driving the cost of labor higher. Labor costs are rising because capital investment is making labor more productive. To remain in business, the businessman must invest in capital goods to boost the productivity of labor in his industry, too. He will do that when capital is sufficiently available."

"What would all those labor lawyers, judges, advocates, investigators, insurance providers, and record-keepers do if the country scrapped all labor laws? And what would happen to all the welfare administrators and caseworkers if all men were forced to be responsible and self-reliant, because government refused to enslave their fellow citizens to provide for their upkeep?"

The Good Krugman - James E. Miller - Mises Daily

The Good Krugman - James E. Miller - Mises Daily: "the complaints about the 'decline in U.S. manufacturing' are really a somewhat-misguided acknowledgment of the global shift in production that has taken place since we entered the Information Age with the commercial introduction of the microchip in 1971 and gradually left the Machine Age behind. When we complain that 'nothing is made here anymore,' it's not so much that somebody else is making the stuff we used to make as it is the case that we (and others around the world) just don't need as much 'stuff' any more in relation to the overall size of the economy."

Sound, Fury and the Policy of Climate Change | Patrick J. Michaels | Cato Institute: Commentary

Sound, Fury and the Policy of Climate Change | Patrick J. Michaels | Cato Institute: Commentary: "If, by 2050, the U.S. reduces its per-capita emission of carbon dioxide to what it was at the end of the Civil War, and the rest of the developed world does similarly, prospective global warming would drop by a grand total of 7%, 100 years from now. This assumes that the 'sensitivity' of surface temperature to a doubling of atmospheric CO-2 is 5.4 degrees, a commonly used value that may be way too high"

Tort Reform and the GOP's Fair-weather Federalism | Randy Barnett | Cato Institute: Commentary

Tort Reform and the GOP's Fair-weather Federalism | Randy Barnett | Cato Institute: Commentary: "if Congress now can regulate tort law, which has always been at the core of state powers, then Congress, and not the states, has a general police power.

This issue concerns constitutional principle, not policy: the fundamental principle that Congress has only limited and enumerated powers, and that Congress should stay within these limits."

What Would Jesus Cut? by Shawn Ritenour

What Would Jesus Cut? by Shawn Ritenour: "a fundamental problem with Sojourners’ program is the assumption that what “we” do must be done by the state. It is a large and not logically necessary leap from “We are called to be charitable to the poor,” to “A righteous society will have an extensive welfare state.”"

"forcing taxpayers to pay for such programs, even if worthwhile, likewise does violence to the citizenry. It is a violation of the Christian ethic of property and, hence, cannot be accepted as a truly Christian approach to ministering to the poor."

Are Oil Futures Markets Being Manipulated? | Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren | Cato Institute: Commentary

Are Oil Futures Markets Being Manipulated? | Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren | Cato Institute: Commentary: "If futures prices rise even though no underlying shortage exists to justify higher future prices, the shorts (along with everyone else) will be offered a golden opportunity to buy oil in spot markets (so-called because oil can be bought 'on the spot'), put it into storage, and sell that crude forward into the futures market — at the inflated, 'manipulated' price — and realize a very real and totally risk-free profit. Because our economy is full of people who are smart enough — and motivated enough — to know a risk-free profit opportunity when they see one, any significant divergence between spot and futures price will trigger so much of this sort of thing that futures prices will fall (more futures are being sold into the market, and futures prices — like the price of everything else — is established by the supply of and demand for futures) and spot prices will rise (because of the reduced supply from oil being placed in storage) eliminating the difference between the futures and spot price."

The "Buy-Local" Canard - Tyler A. Watts - Mises Daily

The "Buy-Local" Canard - Tyler A. Watts - Mises Daily: "The cost of providing a good typically goes up with increased distance from market. But for many goods, people in more distant locations are so much more productive that — even factoring in the cost of transport — we find that trade makes sense."

"If buying local makes sense, there's no need to extol or encourage it. If it doesn't make sense, but people do it anyway in a half-baked attempt at local stimulus or in a vain effort to save the planet, the effects are not 'good for the economy,' but quite the opposite."

Getting Osama Bin Laden: The Case against Torture | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary

Getting Osama Bin Laden: The Case against Torture | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary: "the GOP torture caucus argues that Bush-era prisoner abuse enabled officials to track down bin Laden.

Assume for the moment that this is true. It still offers no compelling argument to torture.

Bin Laden was a moral monster, well deserving of his fate. But for all of his plotting, he does not appear to have achieved very much in recent years. Wrote Charles Fried, a former U.S. Solicitor General, and Gregory Fried, a philosophy professor: 'Osama bin Laden was not the ticking bomb requiring immediate defusing, so familiar now from television dramas.'"

"The U.S. prosecuted Japanese military officers for war crimes including waterboarding: how can American interrogators use the same technique today?"

