Here is a link to John Lott's Crime Prevention Research Center website.
Concealed handgun permit holders save lives.
Compiling Cases where concealed handgun permit holders have stopped mass public shootings and other mass attacks
Wednesday, November 29, 2017
Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Cancer drug starts clinical trials in human brain-cancer patients
From Science Daily.
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A drug that spurs cancer cells to self-destruct has been cleared for use in a clinical trial of patients with anaplastic astrocytoma, a rare malignant brain tumor, and glioblastoma multiforme, an aggressive late-stage cancer of the brain. This phase Ib trial will determine if the experimental drug PAC-1 can be used safely in combination with a standard brain-cancer chemotherapy drug, temozolomide.
The trial is approved for patients who have seen their cancer progress after first-line therapy. This is an extension of an ongoing human phase I clinical trial of PAC-1 alone in patients with various late-stage cancers. Phase I trials are designed to test the safety of new drugs in human patients.
PAC-1 is unusual in that it is able to cross the blood-brain barrier, a formidable obstacle to most anti-cancer drugs. The drug targets procaspase-3, an enzyme that is overexpressed in many cancer cells, said University of Illinois chemistry professor Paul Hergenrother, who discovered PAC-1's anti-cancer effects more than a decade ago. After tests in human cell lines and rodents proved promising, Hergenrother and veterinary oncologist Dr. Timothy Fan, a professor of veterinary clinical medicine at Illinois, tested PAC-1 in pet dogs with a variety of naturally occurring cancers.
"Most cancers have elevated levels of procaspase-3," Hergenrother said. "When it is turned on, procaspase-3 kills cells."
Cancer cells override this normal cell-recycling pathway, however, he said.
"PAC-1 restores the activation of procaspase-3 and, because this enzyme is elevated in cancer cells, targets cancer cells over noncancerous cells," he said.
PAC-1 has been evaluated in pet dogs with naturally occurring osteosarcoma, lymphoma and, most recently, glioma -- a brain cancer similar to glioblastoma in humans. One 2016 study found that the combination of PAC-1 with doxorubicin, a chemotherapeutic agent that also is used in humans, saw tumor reductions in four of four dogs with lymphoma and in three of six dogs with osteosarcoma. The trials in dogs continue and, so far, have found PAC-1 to be safe, with few observable side effects apart from occasional gastrointestinal distress. The researchers report their latest findings in rodents and in dogs with brain cancer in the journal Oncotarget.
Dogs with certain naturally occurring cancers may be better than other animal models of human cancers because mice and rats used in many cancer drug-testing models must be implanted with human cancer cells to mimic specific types of tumors, Fan said.
"This requires that the rodents be immunocompromised to mitigate rejection of human cells," he said. "As such, most rodent tumor models do not faithfully recapitulate the tumor microenvironment -- in particular, the body's immune surveillance of the tumor.
"Rodent models are limited, but they are still useful," Fan said.
Certain cancers in dogs are genetically similar to those in humans and respond to the same medications. Dogs also are more similar in size to humans, and so can be better models to evaluate how well drug agents perform on larger tumor masses.
"I look at pets with spontaneous tumors as being complementary to rodent models and recognize that not all discoveries in pet dogs will necessarily translate similarly to people," Fan said.
The ongoing clinical trial of PAC-1 in human patients with late-stage solid tumors and lymphoma has shown that the drug is well-tolerated at tested doses up to 450 milligrams per day, said medical oncologist Dr. Arkadiusz Dudek, who chairs an advisory board for Vanquish Oncology, which is funding the clinical trials.
The extension of the phase I trial to brain-cancer patients will begin with a PAC-1 dose of 375 mg per day and will increase the dose incrementally to test its safety in combination with the standard brain-cancer chemotherapy agent, temozolomide, he said.
So far, the clinical trials of PAC-1 alone have seen no significant side effects in humans. None of the human patients in the first five dose levels of the single-agent trial has dropped out as a result of side effects, the researchers report. The team cannot report on clinical outcomes in a phase I clinical trial, since such trials are designed to measure safety, not efficacy.
Surgery is a first-line therapy for anaplastic astrocytoma, followed by treatment with temozolomide, a chemotherapy drug that is one of the few effective treatments for brain cancer, Dudek said. Humans with glioblastoma multiforme usually undergo surgery to remove as much of the cancerous tissue as possible, followed by radiation and oral treatment with temozolomide.
It is almost impossible to find and remove all glioblastoma cancer cells in surgery, however, Dudek said.
"Glioblastoma multiforme has this feature of spreading silently along the blood vessels inside the brain," he said. "That's a reason why most patients will unfortunately have disease coming back later on after surgery and radiation."
The median survival time for human patients with glioblastoma undergoing the standard treatment is about 15 months.
The three dogs in the glioma trial received daily oral doses of PAC-1 in combination with temozolomide and "curative-intent" radiation.
Temozolomide is normally too expensive to use in canine patients, Fan said. The dogs tolerated the combination treatment very well and responded well to the therapy, he said.
"All three dogs had, at the very least, what we call a partial response, which means more than a 30 percent reduction in the tumor," he said. "And one of the dogs had a complete response, as identified with serial MRI scans, with a 100 percent reduction in the tumor mass 84 days after combination therapy."
Fan said a much larger study in dogs would be needed to determine whether the therapeutic effects were consistent and reproducible, and to quantify how much PAC-1 contributed to the positive results.
Vanquish Oncology, a drug-development startup company Hergenrother helped found in 2011, has licensed the technology from the University of Illinois and is focused on moving PAC-1 into the clinic. As with any investigational agent, determining the true safety and efficacy profile of PAC-1 will take several years of human clinical trials.
----------------------------------------------------------
A drug that spurs cancer cells to self-destruct has been cleared for use in a clinical trial of patients with anaplastic astrocytoma, a rare malignant brain tumor, and glioblastoma multiforme, an aggressive late-stage cancer of the brain. This phase Ib trial will determine if the experimental drug PAC-1 can be used safely in combination with a standard brain-cancer chemotherapy drug, temozolomide.
The trial is approved for patients who have seen their cancer progress after first-line therapy. This is an extension of an ongoing human phase I clinical trial of PAC-1 alone in patients with various late-stage cancers. Phase I trials are designed to test the safety of new drugs in human patients.
