The Gulf Spill and Compensation for Disaster Victims | Jeffrey A. Miron | Cato Institute: Commentary

The Gulf Spill and Compensation for Disaster Victims | Jeffrey A. Miron | Cato Institute: Commentary: "In many instances, the threat of disaster is widely understood, so property values in these areas are lower by the amount of expected damages. Crop land in flood plains, for example, is cheaper than similar land elsewhere, as is beachfront property at risk from offshore drilling. So property owners in at-risk areas get a financial bonus — cheap land — in years when disasters do not occur."

"compensation can reduce private incentives to avoid disaster. While no part of the country is entirely immune from these risks, some places — flood plains, and coastal areas, in particular — are far riskier than others. If property owners expect an outside party to mitigate their losses, they will live or locate their businesses too often in these areas."

"Other oil companies are watching BP's stock price plummet, which should make them more cautious about their own operations, and regulations are difficult to enforce (again, as the current situation illustrates)."

Financial Reform Bill Won't Stop Next Crisis | Mark A. Calabria | Cato Institute: Commentary

Financial Reform Bill Won't Stop Next Crisis | Mark A. Calabria | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Perhaps it should come as no surprise that Sen. Christopher Dodd and Rep. Barney Frank, the bill's primary authors, would fail to end the numerous government distortions of our financial and mortgage markets that led to the crisis. Both have been either architects or supporters of those distortions. One might as well ask the fox to build the henhouse.

Nowhere in the final bill will you see even a pretense of rolling back the endless federal incentives and mandates to extend credit, particularly mortgages, to those who cannot afford to pay their loans back. After all, the popular narrative insists that Wall Street fat cats must be to blame for the credit crisis. Despite the recognition that mortgages were offered to unqualified individuals and families, banks will still be required under the Dodd-Frank bill to meet government-imposed lending quotas."

U.S. Senator Russ Feingold: Ending the Cozy Relationship with Big Oil

U.S. Senator Russ Feingold: Ending the Cozy Relationship with Big Oil: "One of the first things Congress should do is eliminate the liability cap for economic damage caused by oil spills. With businesses in the Gulf facing lost revenues from tourism and fishing, it is painfully clear that this liability cap is far too low. The existing $75 million liability cap is less than one day's worth of profits for BP. I support legislation to eliminate the liability cap."

The cap should be increased but not retroactively.

A New Approach to Organ Donation | Raymond Raad | Cato Institute: Commentary

A New Approach to Organ Donation | Raymond Raad | Cato Institute: Commentary: "There are now more than 83,000 people in the U.S. on the waiting list for a kidney. Yet with less than 17,000 transplants done each year, more than 40 percent will die waiting. As bad, transplants are most likely to succeed when they are done early. So as the waiting time increases (now about 5 years), even those lucky enough to get a new kidney do not benefit as much as possible."

"Economics Nobel Laureate Gary Becker and Julio Elias estimated that paying donors $15,000 might erase the shortage. Transplant surgeon Arthur Matas and health policy professor Mark Schnitzler estimate that since dialysis is expensive, paying organ donors would end up saving the government $275,000 per transplant.

Three primary criticisms bedevil the compensation strategy: One, the prospect of payment can be so tempting that it blinds donors to the risks involved; second, it may lead only poor people to donate; third, it may turn altruistic donors away.

But since the practice of compensating for organ donation has been illegal since 1984, the hard data do not exist to figure out which side is right."

"About 15 percent of participants were unwilling to donate for free but willing if offered money. This percentage was the same for poorer and wealthier individuals. Poorer people were more likely to donate when offered money, but they were also more likely to donate without any compensation.

The authors also found that the prospect of payment did not dull people to the risks. Those who faced higher risks if they donated were far less likely to donate than those with lower risks, even if offered $100,000 for a kidney.

Lastly, the prospect of compensation did not alter the likelihood of altruistic donation. The same percentage of people was willing to donate for free when asked before and after the offer of payment.

The study showed that people who are offered compensation for kidney donation are able to think rationally and weigh the pros and cons before making a decision."

Bashing BP — When We Should Be Bashing the Corporatist State - Matthew J. Novak - Mises Daily

Bashing BP — When We Should Be Bashing the Corporatist State - Matthew J. Novak - Mises Daily: "the government specifically passed laws that gave the oil companies incentives to drill far offshore — that is, in deeper water where risk is presumably higher. In addition to the higher risk of accidents, the cost of solving any problems are necessarily greater in five thousand feet of water than in, say, 250 feet of water."

"The incentives encouraged drilling in water that had been previously deemed economically unattractive by those same companies.

Additionally, a liability cap of $75 million for the oil companies was put in place by law. This is an incredible use of the control of the political means to make favorable dealings for oneself in the economy."

"Congress and big oil companies colluded to reward risky behavior and lost their bet. Comically, we now see Congress — who encouraged the risks — cry "foul!" They are demanding that the previously set damage cap be raised, retroactively, to another arbitrary figure deemed more appropriate for BP's sins"

Campaign For Liberty — Suing Ourselves In Arizona

Campaign For Liberty — Suing Ourselves In Arizona: "If Arizona can't enforce a federal immigration law, does that mean Wisconsinites can now speed on federal highways, smoke crack, and brandish machine guns?