"many professional interrogators argue that torture generally is ineffective. Carle complained that torture 'didn't provide useful, meaningful, trustworthy information.' The interrogator stationed in Afghanistan, who also has worked in Guantanamo Bay and Iraq, stated: 'No torture, no waterboarding, no coercion -- nothing inhumane -- is considered a useful tool in our work.'

Warned Stuart Herrington, a retired Army colonel who interrogated leading Iraqis, 'The abuse often only strengthens their resolve and makes it that much harder for an interrogator to find a way to elicit useful information.' Similarly, Alexander, now with the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations, argued that prisoners tend to 'quit talking' after being tortured.

Even if they continue talking, what they say cannot be trusted, since torture creates an incentive to appear cooperative and say whatever will stop the pain."

"though Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times, provided Abu Ahmed's nom de' guerre, Khalid apparently was not the first detainee to do so. That information also was not garnered while he was being tortured--when, in fact, Khalid lied about many details about the courier."

Biebermania and Its Lessons for Our Time - Jeffrey A. Tucker - Mises Daily

Biebermania and Its Lessons for Our Time - Jeffrey A. Tucker - Mises Daily: "In other words, Justin has won the day not by fighting against technology — as the entire recording industry has done for many decades — but rather by getting out in front of technology and pulling it along to benefit his artistic ambitions.

His career then stands as yet another case for what seems to be an immutable law of human history: people who use technology win while those who fight against technology lose — if not immediately then certainly over the long term."

Strauss-Kahn case: 4 ways French and American law differ - The "perp walk" - CSMonitor.com

Strauss-Kahn case: 4 ways French and American law differ - The "perp walk" - CSMonitor.com: "Much of the French ado over US media coverage of Strauss-Kahn has focused on the infamous “perp walk.” In the US, it is standard procedure for police to walk a suspect out in handcuffs in front of photographers, as it did with Strauss-Kahn.

In France, showing images of a suspect in handcuffs has been illegal since 2000, based on the belief that doing so undermines a person’s presumption of innocence. There are also no cameras in the courtrooms. France’s broadcasting watchdog agency, the Conseil Sup�rieur de l'Audiovisuel (CSA), warned television stations against showing footage of Strauss-Kahn in handcuffs unless he is convicted."

GM's Profits: Nothing to Gloat About | Daniel J. Ikenson | Cato Institute: Commentary

GM's Profits: Nothing to Gloat About | Daniel J. Ikenson | Cato Institute: Commentary: "But only the most gullible observers would accept GM's profits as an appropriate measure of the wisdom of the auto bailout. Those profits speak only to the fact that politicians committed over $50 billion to the task of rescuing a single company. With debts expunged, cash infused, inefficiencies severed, ownership reconstituted, sales rebates underwritten, and political obstacles steamrolled — all in the midst of a cyclical U.S. recovery and structural global expansion in auto demand — only the most incompetent operation could fail to make big profits. To that point, it's worth noting that more than half of GM's reported profit — $1.8 billion of $3.2 billion — is attributable to the one-time sales of shares in Ally Financial and Delphi, which says nothing about whether GM can make and sell automobiles profitably going forward."

"To net $50 billion, those 500 million public shares must be sold at an average price of just over $53 — a virtual impossibility anytime soon. Why? The most significant factor suppressing the stock value is the market's knowledge that the largest single holder of GM stock wants to unload about 500 million shares in the short term."

100 Years of Myths about Standard Oil - Gary Galles - Mises Daily

100 Years of Myths about Standard Oil - Gary Galles - Mises Daily: "predatory pricing costs the supposed predator far more than it costs the prey, who can further expand the cost difference by temporarily shutting down. Unless the predator is allowed to buy up a victim driven to bankruptcy, others can buy up those assets cheaply, thus allowing them to again compete with the predator and reenter effective competition. Without the ability to prevent entry once monopoly pricing is attempted, the monopoly payoff disappears. Because it requires monopoly power to finance predation, predation cannot be the source of monopoly power"

"There has never been a single clear-cut example of a monopoly created by so-called predatory pricing… claims of predatory pricing are typically made by competitors who are either unwilling or unable to cut their own prices. Thus, legal restrictions on price cutting, in the name of combating 'predation,' are inevitably protectionist and anti-consumer…"

Michigan Man Still Receives Food Stamps After Winning $2 Million Jackpot - FoxNews.com

Michigan Man Still Receives Food Stamps After Winning $2 Million Jackpot - FoxNews.com: "under federal guidelines, lottery winnings are not counted as income if a person receives a lump-sum payment."

The Pricing Politburo Slams Shampoo - S. M. Oliva - Mises Daily

The Pricing Politburo Slams Shampoo - S. M. Oliva - Mises Daily: "Notice she defined the market as being for 'value shampoo and value conditioner,' not shampoo and conditioner generally. In the modern antitrust system, prosecutors strive with all their might to define 'relevant markets' as narrowly as possible. Antitrust is ultimately a game of numbers. As a percentage of the overall shampoo and conditioner market, Suave and V05 are relatively insignificant players. But if you define the market as only including those two brands and maybe one other, suddenly you have a budding 'monopolist' on your hands!"

