FTC to Regulate Blogging | Fox News

FTC to Regulate Blogging | Fox News: "requiring writers on the Web to clearly disclose any freebies or payments they get from companies for reviewing their products"

"fines up to $11,000 per violation"

That seems really steep!

"The commission stopped short of specifying how bloggers must disclose conflicts of interest."

You better hope you meet there unknown guidelines!

"the FTC will more likely go after an advertiser instead of a blogger for violations"

That could easily change in the future plus it encourages breaking the rules. They should instead only put the fine on the advertiser.

'Reform' Is Just a Word at the U.N., Its Own Investigation Shows | Fox News

'Reform' Is Just a Word at the U.N., Its Own Investigation Shows | Fox News: "After four months spent studying a much-touted “Integrated Global Management Initiative,” intended to improve the performance of the sprawling U.N. conference bureaucracy, the OIOS inspectors declared that they had discovered “no progress or change” in how the organization was able to allocate money and staff around the world.

Nor could the investigators discover any cost savings as a result of the global reform effort. In fact, the report says, “no attempt has been made to track any savings or efficiency gains.” "

"The investigators added that in some cases, records that could be used to compare the delivery of conference services had been “compromised” through “retrospective adjustment.” "


“an inordinate amount of time has been spent on discussions about the relative merits of off-the-shelf hardware versus customization and in-house versus external information technology expertise, resulting in a diversion of efforts to deal with the underlying substance of workflow practices.”

"Neither the U.N. Secretary General nor his top managers, the report notes, have removed some fundamental obstacles to change"

The broadband adoption dilemma | Signal Strength - CNET News

The broadband adoption dilemma | Signal Strength - CNET News: "Roughly 96 percent of American households have access to broadband service from at least one service provider"

"But of those people, about 33 percent do not subscribe to broadband."

"after AT&T merged with BellSouth, the company introduced a $10-a-month broadband service to entice people to subscribe to broadband. While many customers signed up for this offer, there was still a significant number of people who didn't. In fact, some consumers continued to subscribe to dial-up service, even though that service was much slower and twice as expensive as broadband."

Labor Standards or Liberty? - Art Carden - Mises Daily

Labor Standards or Liberty? - Art Carden - Mises Daily: "Sweatshop opponents criticize the use of child labor in developing countries and argue that these children should be in school rather than the labor market. At current income levels, this simply is not feasible for many people. In subsistence economies, many people do not have the luxury of diverting their attention away from manual agricultural labor and toward education. The best way to fix this is not to mandate more stringent labor standards but to encourage economic growth."

"Western working conditions are not the relevant benchmark when we are talking about the quality of working conditions in the developed world. The relevant comparison is the worker's next best opportunity, which is always worse. As economist David Henderson has argued, we do a worker no favors when we remove the best of a lot of very bad possible choices."

"the increase in earnings associated with a lifetime of access to microfinance programs is roughly equal to the increase in income associated with working in the United States for eight weeks. This suggests that the appropriate policy is not to strengthen labor standards but to open borders and allow people to cross them freely."

The Health-Insurance Market Is Not Free - Anton Batey - Mises Daily

The Health-Insurance Market Is Not Free - Anton Batey - Mises Daily: "With community ratings in effect, an 18-year-old's premium is the same as 60-year-old's. Often, when a young and healthy person sees their premiums rise, he or she drops out of the insurance pool, which then leaves it more full of sick people, again increasing premiums for the remaining members. These community ratings contribute a great deal to the large number of uninsured, and are among the reasons why healthcare in New York and New Jersey is the most expensive in the country."

"Due to government policy, inflation grew both before and during WWII. As a "remedy," caps on wage increases were imposed by the government. In response, employers began to offer their employees health insurance to soften the blow and attract quality workers.

The federal government did not consider an increase in health benefits a violation of these wage controls, and in 1943 the IRS ruled that health benefits were tax exempt for workers. After the wage caps were abolished, health insurance benefits became seen as the norm and were not eliminated. For instance, by the early 1960s, General Motors was paying 100% of the healthcare bills for their employees (retirees included)."

"So, anyone who claims that the high costs of health insurance originated in the "free market" is either severely mistaken or lying."

Pennsylvania Firefighter Suspended for U.S. Flag on Locker | Fox News

Pennsylvania Firefighter Suspended for U.S. Flag on Locker | Fox News: "James Krapf of Chester, Pa., violated a department policy that states personal items can only be posted inside employee lockers when he stuck the flag on the outside. According to Myfoxphilly.com, the firefighters' union warned 11 others to remove personal items or face similar suspensions, all without pay.