Why not? Using the logic of the U.S. Justice Department, if a Wisconsin sheriff deputy pulls me for a traffic violation and sees a back seat full of banned assault rifles, he can't ask me to show him a permit for them. That's ATF's job."

FOXNews.com - 1 in 4 American consumers are deemed risky as more credit scores sink to lows of 599 or less

FOXNews.com - 1 in 4 American consumers are deemed risky as more credit scores sink to lows of 599 or less: "Figures provided by FICO Inc. show that 25.5 percent of consumers — nearly 43.4 million people — now have a credit score of 599 or below, marking them as poor risks for lenders. It's unlikely they will be able to get credit cards, auto loans or mortgages under the tighter lending standards banks now use."

"Historically, just 15 percent of the 170 million consumers with active credit accounts, or 25.5 million people, fell below 599, according to data posted on Myfico.com."

"the number of consumers who have a top score of 800 or above has increased in recent years. At least in part, this reflects that more individuals have cut spending and paid down debt in response to the recession. Their ranks now stand at 17.9 percent, which is notably above the historical average of 13 percent, though down from 18.7 percent in April 2008 before the market meltdown."

FOXNews.com - In rapidly modernizing India, clashes with ancient marriage rules often lead to bloodshed

FOXNews.com - In rapidly modernizing India, clashes with ancient marriage rules often lead to bloodshed: "Ravinder Gehlaut and Shilpa Kadiyan were wedded in March of last year. Their families had arranged their marriage in the traditional way: each had checked out the other's caste, status and wealth. Everything had seemed fine.

But weeks later the whispers began. Village elders began dropping in on Ravinder's father's home in the village of Dharana, in Haryana state, saying the couple had violated a social taboo forbidding the marriage of people belonging to the same 'gotra,' a vague term connoting clan.

Soon, the village's 'khap panchayat,' or caste council, a powerful watchdog group of older men, declared the village had been dishonored. They gave the couple an ultimatum: get divorced, and in Shilpa's case, marry another man approved by the council.

When a mob threatened to kill them if they did not obey, they fled the village."

"In rural north India, residents of neighboring villages were traditionally seen as clanspeople, and thus siblings, which is why the caste council also demanded that Gehlaut and Kadiyan declare themselves brother and sister, even though the clans consist of tens of thousands of people and the couple couldn't possibly be called blood relatives."

"Defiance carries a high price. Couples are separated, ostracized, or even killed — more than 100 last year in Haryana state alone, according to government figures."

FOXNews.com - South Korean inquiry into bloody hidden history ends; US military escapes much blame

FOXNews.com - South Korean inquiry into bloody hidden history ends; US military escapes much blame: "The U.S.-allied South Korean military and police carried out a vast secretive slaughter of political detainees in mid-1950, to keep southern sympathizers from supporting the northerners. Up to 200,000 were killed, historians believe.

Hundreds of petitions to the commission told another story as well, of more than 200 incidents in which the U.S. military, warned about potential North Korean infiltrators in refugee groups, was said to have indiscriminately killed large numbers of innocent South Korean civilians in 1950-51.

Declassified U.S. documents uncovered over the past decade do, indeed, show commanders issuing blanket orders to shoot civilians during that period. In 2007-2009 the commission verified several such U.S. attacks, including the napalm-bombing of a cave jammed with refugees in eastern South Korea, which survivors said killed 360 people, and an air attack that killed 197 refugees gathered in a field in the far south."

"—A U.S. air attack on a refugee ship docked at the far-southern port of Yeosu on Aug. 3, 1950, in which witnesses say hundreds were killed.

—The killing of some 300 civilians on July 11-12, 1950, by U.S. bombers attacking the Iri railway station in southern South Korea, many miles from advancing North Korean troops.

—A U.S. Navy destroyer's shelling of a refugee beach encampment near the southeastern city of Pohang on Sept. 1, 1950, in which survivors say 100 to 200 people were killed. A shipboard document shows the crew reluctantly fired on the civilians at U.S. Army direction.

Such incidents fit a pattern of indiscriminate U.S. attacks on South Korean civilians evident in declassified wartime files uncovered in archival research by the AP and other journalists and historians.

In 1999 the AP confirmed the U.S. killing of refugees at the South Korean hamlet of No Gun Ri in July 1950, in which survivors estimate 400 died, mostly women and children. That report led witnesses to come forward with accounts of other large-scale U.S. killings.

The U.S. archives show clear proof of intent, including 1950 communications from the U.S. ambassador in South Korea and a top Air Force officer saying U.S. forces, to guard against infiltrators, had adopted a policy of shooting refugees approaching their lines, and a series of orders from U.S. commanders to fire on all civilians. Refugees are 'fair game,' said the 1st Cavalry Division's Maj. Gen. Hobart R. Gay.

In interviews with journalists and a Pentagon team that investigated No Gun Ri, Army and Air Force veterans also attested to indiscriminate killings. Pilots who strafed refugee columns on South Korea's roads had been told to attack "people in white," the garb of Korean peasants, because they might harbor infiltrators."