PAC-1 is unusual in that it is able to cross the blood-brain barrier, a formidable obstacle to most anti-cancer drugs. The drug targets procaspase-3, an enzyme that is overexpressed in many cancer cells, said University of Illinois chemistry professor Paul Hergenrother, who discovered PAC-1's anti-cancer effects more than a decade ago. After tests in human cell lines and rodents proved promising, Hergenrother and veterinary oncologist Dr. Timothy Fan, a professor of veterinary clinical medicine at Illinois, tested PAC-1 in pet dogs with a variety of naturally occurring cancers.
"Most cancers have elevated levels of procaspase-3," Hergenrother said. "When it is turned on, procaspase-3 kills cells."
Cancer cells override this normal cell-recycling pathway, however, he said.
"PAC-1 restores the activation of procaspase-3 and, because this enzyme is elevated in cancer cells, targets cancer cells over noncancerous cells," he said.
PAC-1 has been evaluated in pet dogs with naturally occurring osteosarcoma, lymphoma and, most recently, glioma -- a brain cancer similar to glioblastoma in humans. One 2016 study found that the combination of PAC-1 with doxorubicin, a chemotherapeutic agent that also is used in humans, saw tumor reductions in four of four dogs with lymphoma and in three of six dogs with osteosarcoma. The trials in dogs continue and, so far, have found PAC-1 to be safe, with few observable side effects apart from occasional gastrointestinal distress. The researchers report their latest findings in rodents and in dogs with brain cancer in the journal Oncotarget.
Dogs with certain naturally occurring cancers may be better than other animal models of human cancers because mice and rats used in many cancer drug-testing models must be implanted with human cancer cells to mimic specific types of tumors, Fan said.
"This requires that the rodents be immunocompromised to mitigate rejection of human cells," he said. "As such, most rodent tumor models do not faithfully recapitulate the tumor microenvironment -- in particular, the body's immune surveillance of the tumor.
"Rodent models are limited, but they are still useful," Fan said.
Certain cancers in dogs are genetically similar to those in humans and respond to the same medications. Dogs also are more similar in size to humans, and so can be better models to evaluate how well drug agents perform on larger tumor masses.
"I look at pets with spontaneous tumors as being complementary to rodent models and recognize that not all discoveries in pet dogs will necessarily translate similarly to people," Fan said.
The ongoing clinical trial of PAC-1 in human patients with late-stage solid tumors and lymphoma has shown that the drug is well-tolerated at tested doses up to 450 milligrams per day, said medical oncologist Dr. Arkadiusz Dudek, who chairs an advisory board for Vanquish Oncology, which is funding the clinical trials.
The extension of the phase I trial to brain-cancer patients will begin with a PAC-1 dose of 375 mg per day and will increase the dose incrementally to test its safety in combination with the standard brain-cancer chemotherapy agent, temozolomide, he said.
So far, the clinical trials of PAC-1 alone have seen no significant side effects in humans. None of the human patients in the first five dose levels of the single-agent trial has dropped out as a result of side effects, the researchers report. The team cannot report on clinical outcomes in a phase I clinical trial, since such trials are designed to measure safety, not efficacy.
Surgery is a first-line therapy for anaplastic astrocytoma, followed by treatment with temozolomide, a chemotherapy drug that is one of the few effective treatments for brain cancer, Dudek said. Humans with glioblastoma multiforme usually undergo surgery to remove as much of the cancerous tissue as possible, followed by radiation and oral treatment with temozolomide.
It is almost impossible to find and remove all glioblastoma cancer cells in surgery, however, Dudek said.
"Glioblastoma multiforme has this feature of spreading silently along the blood vessels inside the brain," he said. "That's a reason why most patients will unfortunately have disease coming back later on after surgery and radiation."
The median survival time for human patients with glioblastoma undergoing the standard treatment is about 15 months.
The three dogs in the glioma trial received daily oral doses of PAC-1 in combination with temozolomide and "curative-intent" radiation.
Temozolomide is normally too expensive to use in canine patients, Fan said. The dogs tolerated the combination treatment very well and responded well to the therapy, he said.
"All three dogs had, at the very least, what we call a partial response, which means more than a 30 percent reduction in the tumor," he said. "And one of the dogs had a complete response, as identified with serial MRI scans, with a 100 percent reduction in the tumor mass 84 days after combination therapy."
Fan said a much larger study in dogs would be needed to determine whether the therapeutic effects were consistent and reproducible, and to quantify how much PAC-1 contributed to the positive results.
Vanquish Oncology, a drug-development startup company Hergenrother helped found in 2011, has licensed the technology from the University of Illinois and is focused on moving PAC-1 into the clinic. As with any investigational agent, determining the true safety and efficacy profile of PAC-1 will take several years of human clinical trials.
An example of the importance of considering tradeoffs
Matt Ridley's blog entry "Beware The Fall Armyworm" shows the consequences of failing to consider tradeoffs.
Yes, beware the fall Armyworm - but also beware single issue thinking.
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An even more dangerous foe than Robert Mugabe is stalking Africa. Early last year, a moth caterpillar called the fall armyworm, a native of the Americas, turned up in Nigeria. It has quickly spread across most of Africa. This is fairly terrifying news, threatening to undo some of the unprecedented improvements in African living standards of the past two decades. Many Africans depend on maize for food, and maize is the fall armyworm’s favourite diet.
Fortunately, there is a defence to hand. Bt maize, grown throughout the Americas for many years, is resistant to insects. The initials stand for a bacterium that produces a protein toxic to insects but not to people. Organic farmers have been using the bacterium as a pesticide for more than five decades, but it is expensive. Bt maize has the protein inside the plant, thanks to genetic engineers, who took a gene from the bacterium and put it in the plant.
Bt maize has largely saved Brazil’s maize crop from fall armyworms.
However, influenced by European environmentalists, most African countries forbid the growing of genetically modified crops. This is a pity, because unless they change their attitude fast, they will face the prospect of using far more pesticides, which small-scale farmers cannot afford, and which come with environmental and safety risks, or suffering famine, relieved by expensive imports of food.
Fortunately, inch by inch Africa is changing its mind on biotech crops, though only South Africa has approved Bt maize. Nigeria, Uganda, Ethiopia and Kenya are slowly changing their legislation. But bureaucrats with empires to build keep putting roadblocks in the way of change, and environmental pressure groups are campaigning to undermine the efforts.