The initial ban came after an incident in which some firefighters complained about a cartoon posted in the firehouse that they found racially offensive."

When people misuse a freedom, you shouldn't ban the freedom completely.

Misunderstanding Modern War | Cato Institute

Misunderstanding Modern War | Cato Institute: "Napoleon thought the message of French democracy would be welcomed. When France began to send its armies abroad following the revolution, its leaders thought they would be greeted as liberators. “It will be a crusade for liberty,” confidently proclaimed one of its leaders, Jacques-Pierre Brissot.

Not everyone was convinced. “No one loves armed missionaries,” responded Robespierre."

"Can it be that Americans convinced themselves that we could sanitise war, confine it to the “evil-doers” and thereby win almost effortlessly?

“It is well that war is so terrible – otherwise we would grow too fond of it,” Robert E Lee is reputed to have said at the Battle of Fredericksburg, during the American civil war.

Did Americans, intoxicated by successes, grow too fond of war?"

Twenty Years Later: Why the Berlin Wall Fell | Cato Institute

Twenty Years Later: Why the Berlin Wall Fell | Cato Institute: "equality is not possible between those imposing the rules and those imposed upon. Eastern Europeans found that the supposed paradise was actually a cage in which they were fed and watered, but denied basic freedoms to speak, act or move. Masses of youngsters began emigrating from the Communist paradises to the supposed hell-holes of the West."

"Communists and socialists everywhere, including in India, were dismayed. They could not understand why East Germans blessed with income equality, free social welfare and full employment should flee to the highly unequal West, which bristled with unemployment and social perils."

Washington's Plans May Result in Even Higher Executive Pay | Cato Institute

Washington's Plans May Result in Even Higher Executive Pay | Cato Institute: "In 1993, Congress decided it would use the tax code to “improve” (i.e., reduce) executive compensation in publicly traded companies." "Salary was bad. Stock options were tax favored."

"In 1992, the government thought that managers were too risk averse. Stock options were seen as the magic bullet for making managers act more aggressively in the shareholders’ interests. Today, many in Congress are blaming U.S. executives for causing the financial crisis precisely by engaging in “excessive” risk-taking. What they fail to mention is that it was Congress’s own tinkering with the tax code that led to the very compensation packages that incentivized the risk-taking."

"A provision in the 1992 tax law required that executives meet certain “objective” performance measures in order to qualify for incentive-based (tax deductible) pay. In the scramble to come up with objective metrics on which to base executive pay, cottage industry “executive compensation consultants” emerged as the most important architects of executive compensation plans."

“the use of these compensation consultants, gives both boards and CEOs the appearance of legitimacy for their decisions to award massive pay packages to lackluster CEOs, making it appear that these decisions are objective and scientific, which they absolutely are not.”


The government also has tried to regulate executive compensation by requiring greater disclosure of the details of compensation plans. Perversely, this too has contributed to an increase in executive pay.

How so? No self-respecting board of directors is willing to admit that their company’s CEO is below average. So anytime the new disclosures indicate that an executive’s pay is below average in any way, a pay increase is ordered.

The Real Pay Scandal | Cato Institute

The Real Pay Scandal | Cato Institute: "Given that Congress and top administration officials are requiring pay cuts for those in the private sector whose companies have performed poorly, should not the same standard apply to those in government who have had a major responsibility for running the economy into the ground? (Note: Presidents and members of Congress always claim credit when the economy is performing well, so isn’t it fair to blame them when the economy is in a mess?)

Could it be that one reason Congress has performed so poorly is because, for 100 years, its members’ compensation has been totally unrelated to their performance?"

"If members of Congress had maintained the relative value of their 1907 salary (the year they increased their salary to $7,500) to the growth in wages in the private sector, they would be paying themselves approximately $510,000 per year."

"So let us offer them this deal: They will automatically receive a pay raise equal to the after-tax percentage increase in personal income that the average American receives each year, provided the debt burden as a percentage of gross domestic product has not increased, in which case there would be no pay raises. We could call it “The Federal Pay Economic Growth and Fiscal Responsibility Incentive Act.”

If such a pay policy had been in place for the past 100 years, members of Congress would be paid several times more than they earn now, but chances are everyone also would be earning much more, and the country would have far fewer poor citizens and much less debt."