Tag Archives: Regulations

How Relevant Is Ayn Rand Today?

Saturday, 28 August 2010 08:50

Atlas sculpture, New York City, by sculptor Le...

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It was news to many when Scott Powell announced that an obscure novel published in 1957, Atlas Shrugged, “may be second to the Bible as the most influential book read in America.” His statement that BB&T, the 12th largest bank in America, which resisted taking TARP bailout funds, requires reading of that same book as part of its management training program astonished many more.

American Conservative Magazine noted that “a week before the President’s inauguration, more people were buying it than Obama’s Audacity of Hope.

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Conjuring Magic To Cover States’ Debts

Wednesday, 25 August 2010 11:10

SACRAMENTO, CA - JULY 21: A sign stands in f...

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

The first warning about the possible bankruptcy of the town of Vallejo, California, was reported by the Associated Press on February 28, 2008, when Councilwoman Stephanie Gomes said, “Our financial situation is getting worse every single day. No city or private person wants to declare bankruptcy, but if you’re facing insolvency, you have no choice but to seek protection.”

Marci Fritz, vice president of the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility, blamed the action on promises made earlier by the council to the city’s employees concerning salaries and retirement benefits that the city no longer can afford. According to Fritz, these were promises made during economically flush times, and were due to the city council’s unrealistic expectations that those times would continue indefinitely.

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Despite Kagan, Public Knows Little About Supreme Court

Friday, 13 August 2010 07:40

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Now that Elena Kagan has been confirmed as Justice of the Supreme Court following several weeks of highly publicized hearings, the public remains poorly informed about the Court’s role. And even what is supposedly known is contradictory. Pew Research Center’s latest New IQ Quiz, which was conducted in early July, revealed that “an overwhelming proportion of Americans are familiar with Twitter…yet the public continues to struggle in identifying political figures, foreign leaders and even knowing facts about key government policies.”

For example, barely one in four of those surveyed was able to identify John Roberts as the chief justice of the Supreme Court. Pew goes on to say, “young people fare particularly poorly on political knowledge.”

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Still Waiting for the Recovery

Tuesday, 20 July 2010 16:46

The emblem of Recovery.gov, the official site ...

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The economy has gained either 2.5 million jobs or 3.6 million jobs since the Recovery Act was signed into law in January, 2009, depending upon which statistical “model” is used, according to Christina Romer, Chair of the White House‘s Council of Economic Advisers. When compared to the report issued earlier this month by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, neither number is even close.

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Financial Reform: Expanding Hubris, Limiting Freedom

Tuesday, 06 July 2010 08:46

Chris Dodd

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When the House passed the 2,319-page Dodd-Frank financial reform bill by a vote of 237-192, all it did was confirm for many the extraordinary hubris of legislators believing they could in fact “fix” the problems they themselves created which resulted in the Great Recession of 2008.

John B. Taylor, professor of economics at Stanford University says, “The main problem with the bill is that is based on a misdiagnosis of the causes of the financial crisis…the presumption that the government did not [already] have enough power to avoid the crisis.”

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Chicago Shootings and McDonald v. City of Chicago

Friday, 25 June 2010 08:19

Cover of "More Guns, Less Crime: Understa...

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When it was learned that more than 50 people were shot, some fatally, over Fathers Day weekend in the poorer sections of Chicago, it didn’t even make the front page of Chicago newspapers.

As ABC News put it, “Most of the weekend shootings took place in poor neighborhoods on the city’s south and west sides. Those areas are away from downtown and tourist attractions, perhaps one reason much of the city seemed to shrug its shoulders at the violence.” Jim O’Shea, editor of Chicago News Cooperative, said, “I think people just say, ‘Ah, it’s a bunch of gang bangers shooting each other.'”

Police and other officials put the blame on gangs and easy access to guns despite one of the strictest bans on handguns in the country. It is that very ban that is being challenged in a Supreme Court case, McDonald v. City of Chicago, with a decision to be announced very soon.

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The Breakup of Ma Bell

Thursday, 27 May 2010 14:46

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Ten years into the 20th century, the United States citizenry were still enjoying the afterglow of a remarkable generation of economic growth, innovation, and expansion.

Popular interests consisted of going to the movies, doing the Tango, and reading the Saturday Evening Post. A hands-off President, William Howard Taft, was in the White House, and people were enjoying clever inventions such as traffic lights, the refrigerator, and the telephone.

Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone on March 7, 1876, but initially it was considered no more than a passing novelty. In fact, Western Union passed up the opportunity to purchase the Bell patents for $100,000.

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10,000 Commandments—The Hidden Tax

Friday, 16 April 2010 16:55

Moses with the tablets of the Ten Commandments...

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When the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) announced the conclusions of its annual “Ten Thousand Commandments: An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State” earlier this week, it came as no surprise to learn that the rules and regulations placed on the economy by illicit agencies of the “fourth branch of government” constitute an enormous burden that is largely uncounted.

What was surprising was the horrendous cost of that burden which constitutes an additional tax on the economy.

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47 Percent Pay No Taxes? Actually, No.

Wednesday, 14 April 2010 13:15

Seal of the Internal Revenue Service

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In a recent article here about the VAT (Value-Added Tax) being floated as another way to raise taxes, the author stated that a VAT “would force the 50 percent of people in the poor and middle classes who pay no income taxes at present to start to contribute to the ever-increasing costs of the nanny state.” Fortunately, the New York Times published a correction and a clarification.