Some years ago I spoke to the leaders of a large charity working with African farmers and asked them why they did not come out in support of biotechnology. They replied that they dared not do so for fear of retribution from the big environmental pressure groups, such as Greenpeace, for which opposition to biotechnology is a totemic issue when fundraising in Europe.
Money came before humanity, in other words. Greenpeace’s former director, Stephen Tindale, changed his mind about biotechnology and said two years ago, before his death: “I worry for Greenpeace and the other green groups because they could, by taking such a hard line . . . be seen to be putting ideology before the need for humanitarian action.”
Last year 129 winners of the Nobel prize signed a letter, saying: “We urge Greenpeace and its supporters to re-examine the experience of farmers and consumers worldwide with crops and foods improved through biotechnology.” Yet Greenpeace remains opposed to biotech crops. The European Parliament also voted to accept a Green Party report arguing against involvement in a new international agricultural technology initiative in Africa because of the involvement of biotech firms. A Kenyan farmer, Gilbert Arap Bor, wrote: “They want us to remain agricultural primitives, stuck with technologies that were antiquated even before we entered the 21st century.”
More than half of the two billion people who will be added to the world’s population by 2050 will be Africans. Yet feeding the continent’s growing population, largely from African farms, is possible. And, like Asia before it, Africa can initially prosper through agriculture more than any other industry, but only if there is a green revolution of farming modernisation comparable to what happened in Asia in the Sixties.
The average yield of an African maize crop is less than a quarter of that of a North American crop, even before the effect of the fall armyworm. This is largely down to a lack of fertilisers, pesticides, hybrid seeds and biotechnology, and frequent drought. Hybrid seeds alone, produced by conventional breeding, can deliver improvements in yield of 20 to 30 per cent, I’m told. Drought-resistant varieties, also conventionally produced, can double the yield. But neither helps against the fall armyworm.
The African Agricultural Technology Foundation is co-ordinating a public-private partnership called Water Efficient Maize for Africa (Wema). Its aim is to develop drought-tolerant and insect-protected maize using both biotechnology and modern techniques of conventional breeding. Its first product, a drought-tolerant, white maize hybrid seed, was delivered to farmers in Kenya four years ago. It resulted in a harvest of 4.5 tons per hectare, compared with 1.8 tons normally. The Wema project has the support of industry to make the varieties available royalty-free to smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa through African seed companies. Monsanto, for example, is giving away its intellectual property in the region.
Ah, say its critics, but Monsanto is hoping that Africans will use its hybrids and thus become rich enough to buy more seeds from it one day. Yes, and what is wrong with that? Suppose Wema does result in many African smallholders earning enough money to buy a tractor, put a child through school and go into the market in search of the best seeds, as well as sufficient fertiliser? Where’s the problem? All right, say the critics, but resistance to the Bt toxin is already developing in fall armyworms in Brazil. True, but so is resistance to insecticides. Agriculture is an arms race against the other species, and newer techniques should keep us easily one step ahead, so long as we do not prevent them.
The next technology to help farming will be gene-editing, different from the transgenic technique that produced Bt maize, and involving the introduction of no foreign DNA, the thing that critics say they most object to. A tweak to the genes of maize can make it resistant to maize lethal necrosis, a viral disease hurting yields in parts of Africa. There is an opportunity for Britain here. Freed from Europe’s deadly precautionary principle, British plant scientists could be well placed to support their colleagues in Africa.
Those who think poverty a price worth paying for nostalgia say we should go back to traditional agriculture, in better harmony with the land. Not if we want wildlife. Globally, if we had the yields of 1960 we would need more than twice as much land to feed today’s population. In which case, you could kiss goodbye to all rainforests, nature reserves and national parks.
Yes, beware the fall Armyworm - but also beware single issue thinking.
-------------------------------------------------------
An even more dangerous foe than Robert Mugabe is stalking Africa. Early last year, a moth caterpillar called the fall armyworm, a native of the Americas, turned up in Nigeria. It has quickly spread across most of Africa. This is fairly terrifying news, threatening to undo some of the unprecedented improvements in African living standards of the past two decades. Many Africans depend on maize for food, and maize is the fall armyworm’s favourite diet.
Fortunately, there is a defence to hand. Bt maize, grown throughout the Americas for many years, is resistant to insects. The initials stand for a bacterium that produces a protein toxic to insects but not to people. Organic farmers have been using the bacterium as a pesticide for more than five decades, but it is expensive. Bt maize has the protein inside the plant, thanks to genetic engineers, who took a gene from the bacterium and put it in the plant.
Bt maize has largely saved Brazil’s maize crop from fall armyworms.
However, influenced by European environmentalists, most African countries forbid the growing of genetically modified crops. This is a pity, because unless they change their attitude fast, they will face the prospect of using far more pesticides, which small-scale farmers cannot afford, and which come with environmental and safety risks, or suffering famine, relieved by expensive imports of food.
Fortunately, inch by inch Africa is changing its mind on biotech crops, though only South Africa has approved Bt maize. Nigeria, Uganda, Ethiopia and Kenya are slowly changing their legislation. But bureaucrats with empires to build keep putting roadblocks in the way of change, and environmental pressure groups are campaigning to undermine the efforts.
Some years ago I spoke to the leaders of a large charity working with African farmers and asked them why they did not come out in support of biotechnology. They replied that they dared not do so for fear of retribution from the big environmental pressure groups, such as Greenpeace, for which opposition to biotechnology is a totemic issue when fundraising in Europe.
Money came before humanity, in other words. Greenpeace’s former director, Stephen Tindale, changed his mind about biotechnology and said two years ago, before his death: “I worry for Greenpeace and the other green groups because they could, by taking such a hard line . . . be seen to be putting ideology before the need for humanitarian action.”
Last year 129 winners of the Nobel prize signed a letter, saying: “We urge Greenpeace and its supporters to re-examine the experience of farmers and consumers worldwide with crops and foods improved through biotechnology.” Yet Greenpeace remains opposed to biotech crops. The European Parliament also voted to accept a Green Party report arguing against involvement in a new international agricultural technology initiative in Africa because of the involvement of biotech firms. A Kenyan farmer, Gilbert Arap Bor, wrote: “They want us to remain agricultural primitives, stuck with technologies that were antiquated even before we entered the 21st century.”