The Great Train Con | Randal O'Toole | Cato Institute: Commentary

The Great Train Con | Randal O'Toole | Cato Institute: Commentary: "But Michigan's own grant application says the $196.5 million will only increase average speeds from 60 to 64 mph — with the top speed remaining unchanged at 79 mph. That is, travelers will save a mere 12 minutes — not 30."

That costs $34 per minute saved ($2,045 per hour saved) per person per trip. Is each person's time worth that much?

"Last year, Amtrak lost $19 million running three round trips a day between Chicago and Detroit. Amtrak fares start at $31 and the subsidy per ride is almost $40. Increasing the number of trains to 20 per day could cost taxpayers as much as $100 million a year on top of the capital costs.

By comparison — with virtually no subsidies — Megabus carries people between Chicago and Detroit at fares of $15 to $18. While Amtrak takes 6-1/2 hours, Megabus takes just 5-2/3 hours, mainly because it stops only in Ann Arbor, while Amtrak trains stop 8-9 times.

The best way to save people time is to simply end Amtrak subsidies, which unfairly compete with buses, airlines, and other relatively unsubsidized forms of transportation. Megabus or some other bus company would no doubt step in and provide non-stop service from Chicago and Detroit to Lansing, Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, and other Michigan cities. That would serve those 1,315 Amtrak passengers, saving them time and the taxpayers money."

Macro Confusion: Inflation, Commodities, and the Fed - Kel Kelly - Mises Daily

Macro Confusion: Inflation, Commodities, and the Fed - Kel Kelly - Mises Daily: "For Federal Reserve officials to claim that the large amount of new money they have created in the last few years is not contributing to pushing up the price of commodities markets, and to (implicitly) assume that all of that money has instead flowed everywhere else in the economy except to commodities markets is indefensible."

"While lower interest rates indeed cause businesses to borrow and invest more, what is usually being borrowed, invested, and spent is new money, not previously existing money. Interest rates are lowered by increasing the money supply. It is this new and additional money that causes increased corporate revenues and profits, GDP, and asset prices. It is the new and additional money that is the sole cause of rising prices of any kind, anywhere (given that most other prices are rising simultaneously)."

"The value of the dollar (of each dollar existing) falls because more dollars are created."

"Thus, they are simultaneously saying that their policies are not driving commodities prices higher, but that if they undo their policies, commodities prices will fall. The fact is that it is their money pumping that is driving both GDP growth and commodities prices — but not the real economy."

"Suppose that today it costs a 40-year-old $45,000 a year to live. With inflation of 3 percent per year, it will cost her over $94,000 a year to live when she retires at age 65. Thus, she must save heavily in order to have an amount of savings large enough to live off each year, and still have it grow for future years of retirement (say, into her 90s, given current life expectancies) at a rate faster than she is drawing down on it. A very high growth rate is needed, especially considering that she will be taxed on all her gains.


But consider an alternative scenario in which no money was printed, and that the rate of production increased at 3 percent per year. In this case, upon retirement, the living that used to cost the woman $45,000 would now cost just over $21,000. And by age 95, it would cost less than $8,500 per year — in real terms, and with nothing taxed! In that case, not only would workers not have to race against the inflation clock before and during retirement, but whatever savings they had would buy more each year.

So indeed, in today's world, because of the government's printing of money, even if wages keep up with inflation, people have to save more and consume less than they would otherwise, and once wages aren't earned anymore, most people usually begin falling behind immediately. Clearly, society would be in better shape with greater savings, a stronger economy, and with prices falling in both nominal and real terms on a monthly basis, as would be the case absent money creation and rising prices."

The Road to Taxi Serfdom - Robert P. Murphy - Mises Daily

The Road to Taxi Serfdom - Robert P. Murphy - Mises Daily: "Even though parking is a pain (and expensive), the reason so many people choose to drive their own cars into Manhattan is that it is currently very expensive to take a cab over long stretches. But if it weren't for the artificial government restrictions, the supply of taxi services would be much larger, and cab fares would be a fraction of their current rates."

Debt-Ceiling Myths | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary

Debt-Ceiling Myths | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary: "refusing to raise the debt limit does not mean defaulting on our debts. The U.S. Treasury currently takes in more than enough revenue to pay both the interest and the principal on the debts we currently owe."

"It is true that, once we had paid our debt-service bills, there wouldn't be enough money left over to pay for everything else the Obama administration wants to spend money on. The government would have to prioritize its expenditures — sending out checks for the troops' pay and Social Security first. Other spending would have to wait."

Mexican Trucks Spat Costly to Economy | Daniel Griswold | Cato Institute: Commentary

Mexican Trucks Spat Costly to Economy | Daniel Griswold | Cato Institute: Commentary: "the Mexican trucking issue has never been about safety. The proposed pilot program would require Mexican trucks entering the United States to meet all federal regulations on driver qualifications, truck safety, emissions, fuel taxes, immigration and insurance."