According to the Times, which took a closer look at the data from the Tax Policy Center, “The stimulus programs of the last two years [under the Bush and Obama administrations] have increased the number of households that receive enough of a tax credit to wipe out their federal income tax liability…but income taxes aren’t the only kind of federal taxes that people pay.”

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Can ObamaCare Be Repealed, Nullified?

Thursday, 01 April 2010 06:46

Repeal ObamaCare

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U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who has earned a “Freedom Index” rating of 90 percent in the current Congress to date, has introduced a bill in the House to repeal ObamaCare. In her press release, Bachmann reminded her constituents that “the government already owns or controls about one-third of U.S. economic activity through the takeover of General Motors, the bankruptcy reorganizations of Chrysler, the partial ownership of two of the country’s largest banks in Bank of America and Citigroup, and the seizure of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as AIG. Taken all together, [with ObamaCare] we’re looking at half of the American economy in the grip of the federal government.” Bachmann said that it “will do nothing to spur economic growth … [but] will serve only as an obstacle to actual recovery and smother the spirit of innovation and freedoms that made this country great.”

Her bill is simplicity itself:

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Greenspan’s Implausible Denial

Sunday, 21 March 2010 11:46

Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Board o...

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In his 48-page paper presented on March 19 to the Brookings Institution, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan now blames the collapse of the Soviet Union and the resurgence of the Chinese economy as causes of the Great Recession that was ushered in on his watch. And his arguments have just enough plausibility to be considered, if only briefly. But looking more closely is another matter.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, millions of workers were then free to “enter the global marketplace,” creating huge demand for consumer goods. And with the Chinese government allowing a modicum of free enterprise to placate their workers, many of them have created such significant savings that many billions of dollars were looking for a home. And consequently, many of those dollars returned to the United States in the form of mortgage capital that helped fund the housing boom. Greenspan said, “In short, geopolitical events ultimately led to a fall in long-term mortgage interest rates that in turn led, with a lag, to the unsustainable boom in house prices globally.”

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For Goldman Sachs, the Greece Fleece is Another Ripoff

Monday, 22 February 2010 09:30

Goldman Sachs Headquarters, New York City

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When Goldman Sachs was implicated in helping Greece deceive the European Union and its own citizens about the extent of its debt and deficits, it was another stone in the growing pile of evidence illustrating the incestuous relationship between governments and central banks.

In order to conform with Eurozone rules, Greece must limit its annual deficit to less than three percent of its GDP, and its total outstanding debt to no more than 60 percent of its GDP. Now that it’s clear that Greece has been in significant violation of both of those rules for several years, experts have discovered that efforts were made to hide those violations through the use of “obscure derivatives provided by [Goldman Sachs and] other U.S. banks to delay payment on obligations, borrow even more money and to keep the true figures off the official books.”

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Toyota—The Jihad Continues

Sunday, 21 February 2010 09:33

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Now that the Department of Transportation is opening a formal investigation into the 2009-2010 Toyota Corolla over possible steering problems while the government is continuing with hearings by the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on February 24th, the House Energy and Commerce Committee on February 25th, and by the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on March 2nd about Toyota’s “timely” response to braking and accelerator complaints, some are beginning to question “Why?”

More than that, the questions are “Why just Toyota?” and “Why now?” Some are asking “Is there something else going on here?”

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Geithner: No Double Dip

Wednesday, 10 February 2010 08:39

Timothy Geithner at the United States Departme...

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When he appeared on ABC News‘s This Week on February 7, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was quizzed about the risk of the United States losing its triple-A credit rating, the chances that foreign investors might start shunning US debt, and whether the economy would suffer a double dip recession.

Last week the credit rating agency Moody’s warned that weak economic growth and increasing debt burdens could “put pressure on the country’s triple-A status.” When asked to respond, Geithner said, “Absolutely not. That will never happen to this country.” One remembers the speaker’s rule to be very careful about using absolutes, such as “absolutely”, and “never happen.” History books are filled with examples of events that could “absolutely never happen.”

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Amtrack, Guns, and Sausage

Friday, 11 December 2009 15:17

When congressional negotiators agreed to a final version of a transportation bill, it included an amendment to allow Amtrak passengers to take their guns with them—unloaded, locked, and only in their checked baggage.

While only a small skirmish in the long war against the right of citizens to “keep and bear arms” under the Second Amendment, the process by which this amendment was added is worth examining as a microcosm of “representative government” in action.

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Sarbanes-Oxley and the Separation of Powers

Monday, 07 December 2009 19:15

On Monday, December 7, the Supreme Court began hearing arguments concerning Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB).

While perhaps not as memorable as the “date which shall live in infamy,” this case has been called the most important “separation of powers” case in 20 years by Judge Brett Kavanaugh, the dissenter in the 2-1 decision by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that ruled for the PCAOB, prior to the case going to the Supreme Court for review).

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Jobs Summit: More talk? Yes. More jobs? No.

Thursday, 03 December 2009 21:35

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When ABC News asked if the “jobs summit” would make real progress or would just be “simply a glorified public-relations stunt,” it studiously avoided asking the real question: How can the prime movers that created the current economic “Great Recession” be expected to fix it?

For starters, where is the constitutional authority for the government to get involved in creating jobs, even if it could?

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Soldiers or Sitting Ducks? Fort Hood Victims Were Unable to Defend Themselves

Thursday, 12 November 2009 16:08

While many questions about the shooting at Fort Hood, Texas by Major Nidal Hasan remain unanswered, there is one question for which there is a clear and unequivocal answer: Why didn’t the soldiers return fire?

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