More than half of the two billion people who will be added to the world’s population by 2050 will be Africans. Yet feeding the continent’s growing population, largely from African farms, is possible. And, like Asia before it, Africa can initially prosper through agriculture more than any other industry, but only if there is a green revolution of farming modernisation comparable to what happened in Asia in the Sixties.
The average yield of an African maize crop is less than a quarter of that of a North American crop, even before the effect of the fall armyworm. This is largely down to a lack of fertilisers, pesticides, hybrid seeds and biotechnology, and frequent drought. Hybrid seeds alone, produced by conventional breeding, can deliver improvements in yield of 20 to 30 per cent, I’m told. Drought-resistant varieties, also conventionally produced, can double the yield. But neither helps against the fall armyworm.
The African Agricultural Technology Foundation is co-ordinating a public-private partnership called Water Efficient Maize for Africa (Wema). Its aim is to develop drought-tolerant and insect-protected maize using both biotechnology and modern techniques of conventional breeding. Its first product, a drought-tolerant, white maize hybrid seed, was delivered to farmers in Kenya four years ago. It resulted in a harvest of 4.5 tons per hectare, compared with 1.8 tons normally. The Wema project has the support of industry to make the varieties available royalty-free to smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa through African seed companies. Monsanto, for example, is giving away its intellectual property in the region.
Ah, say its critics, but Monsanto is hoping that Africans will use its hybrids and thus become rich enough to buy more seeds from it one day. Yes, and what is wrong with that? Suppose Wema does result in many African smallholders earning enough money to buy a tractor, put a child through school and go into the market in search of the best seeds, as well as sufficient fertiliser? Where’s the problem? All right, say the critics, but resistance to the Bt toxin is already developing in fall armyworms in Brazil. True, but so is resistance to insecticides. Agriculture is an arms race against the other species, and newer techniques should keep us easily one step ahead, so long as we do not prevent them.
The next technology to help farming will be gene-editing, different from the transgenic technique that produced Bt maize, and involving the introduction of no foreign DNA, the thing that critics say they most object to. A tweak to the genes of maize can make it resistant to maize lethal necrosis, a viral disease hurting yields in parts of Africa. There is an opportunity for Britain here. Freed from Europe’s deadly precautionary principle, British plant scientists could be well placed to support their colleagues in Africa.
Those who think poverty a price worth paying for nostalgia say we should go back to traditional agriculture, in better harmony with the land. Not if we want wildlife. Globally, if we had the yields of 1960 we would need more than twice as much land to feed today’s population. In which case, you could kiss goodbye to all rainforests, nature reserves and national parks.
North Korea: a high price now or an even higher price later?
Here is Zev Chafets in the Jewish World Review.
ZC is a journalist and author of 14 books. He was a senior aide to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and the founding managing editor of the Jerusalem Report Magazine.
ZC is a journalist and author of 14 books. He was a senior aide to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and the founding managing editor of the Jerusalem Report Magazine.
ZC is on target.
People who characterize consequences as "unthinkable" are people who simply refuse to think and address reality. It's a version of "peace in our time" that ignores that the "unthinkable" can become way worse.
In the mid-1970s, it became clear to Israel that Iraq's Saddam Hussein was working on acquiring nuclear weapons and missiles to deliver them. Saddam had already demonstrated an uninhibited brutality in dealing with his internal enemies and his neighbors. He aspired to be the leader of the Arab world. Defeating Israel was at the top of his to-do list.
After coming to office in 1977, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin tried to convince the U.S. and Europe that Saddam was a clear and present danger to the Jewish state, and that action had to be taken. Begin was not taken seriously.
But Begin was serious, and in 1981 he decided that Israel would have to stop the Iraqi dictator all by itself. His political opponents, led by the estimable Shimon Peres, considered this to be dangerous folly. Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan, the legendary former military chief of staff, voted against unilateral action on the grounds that it would hurt Israel's international standing. Defense Minister Ezer Weizmann, the former head of the air force (and Dayan's brother-in-law) was also against a military option. He thought the mission would be unacceptably risky.
Begin had no military expertise. But his family had been wiped out in the Holocaust. He looked at Saddam, who was openly threating Israel, and saw Hitler. To Begin, sitting around hoping for the best was not a strategy; it was an invitation to aggression. If there was going to be a cost -- political, diplomatic, military -- better to pay before, not after, the Iraqis had the bomb.
In the summer of 1981, Begin gave the order. The Israeli air force destroyed the Osirak reactor. The United Nations Security Council condemned the attack. The Europeans went bonkers. The New York Times called it "inexcusable." But the Israeli prime minister wasn't looking to be excused by the Times or the Europeans or even the usually friendly Ronald Reagan administration. He enunciated a simple rationale that would come to be known as the Begin Doctrine: Israel will not allow its avowed enemies to obtain the means of its destruction.
The wisdom of this doctrine became clear a decade later, during the Gulf War, when Saddam made good on his threat to fire Russian-made SCUD missiles at Israeli cities. The SCUDs landed, and caused some damage and a fair amount of panic, but they were not armed with unconventional warheads. Israel had taken that option off the table.
Similarly, in 2007, Israel confirmed what it had suspected for five years: Syria, with North Korean help, was trying to build a nuclear reactor. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a Begin disciple, sent Mossad chief Meir Dagan to Washington, to ask for American intervention. The CIA chief, Michael Hayden, agreed with Israel's contention that Damascus (with Iranian financing) was constructing the reactor. But Hayden convinced President George W. Bush that bombing the site would result in all-out war, and who wants that?
Acting on its own, Israel destroyed the Syrian site (reportedly killing a group of North Korean experts in the process). Hayden was wrong about how Syria would react, as he later admitted. If Israel had been reasonable and listened to the CIA, Bashar al-Assad would have nuclear weapons right now.
--------------------------------------------------
Israel and North Korea are on opposite sides of the Asian landmass, separated by 5,000 miles as the ICBM flies. But Israelis feels close to the nuclear standoff between Washington and Pyongyang. They have faced this sort of crisis before, and may again. In the mid-1970s, it became clear to Israel that Iraq's Saddam Hussein was working on acquiring nuclear weapons and missiles to deliver them. Saddam had already demonstrated an uninhibited brutality in dealing with his internal enemies and his neighbors. He aspired to be the leader of the Arab world. Defeating Israel was at the top of his to-do list.
After coming to office in 1977, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin tried to convince the U.S. and Europe that Saddam was a clear and present danger to the Jewish state, and that action had to be taken. Begin was not taken seriously.