"What the Teamsters and their congressional allies really object to is that these trucks will be driven by Mexicans."

Arthurdale as a Board Game for FDR's Players - Joseph Calandro Jr. - Mises Daily

Arthurdale as a Board Game for FDR's Players - Joseph Calandro Jr. - Mises Daily: "with very few exceptions, people always have good intentions. It is results that matter."

"It takes an outsized ego to look upon your fellow citizens and play with them as if they were lab rats. Arthurdale represented a completely new view of the purpose of government in America. No longer would the political elite merely protect the sanctity of liberty by upholding the rule of law; a new purpose had arisen — to improve their fellow citizens."

"in the year 2006, the mayor of the town of Tal Afar, Iraq, chastised the government that invaded his country — the government of FDR's heirs — by stating, 'What you are doing is an experiment, and it isn't right to experiment on people.'"

More Spending, Less Security | Benjamin H. Friedman | Cato Institute: Commentary

More Spending, Less Security | Benjamin H. Friedman | Cato Institute: Commentary: "A more modest defense strategy would increase security and cut debt. If we let rich allies defend themselves and admitted that we lack the ability to fix disorderly states, we could have a smaller, more elite, less strained, and far less expensive military. With fewer missions, we could cut force structure, slash administration and lower operational costs."

"The biggest savings should come from the ground forces. To occupy Iraq and Afghanistan, we added almost 100,000 service-members to the Army and Marine Corps."

"Counterterrorism, as last week's events remind us, does not require occupational warfare. With raids and drones we can deny terrorists safe havens without trying to build states from chaos."

"If we avoid repeating that mistake after the wars end, the ground forces will have far less to do. Their ranks could shrink by at least a third, saving upward of $30 billion annually. By embracing our geopolitical fortune, rather than going out looking for trouble, we can protect ourselves at far lower cost."

National Unity Is Highly Overrated by Ambitious Politicos | Gene Healy | Cato Institute: Commentary

National Unity Is Highly Overrated by Ambitious Politicos | Gene Healy | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Rare indeed is the call for 'national unity' that doesn't reduce to 'Let's all come together — on my terms.'"

"Obama is right that Red Team/Blue Team politicking shouldn't govern our response to our looming fiscal catastrophe. But it's a little rich to hear that from a guy who just got done denouncing House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's plan to control Medicaid costs as an un-American scheme to put seniors on Alpo rations."

When Capital Is Nowhere in View - Jeffrey A. Tucker - Mises Daily

When Capital Is Nowhere in View - Jeffrey A. Tucker - Mises Daily: "One gets the sense that most [Haitian] people never have any face time with a government official and never deal with paperwork or bureaucracy really. The state strikes only when there is something to loot. And loot it does: predictably and consistently. And that alone is enough to guarantee a permanent state of poverty.

Now, to be sure, there are plenty of Americans who are firmly convinced that we would all be better off if we grew our own food, bought only locally, kept firms small, eschewed modern conveniences like home appliances, went back to using only natural products, expropriated wealthy savers, harassed the capitalistic class until it felt itself unwelcome and vanished. This paradise has a name, and it is Haiti."

Domestic Military Detention Isn't Necessary | David Rittgers | Cato Institute: Commentary

Domestic Military Detention Isn't Necessary | David Rittgers | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Proponents of using military detention for domestic 'combatants' claim that it is weakness to treat terrorists the same as petty thieves and armed robbers.

That's great rhetoric, but the law of war is the law of necessity, meant to be applied when civil authorities are overwhelmed. If the civil rule of law handles terrorist threats adequately, then invoking military jurisdiction is a counterproductive overreaction."

Yes, Cut Medicaid — It Won't Be as Painful as You Think | Michael F. Cannon | Cato Institute: Commentary

Yes, Cut Medicaid — It Won't Be as Painful as You Think | Michael F. Cannon | Cato Institute: Commentary: "In 1996, Congress eliminated Medicaid eligibility for many non-citizen immigrants.Coverage among non-citizen immigrants actually increased — the opposite of what one might expect — because non-citizen immigrants responded to the cuts by obtaining jobs with health benefits.

In 2005, Missouri cut 100,000 people from its Medicaid rolls. The number of adults with health insurance fell, but by a smaller amount than the number cut from the Medicaid rolls, because private insurance filled part of the gap. With children, the news was even better. Missouri cut loose one fifth of all low-income children enrolled in Medicaid, yet the coverage rate among low-income children did not change. Private insurance filled the entire gap."

State or Private-Law Society - Hans-Hermann Hoppe - Mises Daily

State or Private-Law Society - Hans-Hermann Hoppe - Mises Daily: "If an agency is the ultimate judge in every case of conflict, then it is also judge in all conflicts involving itself. Consequently, instead of merely preventing and resolving conflict, a monopolist of ultimate decision making will also cause and provoke conflict in order to settle it to his own advantage. That is, if one can only appeal to the state for justice, justice will be perverted in the favor of the state, constitutions and supreme courts notwithstanding.

