Focus on Innovation Instead | Julian Sanchez | Cato Institute: Commentary

Focus on Innovation Instead | Julian Sanchez | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'The government would essentially claim the right to choke off traffic and revenue to entire sites, without ever having to try or convict its owners of any crime. It should be no surprise that similar domestic authority has already led to sites being wrongfully shuttered.'

The Internet Is Not Government's to Regulate | Jim Harper | Cato Institute: Commentary

The Internet Is Not Government's to Regulate | Jim Harper | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'Imagine that Congress passed a law setting up a procedure that could require ordinary citizens like you to remove telephone numbers from your phone book or from the "contacts" list in your phone. What about a policy that cut off the phone lines to an entire building because some of its tenants used the phone to plot thefts or fraud?'

It's Up to The Private Sector to Invest in New Technology | Jerry Taylor | Cato Institute: Commentary

It's Up to The Private Sector to Invest in New Technology | Jerry Taylor | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'the most credible estimates about climate externalities put the cost at no more than $12 per ton of CO2. Internalizing that cost into fossil fuel prices would increase gasoline prices by no more than 12 cents per gallon, not enough to make EVs economically efficient or commercially competitive.'

Israel says ... Iran isn't building a nuclear weapon - CSMonitor.com

Israel says ... Iran isn't building a nuclear weapon - CSMonitor.com: 'If Israeli media reports are correct, Israel shares the US and European views of Iran: That it isn't seeking a nuclear weapon at the moment.'

So why do almost all of the GOP candidates completely disagree with this?

SOPA, Internet Regulation And the Economics of Piracy | Julian Sanchez | Cato Institute: Commentary

SOPA, Internet Regulation And the Economics of Piracy | Julian Sanchez | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'Despite the fact that the Government Accountability Office recently concluded that it is “difficult, if not impossible, to quantify the net effect of counterfeiting and piracy on the economy as a whole,” our legislative class has somehow determined that—among all the dire challenges now facing the United States—this is an urgent priority.'

'The “core copyright industries” have, unsurprisingly, shed some jobs over the past few years, but again, compared with the rest of the economy, employment seems to have held relatively stable at a time when you might expect cash-strapped consumers to be turning to piracy to save money.'

'a recent survey study by Felix Oberholzer-Gee of the Harvard Business School concluded that “data on the supply of new works are consistent with the argument that file sharing did not discourage authors and publishers” from producing more works, at least in the US market.'

'people have a roughly constant “music budget,” and what they don’t spend on the albums they’ve downloaded gets spent on seeing that new band they discovered. For the firms that specifically make their money from the sale of recordings, that may seem like cold comfort, but if we’re concerned with the music industry as a whole, it’s a wash.'

'bleeding revenue to piracy is going to be a problem to the extent that your product is a hit, in a market where the core uncertainty about this crucial fact (at the time when the decision whether to greenlight production is made) looms a lot larger than the marginal loss from illicit downloads if you are successful.'

'the job impact estimates in that study would have been largely based on legacy assumptions from a brick-and-mortar economy. (The loss estimates relied on would also, necessarily, fail to account for the recent rise of popular, legal streaming services that have likely lured many consumers back from the pirate market. There is, alas, no very good data here, but I’d wager Hulu and Netflix have done exponentially more to reduce piracy losses than enforcement crackdowns ever will.)'

'But in the real world, where enforcement has direct costs to the taxpayer, regulation has costs on the industries it burdens, and the reduction in piracy they’re likely to produce is very small, it seems important to point out that the credible evidence for the magnitude of the harm is fairly thin.'

'As a rough analogy, since anti-piracy crusaders are fond of equating filesharing with shoplifting: suppose the CEO of Wal-Mart came to Congress demanding a $50 million program to deploy FBI agents to frisk suspicious-looking teens in towns near Wal-Marts. A lawmaker might, without for one instant doubting that shoplifting is a bad thing, question whether this is really the optimal use of federal law enforcement resources. The CEO indignantly points out that shoplifting kills one million adorable towheaded orphans each year. The proof is right here in this study by the Wal-Mart Institute for Anti-Shoplifting Studies. The study sources this dramatic claim to a newspaper article, which quotes the CEO of Wal-Mart asserting (on the basis of private data you can’t see) that shoplifting kills hundreds of orphans annually. And as a footnote explains, it seemed prudent to round up to a million. I wish this were just a joke, but as readers of my previous post will recognize, that’s literally about the level of evidence we’re dealing with here.'

Column: Why U.S. should cheer for Scott Walker – USATODAY.com

Column: Why U.S. should cheer for Scott Walker – USATODAY.com: 'What's more, the reforms pushed by Walker are themselves already having a beneficial effect. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett was Walker's opponent in the 2010 election and later attacked his proposals to reform collective bargaining. But with the reforms on the books, Barrett used some of the bill's provisions to help reduce the city's health care bill, saying that the alternative was to cut 300 to 400 city jobs.'