But Begin was serious, and in 1981 he decided that Israel would have to stop the Iraqi dictator all by itself. His political opponents, led by the estimable Shimon Peres, considered this to be dangerous folly. Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan, the legendary former military chief of staff, voted against unilateral action on the grounds that it would hurt Israel's international standing. Defense Minister Ezer Weizmann, the former head of the air force (and Dayan's brother-in-law) was also against a military option. He thought the mission would be unacceptably risky.
Begin had no military expertise. But his family had been wiped out in the Holocaust. He looked at Saddam, who was openly threating Israel, and saw Hitler. To Begin, sitting around hoping for the best was not a strategy; it was an invitation to aggression. If there was going to be a cost -- political, diplomatic, military -- better to pay before, not after, the Iraqis had the bomb.
In the summer of 1981, Begin gave the order. The Israeli air force destroyed the Osirak reactor. The United Nations Security Council condemned the attack. The Europeans went bonkers. The New York Times called it "inexcusable." But the Israeli prime minister wasn't looking to be excused by the Times or the Europeans or even the usually friendly Ronald Reagan administration. He enunciated a simple rationale that would come to be known as the Begin Doctrine: Israel will not allow its avowed enemies to obtain the means of its destruction.
The wisdom of this doctrine became clear a decade later, during the Gulf War, when Saddam made good on his threat to fire Russian-made SCUD missiles at Israeli cities. The SCUDs landed, and caused some damage and a fair amount of panic, but they were not armed with unconventional warheads. Israel had taken that option off the table.
Similarly, in 2007, Israel confirmed what it had suspected for five years: Syria, with North Korean help, was trying to build a nuclear reactor. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a Begin disciple, sent Mossad chief Meir Dagan to Washington, to ask for American intervention. The CIA chief, Michael Hayden, agreed with Israel's contention that Damascus (with Iranian financing) was constructing the reactor. But Hayden convinced President George W. Bush that bombing the site would result in all-out war, and who wants that?
Acting on its own, Israel destroyed the Syrian site (reportedly killing a group of North Korean experts in the process). Hayden was wrong about how Syria would react, as he later admitted. If Israel had been reasonable and listened to the CIA, Bashar al-Assad would have nuclear weapons right now.
Sunday, November 26, 2017
Thomas Jefferson on Government and the General Welfare
Thomas Jefferson was, unfortunately, prescient. We are no longer free.
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“They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare…. [G]iving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please.”
---------------------------------------------------
“They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare…. [G]iving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please.”
Judge Learned Hand
JLH got it right, unfortunately.
Too many of today's citizens prefer handouts to liberty.
----------------------------------------------------
“Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it.”
Too many of today's citizens prefer handouts to liberty.
----------------------------------------------------
“Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it.”
James Madison in 1788
James Madison got it right - unfortunately.
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“There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”
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“There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”
Benjamin Franklin knew it back then
Too bad, too many don't know this today.
----------------------------------------------------
“I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.”
----------------------------------------------------
“I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.”
John Adams in 1774
We have arrived, too bad.
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“Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people. When the people give way, their deceivers, betrayers, and destroyers press upon them so fast, that there is no resisting afterwards. The nature of the encroachment upon the American constitution is such, as to grow every day more and more encroaching. Like a cancer, it eats faster and faster every hour. The revenue creates pensioners, and the pensioners urge for more revenue. The people grow less steady, spirited, and virtuous, the seekers more numerous and more corrupt, and every day increases the circles of their dependents and expectants, until virtue, integrity, public spirit, simplicity, and frugality, become the objects of ridicule and scorn, and vanity, luxury, foppery, selfishness, meanness, and downright venality swallow up the whole society. “
-------------------------------------------
“Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people. When the people give way, their deceivers, betrayers, and destroyers press upon them so fast, that there is no resisting afterwards. The nature of the encroachment upon the American constitution is such, as to grow every day more and more encroaching. Like a cancer, it eats faster and faster every hour. The revenue creates pensioners, and the pensioners urge for more revenue. The people grow less steady, spirited, and virtuous, the seekers more numerous and more corrupt, and every day increases the circles of their dependents and expectants, until virtue, integrity, public spirit, simplicity, and frugality, become the objects of ridicule and scorn, and vanity, luxury, foppery, selfishness, meanness, and downright venality swallow up the whole society. “
Walter Williams scores yet again
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University.
---------------------------------------------
A common feature of our time is the extent to which many in our nation have become preoccupied with diversity. But true diversity obsession, almost a mania, is found at our institutions of higher learning. Rather than have a knee-jerk response for or against diversity, I think we should ask just what is diversity and whether it’s a good thing. How do we tell whether a college, a department or another unit within a college is diverse or not? What exemptions from diversity are permitted?
Seeing as college presidents and provosts are the main diversity pushers, we might start with their vision of diversity. Ask your average college president or provost whether he even bothers promoting political diversity among faculty. I’ll guarantee that if he is honest — and even bothers to answer the question — he will say no. According to a recent study, professors who are registered Democrats outnumber their Republican counterparts by a 12-1 ratio (http://tinyurl.com/gpp4svq). In some departments, such as history, Democratic professors outnumber their Republican counterparts by a 33-1 ratio.
The fact is that when college presidents and their diversity coterie talk about diversity, they’re talking mostly about pleasing mixtures of race. Years ago, they called their agenda affirmative action, racial preferences or racial quotas. Not only did these terms fall out of favor but also voters approved initiatives banning choosing by race. Courts found some of the choosing by race unconstitutional. That meant that the race people had to repackage their agenda. That repackaging became known as diversity. Some race people were bold enough to argue that “diversity” produces educational benefits to all students, including white students. Nobody has bothered to scientifically establish what those benefits are. For example, does a racially diverse student body lead to higher scores on graduate admissions tests, such as the GRE, LSAT and MCAT? By the way, Israel, Japan and South Korea are among the world’s least racially diverse nations. In terms of academic achievement, their students run circles around diversity-crazed Americans.
There is one area of college life where administrators demonstrate utter contempt for diversity, and that’s in sports. It is by no means unusual to watch a Saturday afternoon college basketball game and see that the starting five on both teams are black. White players, not to mention Asian players, are underrepresented. Similar underrepresentation is practiced in college football. Where you find whites overrepresented in both sports is on the cheerleading squads, which are mostly composed of white women. If you were to explore this lack of racial diversity in sports with a college president, he might answer, “We look for the best players, and it so happens that blacks dominate.” I would totally agree but ask him whether the same policy of choosing the best applies to the college’s admissions policy. Of course, the honest answer would be a flat-out no.