These constitutions and courts are state constitutions and courts, and whatever limitations on state action they may set or find are invariably decided by agents of the very same institution under consideration. Predictably, the definition of property and protection will be continually altered and the range of jurisdiction expanded to the state's advantage."

Why the Terrible Destruction of the Civil War? - Jeff Riggenbach - Mises Daily

Why the Terrible Destruction of the Civil War? - Jeff Riggenbach - Mises Daily: "the war's direct costs amounted to $6.7 billion. If upon Lincoln's inauguration, the government had purchased the freedom of four million slaves and granted a forty-acre farm to each slave family, the total cost would have been $3.1 billion, leaving $3.6 billion for reparations to make up for a century of lost wages. And not a single life would have been lost."

GOP Shouldn't Be Afraid to Challenge Reckless Spending | Tad DeHaven | Cato Institute: Commentary

GOP Shouldn't Be Afraid to Challenge Reckless Spending | Tad DeHaven | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Instead of using the growing debt as an excuse, Republicans should package their reforms as worth undertaking even if the government had a surplus. If the GOP fails to articulate a positive message about the benefits of spending cuts and keeps leaning into the Democrats' strong hand, it could find itself on its back staring up at the lights."

Kids Prefer Cheese: Fair Trade Revealed As Feel-Good Hoax

Kids Prefer Cheese: Fair Trade Revealed As Feel-Good Hoax: "The result is that, after a fairly short period, three years at most, the 'fair trade' farmers are getting no more, and maybe less, than everyone else, and no more than they got before the 'fair trade' scam was started. The scam artists, it's true, are skimming the profits"

"the certification process is so corrupt many don't even bother, and just mislabel the coffee as 'fair trade' from the get-go"

A Strategic Defeat for Educational Freedom | Adam B. Schaeffer | Cato Institute: Commentary

A Strategic Defeat for Educational Freedom | Adam B. Schaeffer | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Private voucher schools will not only be forced to make this fabrication available to students, they are also prohibited from lowering a student's grade, if he should, for example, cite the letter as a primary source in the course of his school work.

Unfortunately, this is just the peak of the regulatory mountain being dropped on participating private schools. The legislation will greatly expand state regulation of and authority over participating private schools."

Auction Off the State - Robert P. Murphy - Mises Daily

Auction Off the State - Robert P. Murphy - Mises Daily: "if people say that $750 billion in spending cuts (between now and September 30) is simply 'impossible,' then we still don't have to either borrow more or raise taxes. We have another option: namely, the federal government could auction off some of its holdings and fill the gap that way."

"the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (as of late November) had almost 727 million barrels of crude oil. At current market prices, this inventory is worth more than $80 billion."

"the federal government owned 14,000 buildings and structures that were 'excess' and 55,000 that were 'under- or not-utilized."'

We Don't Need a Tax Increase | Richard W. Rahn | Cato Institute: Commentary

We Don't Need a Tax Increase | Richard W. Rahn | Cato Institute: Commentary: "In the 40 years prior to the 2007-09 Great Recession, tax revenues as percentage of gross domestic product were remarkably constant, never varying more than 2.3 percent above or below 18.3 percent of GDP. This fact is all the more remarkable given that the maximum individual income tax rate during this period varied from a low of 28 percent to a high of 70 percent."

"the current tax regime, in normal times (with normal economic growth rates — approximately 3 percent), will produce enough tax revenue to cover the historical rate of spending with only a small and manageable deficit. The current long-term deficit and GDP-to-debt problem was caused by a big jump in federal 'stimulus' spending over the past three years — not the Bush tax cuts."

"Saying a bigger government is a necessary evil because of the rising cost of 'entitlements' misses the point that under present law and practice, the costs of the entitlements never stop rising as a percentage of GDP until they consume the whole pie, which obviously will not happen."

The Practical Idealist - Gary Gibson - Mises Daily

The Practical Idealist - Gary Gibson - Mises Daily: "Union power, gained by legislation, even without physical violence, is still violence. The laborer gains legal force over the employer. Economically, in the long run, labor loses. …
If only it were so easy to help the working class. Just dictate wages and everyone will be financially better off. Unfortunately, this leads to disastrous results, whether it's the prolonging of the economic mess as it did in the 1930s or the tragic results in American industry that we're witnessing today.
What good is it to mandate a $75 per hour wage if there are no jobs available at that price? What good is a minimum wage of $7.50 if it significantly contributes to overall unemployment?

The reaction to the economic argument explaining the shortcoming of labor unions and minimum wage laws is that it's heartless and unfair not to force 'fairness' on the ruthless capitalists. But true compassion should be directed toward the defense of a free market that has provided the greatest abundance and the best distribution of wealth of any economic system known throughout history."