The Tea Party Congress Comes of Age | Roger Pilon | Cato Institute: Commentary

The Tea Party Congress Comes of Age | Roger Pilon | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'for the first time in years, the 2012 budget of $3.65 trillion is essentially flat over the 2011 figure. For Washington, that’s progress, even though few programs were eliminated. But meager as it is, if it’s to blossom into serious checks on out-of-control government, it’s going to take a fundamental shift in popular conceptions about the very role of government, and that won’t happen overnight. Right now, we’re a deeply divided people. The 2008 “hope and change” election brought neither. The 2010 “correction” propelled huge numbers of tea party people into offices across the country, suggesting an ideological shift might be underway. But in Washington it changed only the House, leaving Congress divided and gridlocked. So look for even less coming out of the second session than the first, but that’s all right; there’s other work to be done.'

'Thus the lesson of the first session is that these budget battles, given the intransigence of the other side, cannot be ends in themselves: rather, they’re means, to be used in the real game, which is to change public opinion, to move Americans from an entitlement mindset to an independent one. Every budget battle, win or lose, is an opportunity to educate the public about the real game going on in Washington. But the game has to be played in public, not behind closed doors, as is Washington’s way. And members have to take the long view, every decision looking not only to November but far beyond. We won’t reverse course, much less restore limited constitutional government, in one session of Congress, or even over several Congresses. Indeed, the deeper political question is whether we’ve reached a tipping point, where so many people have become so dependent that it’s unrealistic to expect them to vote against their immediate interests. We shouldn’t believe that, or there’s no hope.'

Broken Promise of Change: The Obama Administration's Defense Strategy and Budget | Ted Galen Carpenter | Cato Institute: Commentary

Broken Promise of Change: The Obama Administration's Defense Strategy and Budget | Ted Galen Carpenter | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'An especially caustic critic is former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey, who ridiculed pervasive media reports that President Obama was cutting almost half a trillion dollars from the defense budget. Obama “is not cutting a single dime out of the military budget,” Armey charged. “He is actually substantially increasing military spending over the next several years. Washington has once again cleverly disguised a spending increase as a ‘cut.’”

Armey is correct. President Obama’s so-called cuts are only modest reductions from the baseline budget set by the Congressional Budget Office that projected large increases in military spending over the next decade. As Armey notes, such spending “will continue to rise under President Obama’s plan, just at a slightly slower rate.”'

'Despite the furor from those who want even more robust military outlays, the spending levels in the Obama budget are actually higher in inflation-adjusted terms than the average budgets throughout the Cold War. Critics understandably ask why that should be so when the United States no longer faces a powerful military adversary like the Soviet Union. Secretary Panetta implicitly cited the reason why spending remains at such lofty heights, when he noted that a smaller force could not sustain the missions it is assigned. He added that “if we had to do over a trillion dollars in cuts in this department,” we’d probably “have to start over” regarding defense strategy.'

Woman Arrested With Gun On American Airlines Plane | Fox News

Woman Arrested With Gun On American Airlines Plane | Fox News: 'The Transportation Security Administration, which operates airport security checkpoints, says that screeners detected a gun in the woman's carry-on bag, but she left the checkpoint before giving up the gun.'

What a pathetic joke! They didn't stop her or the plane?!!!

Labor Economics with Walter Block - Walter Block - Mises Daily

Labor Economics with Walter Block - Walter Block - Mises Daily: 'the entrepreneur, the residual-income claimant, brings three things to the table that workers greatly value. First, he bears risk. If the items produced by the workers cooperatives do not sell, they are plumb out of luck; in contrast, if what the worker produces for the capitalist is rejected by the consumer, the capitalist may not come to the workers and demand back the wages already paid. Second, the much reviled businessman offers time, in the form of capital goods. If 100 workers band together in a syndicalist venture, and the product will not come off the assembly line for a year, they must feed and clothe themselves for this entire duration. As well, they must have among them enough savings to purchase the machinery, the raw materials, and the marketing services necessary for a final sale. In contrast, the entrepreneur provides all this to the workers, who, all too often, do not appreciate his efforts on their (and of course his) behalf. Third, the owner of the business firm provides leadership, in setting up the entire enterprise.'

'Why do we have unemployment? One major source is when wages are pegged at higher rates than productivity. Minimum-wage laws and union legislation are responsible for this situation. Another cause of unemployment is unemployment insurance. The more you pay for something, the more of it you will have. If you subsidize unemployment, its rate will rise. Yet another cause of it is the Fed, Ron Paul's favorite institution. By artificially lowering interest rates to virtually zero levels, this central bank leads entrepreneurs to invest in excessively roundabout methods of production for items that take a long time to produce (houses, cars, mines, etc.).'