The most important issue related to college diversity obsession is what happens to black students. Black parents should not allow their sons and daughters to fall victim to the diversity hustle, even if the diversity hustler is a black official of the college. Black parents should not allow their sons and daughters to attend a college where they would not be admitted if they were white. A good rule of thumb is not to allow your children to attend a college where their SAT score is 200 or more points below the average of that college. Keep in mind that students are not qualified or unqualified in any absolute sense. There are more than 4,800 colleges — a college for most anybody. The bottom-line question for black parents and black people in general is: Which is better, a black student’s being admitted to an elite college and winding up in the bottom of his class or flunking out or being admitted to a less prestigious college and performing just as well as his white peers and graduating? I would opt for the latter. You might ask, “Williams, but how will the nation’s elite colleges fulfill their racial diversity needs?” My answer is that’s their problem.
---------------------------------------------
A common feature of our time is the extent to which many in our nation have become preoccupied with diversity. But true diversity obsession, almost a mania, is found at our institutions of higher learning. Rather than have a knee-jerk response for or against diversity, I think we should ask just what is diversity and whether it’s a good thing. How do we tell whether a college, a department or another unit within a college is diverse or not? What exemptions from diversity are permitted?
Seeing as college presidents and provosts are the main diversity pushers, we might start with their vision of diversity. Ask your average college president or provost whether he even bothers promoting political diversity among faculty. I’ll guarantee that if he is honest — and even bothers to answer the question — he will say no. According to a recent study, professors who are registered Democrats outnumber their Republican counterparts by a 12-1 ratio (http://tinyurl.com/gpp4svq). In some departments, such as history, Democratic professors outnumber their Republican counterparts by a 33-1 ratio.
The fact is that when college presidents and their diversity coterie talk about diversity, they’re talking mostly about pleasing mixtures of race. Years ago, they called their agenda affirmative action, racial preferences or racial quotas. Not only did these terms fall out of favor but also voters approved initiatives banning choosing by race. Courts found some of the choosing by race unconstitutional. That meant that the race people had to repackage their agenda. That repackaging became known as diversity. Some race people were bold enough to argue that “diversity” produces educational benefits to all students, including white students. Nobody has bothered to scientifically establish what those benefits are. For example, does a racially diverse student body lead to higher scores on graduate admissions tests, such as the GRE, LSAT and MCAT? By the way, Israel, Japan and South Korea are among the world’s least racially diverse nations. In terms of academic achievement, their students run circles around diversity-crazed Americans.
There is one area of college life where administrators demonstrate utter contempt for diversity, and that’s in sports. It is by no means unusual to watch a Saturday afternoon college basketball game and see that the starting five on both teams are black. White players, not to mention Asian players, are underrepresented. Similar underrepresentation is practiced in college football. Where you find whites overrepresented in both sports is on the cheerleading squads, which are mostly composed of white women. If you were to explore this lack of racial diversity in sports with a college president, he might answer, “We look for the best players, and it so happens that blacks dominate.” I would totally agree but ask him whether the same policy of choosing the best applies to the college’s admissions policy. Of course, the honest answer would be a flat-out no.
The most important issue related to college diversity obsession is what happens to black students. Black parents should not allow their sons and daughters to fall victim to the diversity hustle, even if the diversity hustler is a black official of the college. Black parents should not allow their sons and daughters to attend a college where they would not be admitted if they were white. A good rule of thumb is not to allow your children to attend a college where their SAT score is 200 or more points below the average of that college. Keep in mind that students are not qualified or unqualified in any absolute sense. There are more than 4,800 colleges — a college for most anybody. The bottom-line question for black parents and black people in general is: Which is better, a black student’s being admitted to an elite college and winding up in the bottom of his class or flunking out or being admitted to a less prestigious college and performing just as well as his white peers and graduating? I would opt for the latter. You might ask, “Williams, but how will the nation’s elite colleges fulfill their racial diversity needs?” My answer is that’s their problem.
Walter Williams gets it right again
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University.
Here is his column.
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When hunting was the major source of food, hunters often used stalking horses as a means of sneaking up on their prey. They would synchronize their steps on the side of the horse away from their prey until they were close enough for a good shot. A stalking horse had a double benefit if the prey was an armed person. If the stalkers were discovered, it would be the horse that took the first shot. That’s what blacks are to liberals and progressives in their efforts to transform America — stalking horses. Let’s look at it.
I’ll just list a few pieces of the leftist agenda that would be unachievable without black political support. Black people are the major victims of the grossly rotten education in our big-city schools. The average black 12th-grader can read, write and compute no better than a white seventh- or eighth-grader. Many black parents want better and safer schools for their children. According to a 2015 survey of black parents, 72 percent “favor public charter schools, and 70 percent favor a system that would create vouchers parents could use to cover tuition for those who want to enroll their children in a private or parochial school” (http://tinyurl.com/y7d57cbg). Black politicians and civil rights organizations fight tooth and nail against charter schools and education vouchers. Why? The National Education Association sees charters and vouchers as a threat to its education monopoly. It is able to use black politicians and civil rights organizations as stalking horses in its fight to protect its education monopoly.
The Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 was the nation’s first federally mandated minimum wage law. Its explicit intent was to discriminate against black construction workers. During the legislative debate on the Davis-Bacon Act, quite a few congressmen, along with union leaders, expressed their racist intentions. Rep. Miles Allgood, D-Ala., said: “Reference has been made to a contractor from Alabama who went to New York with bootleg labor. This is a fact. That contractor has cheap colored labor that he transports, and he puts them in cabins, and it is labor of that sort that is in competition with white labor throughout the country.” American Federation of Labor President William Green said, “Colored labor is being sought to demoralize wage rates.”
The Davis-Bacon Act is still law today. Supporters do not use the 1931 racist language to support it. Plus, nearly every black member of Congress supports the Davis-Bacon Act. But that does not change its racially discriminatory effects. In recent decades, the Davis-Bacon Act has been challenged, and it has prevailed. That would not be the case without unions’ political and financial support to black members of Congress to secure their votes.