With bin Laden's Death, America Must Recalibrate Its Policies | Malou Innocent | Cato Institute: Commentary

With bin Laden's Death, America Must Recalibrate Its Policies | Malou Innocent | Cato Institute: Commentary: "even in the unlikely event that America and its allies did forge a stable Afghanistan, the fewer than 100 al Qaeda fighters currently believed to be in that country could simply relocate to other regions of the world. Moreover, as far as we know, the al Qaeda movement has cells not only in Pakistan, but also in Yemen, Somalia, and North Africa, and, at one point, Germany, Spain, and even Florida."

"Socially Conscious" Literature - Ludwig von Mises - Mises Daily

"Socially Conscious" Literature - Ludwig von Mises - Mises Daily: "They fail to realize that the shocking circumstances they describe are the outcome of the absence of capitalism, the remnants of the precapitalistic past, or the effects of policies sabotaging the operation of capitalism. They do not comprehend that capitalism, in engendering big-scale production for mass consumption, is essentially a system of wiping out penury as much as possible. They describe the wage earner only in his capacity as a factory hand and never give a thought to the fact that he is also the main consumer either of the manufactured goods themselves or of the foodstuffs and raw materials exchanged against them."

The Wisconsin Congressional Delegation’s Unwritten Rule: Protect the Fiefdom | RedState

The Wisconsin Congressional Delegation’s Unwritten Rule: Protect the Fiefdom | RedState: "protecting yourself and letting good candidates founder so that you can avoid taking any heat in your own district?� So that you can reinforce the safety of your own sorry seat? …That’s cowardly, self-interested, unprincipled sleaze."

Keynes and the Pyramids - Paul A. Cantor - Mises Daily

Keynes and the Pyramids - Paul A. Cantor - Mises Daily: "[Keynes] prefers to turn matters over to the government and let it produce things that nobody wants — and at as extravagant a cost as possible. Keynes's preference for pyramids over railways is emblematic of statist thinking in general — he values the static over the dynamic; he champions monuments to state power over enterprises that might actually get ordinary people where they want to go."

V-OBL Day | David Rittgers | Cato Institute: Commentary

V-OBL Day | David Rittgers | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Bin Laden's death underscores the failure of al Qaeda to achieve its impossible goal: establishing a global caliphate living under his nihilistic worldview. As soon as al Qaeda establishes a return address for American special operations personnel to raid or bomb, they will be pummeled into irrelevance. Al Qaeda itself does not present an existential threat — but they can provoke us into sacrificing our blood, treasure and liberties to the point that we no longer recognize the society we set out to defend."

Six Fundamental Errors of the Current Orthodoxy - Robert Higgs - Mises Daily

Six Fundamental Errors of the Current Orthodoxy - Robert Higgs - Mises Daily: "In his view, one cannot have, say, too many houses and apartments. Increasing the spending for houses and apartments is, he thinks, always good whenever the economy has unemployed resources, regardless of how many houses and apartments now stand vacant and regardless of what specific kinds of resources are unemployed and where they are located in this vast land. Although the unemployed laborers may be skilled silver miners in Idaho, it is supposedly still a good thing if somehow the demand for condos is increased in Palm Beach, because for the vulgar Keynesian there are no individual classes of laborers or separate labor markets: labor is labor is labor. If someone — whatever his skills, preferences, or location — is unemployed, then in this framework of thought we may expect to put him back to work by increasing aggregate demand sufficiently, regardless of what we happen to spend the money for, whether it be cosmetics or computers."

"The workers seemingly produce without the aid of capital! If pressed, the vulgar Keynesian admits that the workers use capital, but he insists that the capital stock may be taken as 'given' and fixed in the short run."

"He fails to comprehend that it is a crucial relative price — namely, the price of goods available now relative to goods available in the future. Remember, he does not think in terms of relative prices at all, so it is entirely natural that he fails to recognize how the rate of interest affects the choice between current consumption and saving — that is, acting so as to make possible more future consumption by not consuming current income. In a free market, a reduction in the rate of interest reflects a desire to shift more consumption from the present to the future."

Global Warming Flatliners | Patrick J. Michaels | Cato Institute: Commentary

Global Warming Flatliners | Patrick J. Michaels | Cato Institute: Commentary: "We don't shell out multimillion-dollar grants to people who say something isn't a problem. Recipients of this largess peer-review each other's papers. There's a lot of incentive to give a bad review to a manuscript downplaying the issue and to give a great one to the paper describing an upcoming apocalypse."

WSJ-NBC Poll: Making the False Case for Tax Increases | William Poole | Cato Institute: Commentary

WSJ-NBC Poll: Making the False Case for Tax Increases | William Poole | Cato Institute: Commentary: "The problem is that respondents were not forced to select some way to solve the problem."

"Perhaps the question might be, 'Should tax rates on upper-income families be increased even though doing so might lead small businesses to hire fewer workers?' We can ask economists to study the effects on employment of upper-bracket increases, but without the second part of the question, most respondents who are not in the upper brackets will, of course, favor taxing someone else if there is no cost to them."

"here is another poll question: 'Should retirees accept modest reductions in their current benefits or should the entire burden of these benefits be borne by their children and grandchildren in the form of higher taxes?'"

"Polls like the Wall Street Journal-NBC poll are meant to illuminate public attitudes toward many topics. When it comes to budgetary issues, questions should always include options that address the budget problem. There is no free lunch.

Is it too much to ask that poll designers understand that 'both' is not an admissible answer?"

Budget-cutting Like It's 1995 | Tad DeHaven | Cato Institute: Commentary

Budget-cutting Like It's 1995 | Tad DeHaven | Cato Institute: Commentary: "The agencies and programs that the Boehner Republicans were able to trim bear a striking resemblance to the trims that the Gingrich Republicans achieved in 1995. Here are 10 of the dozens of programs that got cut in both 1995 and 2011: Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, Youthbuild, Community Service Employment for Older Americans, Appalachian Regional Commission, Fund for African Development, Housing Counseling Assistance, Foreign Agricultural Service, Fossil Energy Research & Development."

FCC chief to Congress: Leave Net neutrality alone | Privacy Inc. - CNET News

FCC chief to Congress: Leave Net neutrality alone | Privacy Inc. - CNET News: "Undoing the agency's Net neutrality rules will 'increase uncertainty, decrease investment, and hurt job creation,' FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski will say, according to a draft of his prepared remarks."

It might hurt job creation for the FCC. They would need more regulators to monitor the rules. Other than that, I can't see how any of his claims are correct.

Voodoo Economics? How about Voodoo Climate Science? | Patrick J. Michaels | Cato Institute: Commentary

Voodoo Economics? How about Voodoo Climate Science? | Patrick J. Michaels | Cato Institute: Commentary: "When will our greener friends at the UN learn that it's just not a good idea to make definite predictions about certain disasters?

This time they have been called out on their 2005 prediction that by now there would be 50 million 'climate refugees' — people choosing to emigrate because of bad weather. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) even came up with a global map showing precisely where people would migrate from."

"But the UN named a specific year (2010) which allows for an actual test of their prediction.

Census takers around the world have inadvertently adjudicated the UN's forecast. It was dead wrong. Pretty much every recent census reveals that populations are growing rapidly precisely where everyone was supposed to be migrating from."

"global hurricane activity has recently sunk to its all time measured low, despite the UN's strident statements about more frequent and terrible storms"

"In 2007, the UN famously stated that, if warming continued at present rates (whatever that means — there hasn't been any since the mid-late 1990s), the massive Himalayan glaciers would disappear 23 years from now."

"Dr. Murari Lal, who authored the statement, eventually admitted that it was in the UN climate report to spur the governments of India and China into reducing their carbon dioxide emissions, and that it was not based on anything in the peer-reviewed scientific literature."

"what is odd about the UN is that its gaffes are all in one direction. All are exaggeration of the effects of climate change. In each case, the IPCC was relying upon scientific literature that was not peer-reviewed in the traditional sense. No one has found analogous errors in the other direction (which would be an underestimation of climate change based upon the "grey" literature), and you can bet that people have been looking very hard in an effort to exonerate the UN."

This just shows that the UN is a political organization (not a scientific organization) and its statements aren't scientific but political.

To Work, Ryan's Reforms Need Process Constraints | Jagadeesh Gokhale | Cato Institute: Commentary

To Work, Ryan's Reforms Need Process Constraints | Jagadeesh Gokhale | Cato Institute: Commentary: "The Ryan or other similar budget proposals won't be sustained for long without constraints on the budget process to stabilize fiscal policy, and which provide the best environment for rapid economic growth. Historical precedent shows that reforms stick when they are combined with changes in infrastructure — even in just administrative mechanisms. Base closings and welfare reforms of the 1990s stuck because the former involved removal of infrastructure, and the latter changes in administrative mechanisms at the state level; both costly to reverse.

In contrast, reforms such as the TRA-1986 and the BEA-1990 involved legal constraints which were easily modified or reversed. TRA-1986 suffered death by a thousand cuts, and BEA-1990's constraints were simply not renewed. The other, more difficult, way is to combine reform measures with a procedural impediment to reversal by future Congresses. One example is the Senate's Byrd Rule which prevents budget legislation from including changes to Social Security through a simple point of order raised by a single senator, and cannot be overturned without a supermajority in the Senate."

The Moral Issues of Money - Gabriel M. Mueller - Mises Daily

The Moral Issues of Money - Gabriel M. Mueller - Mises Daily: "This is what James is warning against. 'Your gold and silver are corroded,' he writes. James's logic is this: Corrosion of gold and silver is the result of impurities, impurities are the evidence of debasement, and debasement is the practice of fraud and stealing. Therefore, James says, do not debase your money in order to pay your workers or to purchase their goods, because to do so is to commit fraud and theft against them.