Crime is a major problem in many black neighborhoods. In 2016, there were close to 8,000 blacks murdered, mostly by other blacks (http://tinyurl.com/y8snbfga). In that year, 233 blacks were killed by police. Which deaths receive the most attention from politicians, civil rights groups and white liberals and bring out marches, demonstrations and political pontification? It’s the blacks killed by police. There’s little protest against the horrible and dangerous conditions under which many poor and law-abiding black people must live. Political hustlers blame their condition on poverty and racism — ignoring the fact that poverty and racism were much greater yesteryear, when there was not nearly the same amount of chaos. Also ignored is the fact that the dangerous living conditions worsened under a black president’s administration.
There are several recommendations that I might make. The first and most important is that black Americans stop being useful tools for the leftist hate-America agenda. As for black politicians and civil rights leaders, if they’re going to sell their people down the river, they should demand a higher price. For example, if black congressmen vote in support of the Davis-Bacon Act, they ought to demand that construction unions give 30 percent of the jobs to black workers. Finally, many black problems are exacerbated by white liberal guilt. White liberals ought to stop feeling guilty so they can be more respectful in their relationships with black Americans.
Here is his column.
-------------------------------------------------------------
When hunting was the major source of food, hunters often used stalking horses as a means of sneaking up on their prey. They would synchronize their steps on the side of the horse away from their prey until they were close enough for a good shot. A stalking horse had a double benefit if the prey was an armed person. If the stalkers were discovered, it would be the horse that took the first shot. That’s what blacks are to liberals and progressives in their efforts to transform America — stalking horses. Let’s look at it.
I’ll just list a few pieces of the leftist agenda that would be unachievable without black political support. Black people are the major victims of the grossly rotten education in our big-city schools. The average black 12th-grader can read, write and compute no better than a white seventh- or eighth-grader. Many black parents want better and safer schools for their children. According to a 2015 survey of black parents, 72 percent “favor public charter schools, and 70 percent favor a system that would create vouchers parents could use to cover tuition for those who want to enroll their children in a private or parochial school” (http://tinyurl.com/y7d57cbg). Black politicians and civil rights organizations fight tooth and nail against charter schools and education vouchers. Why? The National Education Association sees charters and vouchers as a threat to its education monopoly. It is able to use black politicians and civil rights organizations as stalking horses in its fight to protect its education monopoly.
The Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 was the nation’s first federally mandated minimum wage law. Its explicit intent was to discriminate against black construction workers. During the legislative debate on the Davis-Bacon Act, quite a few congressmen, along with union leaders, expressed their racist intentions. Rep. Miles Allgood, D-Ala., said: “Reference has been made to a contractor from Alabama who went to New York with bootleg labor. This is a fact. That contractor has cheap colored labor that he transports, and he puts them in cabins, and it is labor of that sort that is in competition with white labor throughout the country.” American Federation of Labor President William Green said, “Colored labor is being sought to demoralize wage rates.”
The Davis-Bacon Act is still law today. Supporters do not use the 1931 racist language to support it. Plus, nearly every black member of Congress supports the Davis-Bacon Act. But that does not change its racially discriminatory effects. In recent decades, the Davis-Bacon Act has been challenged, and it has prevailed. That would not be the case without unions’ political and financial support to black members of Congress to secure their votes.
Crime is a major problem in many black neighborhoods. In 2016, there were close to 8,000 blacks murdered, mostly by other blacks (http://tinyurl.com/y8snbfga). In that year, 233 blacks were killed by police. Which deaths receive the most attention from politicians, civil rights groups and white liberals and bring out marches, demonstrations and political pontification? It’s the blacks killed by police. There’s little protest against the horrible and dangerous conditions under which many poor and law-abiding black people must live. Political hustlers blame their condition on poverty and racism — ignoring the fact that poverty and racism were much greater yesteryear, when there was not nearly the same amount of chaos. Also ignored is the fact that the dangerous living conditions worsened under a black president’s administration.
There are several recommendations that I might make. The first and most important is that black Americans stop being useful tools for the leftist hate-America agenda. As for black politicians and civil rights leaders, if they’re going to sell their people down the river, they should demand a higher price. For example, if black congressmen vote in support of the Davis-Bacon Act, they ought to demand that construction unions give 30 percent of the jobs to black workers. Finally, many black problems are exacerbated by white liberal guilt. White liberals ought to stop feeling guilty so they can be more respectful in their relationships with black Americans.
One of the few Harvard undergraduates with a brain
Laura Nicolae, class of 2020, studying applied mathematics, writing in the Crimson.
LN is on target. Unfortunately, too many of her classmates and the "Young Elite" are not.
---------------------------------------------------
In 1988, my twenty-six-year-old father jumped off a train in the middle of Hungary with nothing but the clothes on his back. For the next two years, he fled an oppressive Romanian Communist regime that would kill him if they ever laid hands on him again.
My father ran from a government that beat, tortured, and brainwashed its citizens. His childhood friend disappeared after scrawling an insult about the dictator on the school bathroom wall. His neighbors starved to death from food rations designed to combat “obesity.” As the population dwindled, women were sent to the hospital every month to make sure they were getting pregnant.
LN is on target. Unfortunately, too many of her classmates and the "Young Elite" are not.
---------------------------------------------------
In 1988, my twenty-six-year-old father jumped off a train in the middle of Hungary with nothing but the clothes on his back. For the next two years, he fled an oppressive Romanian Communist regime that would kill him if they ever laid hands on him again.
My father ran from a government that beat, tortured, and brainwashed its citizens. His childhood friend disappeared after scrawling an insult about the dictator on the school bathroom wall. His neighbors starved to death from food rations designed to combat “obesity.” As the population dwindled, women were sent to the hospital every month to make sure they were getting pregnant.
My father’s escape journey eventually led him to the United States. He moved to the Midwest and married a Romanian woman who had left for America the minute the regime collapsed. Today, my parents are doctors in quiet, suburban Kansas. Both of their daughters go to Harvard. They are the lucky ones.
Roughly 100 million people died at the hands of the ideology my parents escaped. They cannot tell their story. We owe it to them to recognize that this ideology is not a fad, and their deaths are not a joke.
Last month marked 100 years since the Bolshevik Revolution, though college culture would give you precisely the opposite impression. Depictions of communism on campus paint the ideology as revolutionary or idealistic, overlooking its authoritarian violence. Instead of deepening our understanding of the world, the college experience teaches us to reduce one of the most destructive ideologies in human history to a one-dimensional, sanitized narrative.