Today, we don't have to worry about rich people — that is, our employers — debasing our gold and silver, because we're not paid in gold and silver anymore. No, we face a much greater concern — the government controls our money. In fact, the government controls our money in the same way our dishonest king did: it creates money out of thin air and it debases our money every time it does so."

"Why are we not talking about the ethics — the right or the wrong — of money production in America? If James condemned the business owner that debased the wages of workers, why are we not condemning a government that exploits the money of its citizens? And which violation is greater? At least the cheated worker can move onto a new employer to preserve his/her wealth and dignity. How is the citizen ever able to escape the injustice of his or her government?"

Happy Mother Earth Day, Citizen! - Ben O'Neill - Mises Daily

Happy Mother Earth Day, Citizen! - Ben O'Neill - Mises Daily: "The proposed UN treaty will recognize the Earth as a living entity that humans have sought to 'dominate and exploit.'"

If humans have sought to dominate and exploit the earth, then all organisms have also done that. What about how organisms on earth have tried to dominate and exploit the light from the sun?

"Since rights are a moral concept, it follows that they can only pertain to things that have some interests and will of their own. In particular, it is clear that moral obligations can only accrue to beings in need of moral guidance and are capable of sufficiently high levels of abstraction to understand and apply moral principles. Such beings must be conscious and must also be capable of sufficiently high levels of abstraction to understand moral principles and obey them — in short, they must be rational, conscious beings. If they are not, then they lack the means to understand and apply moral principles, and it is senseless to ascribe such principles to them."

"There can be no rights without corresponding moral obligations"

"In fact, it is highly dubious even to classify the Earth as a living thing. It is an entity composed mostly of nonliving material, and covered, relatively sparsely, with living plant and animal life."

"The Earth-rights doctrine has no basis in reason. It is pure mysticism, resting, as it does, on the attempt to ascribe interests and moral prerogatives to a nonconscious entity. Nor is the actual purpose of this doctrine the protection of the environment. Its real purpose is the acquisition of power, not for nature, but for people — or rather, for certain people."

"Since all physical resources required for human survival come from the Earth, and are a part of this 'living system,' this implies that humans cannot do anything — they cannot even exist on Earth — without the permission of the Earth. And if governments are the representatives of the Earth in exercising its rights, then this logically implies that people cannot do anything without the permission of their government."


"The fact remains that the principle of Earth rights leads logically to the conclusion that these rights must expand, and expand, to the point that they eradicate human rights."

"Some would probably argue that the state-representation doctrine is just a practical means of allowing for the Earth to exercise its rights." "Once we are through the looking glass, I suppose it is just as 'practical' to say that Morales is the representative for talking walruses as to say that I am. Nevertheless, the point remains that any such representation is a fantasy"

"This theory (which is itself hopelessly flawed) holds that the state is the representative of 'the people' by virtue of their ability to vote in its elections, and from their choice not to leave its jurisdiction. Clearly both of these are impossible for the Earth, and for the plants that live upon it."

"The notion that governments should 'represent' the will and interests of a giant ball of minerals with no mind or desires is the outcome of environmentalist philosophy in action. It is as absurd as a ficus tree running for Congress, or a barrister attempting to take instructions from a blade of grass."

Are Speculators Gouging Us at the Pump? | Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren | Cato Institute: Commentary

Are Speculators Gouging Us at the Pump? | Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren | Cato Institute: Commentary: "If this is going on we would expect to see some sort of inventory buildup. While crude inventories in the U.S. are increasing, they always increase at this time of year, and this year's increase is well within the normal range. More important, gasoline inventories are decreasing and decreasing much more rapidly than normal. Hence, there's no evidence that speculators are reducing the supply of crude or gasoline through increased storage."

"The loss of Libyan crude — about 2% of global supply — has reduced the amount of oil available in the market and gasoline prices track global crude oil prices.

Prices must necessarily rise to reduce global oil consumption because we can't consume what isn't there. How much do prices need to rise to reduce oil consumption by 2%? It takes a big increase in gasoline prices to get us to drive even a little less. Economists estimate that prices must rise anywhere from 10 to 20 times the percentage reduction in quantity to reduce demand enough to equal the lower supply. Thus for a 2% supply reduction, prices must rise between 20% and 40%. Average gasoline prices have risen 20% since early February, on the low end of what economists predict."

Madison Protest: Unions Are Angry - But Wisconsin Should Go Even Further | Chris Edwards | Cato Institute: Commentary

Madison Protest: Unions Are Angry - But Wisconsin Should Go Even Further | Chris Edwards | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Unions certainly have free speech rights to voice their opinions about public policy. But collective bargaining gives unions the exclusive right to speak for covered workers, many of whom may disagree with the views of the monopoly union. Thus, collective bargaining is inconsistent with the right to freedom of association."