Walk around campus, and you’re likely to spot Ché Guevara on a few shirts and button pins. A sophomore jokes that he’s declared a secondary in “communist ideology and implementation.” The new Leftist Club on campus seeks “a modern perspective” on Marx and Lenin to “alleviate the stigma around the concept of Leftism.” An author laments in these pages that it’s too difficult to meet communists here. For many students, casually endorsing communism is a cool, edgy way to gripe about the world.
After spending four years on a campus saturated with Marxist memes and jokes about communist revolutions, my classmates will graduate with the impression that communism represents a light-hearted critique of the status quo, rather than an empirically violent philosophy that destroyed millions of lives.
Statistics show that young Americans are indeed oblivious to communism’s harrowing past. According to a YouGov poll, only half of millennials believe that communism was a problem, and about a third believe that President George W. Bush killed more people than Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, who killed 20 million. If you ask millennials how many people communism killed, 75 percent will undershoot.
Perhaps before joking about communist revolutions, we should remember that Stalin’s secret police tortured “traitors” in secret prisons by sticking needles under their fingernails or beating them until their bones were broken. Lenin seized food from the poor, causing a famine in the Soviet Union that induced desperate mothers to eat their own children and peasants to dig up corpses for food. In every country that communism was tried, it resulted in massacres, starvation, and terror.
Communism cannot be separated from oppression; in fact, it depends upon it. In the communist society, the collective is supreme. Personal autonomy is nonexistent. Human beings are simply cogs in a machine tasked with producing utopia; they have no value of their own.
Many in my generation have blurred the reality of communism with the illusion of utopia. I never had that luxury. Growing up, my understanding of communism was personalized; I could see its lasting impact in the faces of my family members telling stories of their past. My perspective toward the ideology is radically different because I know the people who survived it; my relatives continue to wonder about their friends who did not.
The stories of survivors paint a more vivid picture of communism than the textbooks my classmates have read. While we may never fully understand all of the atrocities that occurred under communist regimes, we can desperately try to ensure the world never repeats their mistakes. To that end, we must tell the accounts of survivors and fight the trivialization of communism’s bloody past.
My father left behind his parents, friends, and neighbors in the hope of finding freedom. I know his story because it is my heritage; you now know his story because I have a voice. One hundred million other people were silenced.
One hundred years later, let us not forget the history of the victims who do not have a voice because they did not survive the writing of their tales. Most importantly, let us not be tempted to repeat it.
Roughly 100 million people died at the hands of the ideology my parents escaped. They cannot tell their story. We owe it to them to recognize that this ideology is not a fad, and their deaths are not a joke.
Last month marked 100 years since the Bolshevik Revolution, though college culture would give you precisely the opposite impression. Depictions of communism on campus paint the ideology as revolutionary or idealistic, overlooking its authoritarian violence. Instead of deepening our understanding of the world, the college experience teaches us to reduce one of the most destructive ideologies in human history to a one-dimensional, sanitized narrative.
Walk around campus, and you’re likely to spot Ché Guevara on a few shirts and button pins. A sophomore jokes that he’s declared a secondary in “communist ideology and implementation.” The new Leftist Club on campus seeks “a modern perspective” on Marx and Lenin to “alleviate the stigma around the concept of Leftism.” An author laments in these pages that it’s too difficult to meet communists here. For many students, casually endorsing communism is a cool, edgy way to gripe about the world.
After spending four years on a campus saturated with Marxist memes and jokes about communist revolutions, my classmates will graduate with the impression that communism represents a light-hearted critique of the status quo, rather than an empirically violent philosophy that destroyed millions of lives.
Statistics show that young Americans are indeed oblivious to communism’s harrowing past. According to a YouGov poll, only half of millennials believe that communism was a problem, and about a third believe that President George W. Bush killed more people than Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, who killed 20 million. If you ask millennials how many people communism killed, 75 percent will undershoot.
Perhaps before joking about communist revolutions, we should remember that Stalin’s secret police tortured “traitors” in secret prisons by sticking needles under their fingernails or beating them until their bones were broken. Lenin seized food from the poor, causing a famine in the Soviet Union that induced desperate mothers to eat their own children and peasants to dig up corpses for food. In every country that communism was tried, it resulted in massacres, starvation, and terror.
Communism cannot be separated from oppression; in fact, it depends upon it. In the communist society, the collective is supreme. Personal autonomy is nonexistent. Human beings are simply cogs in a machine tasked with producing utopia; they have no value of their own.
Many in my generation have blurred the reality of communism with the illusion of utopia. I never had that luxury. Growing up, my understanding of communism was personalized; I could see its lasting impact in the faces of my family members telling stories of their past. My perspective toward the ideology is radically different because I know the people who survived it; my relatives continue to wonder about their friends who did not.
The stories of survivors paint a more vivid picture of communism than the textbooks my classmates have read. While we may never fully understand all of the atrocities that occurred under communist regimes, we can desperately try to ensure the world never repeats their mistakes. To that end, we must tell the accounts of survivors and fight the trivialization of communism’s bloody past.
My father left behind his parents, friends, and neighbors in the hope of finding freedom. I know his story because it is my heritage; you now know his story because I have a voice. One hundred million other people were silenced.
One hundred years later, let us not forget the history of the victims who do not have a voice because they did not survive the writing of their tales. Most importantly, let us not be tempted to repeat it.
Saturday, November 25, 2017
Restoring the rule of law in the Courts
Ilya Shapiro in the National Review.
IS is on target.
The most important contribution Trump can make is to increase the number of judges who are capable of interpreting the law instead of writing it.
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When Neil Gorsuch was nominated to the Supreme Court, pundits focused on two aspects of his judicial record: his dedication to textualism in statutory interpretation and his skepticism of the growth of the administrative state. These beliefs align the justice with a growing chorus of lawyers and academics who think the judiciary has become too deferential to executive agencies, allowing bureaucrats to interpret statutes contrary to how Congress wrote them.
IS is on target.
The most important contribution Trump can make is to increase the number of judges who are capable of interpreting the law instead of writing it.
----------------------------------------------------
When Neil Gorsuch was nominated to the Supreme Court, pundits focused on two aspects of his judicial record: his dedication to textualism in statutory interpretation and his skepticism of the growth of the administrative state. These beliefs align the justice with a growing chorus of lawyers and academics who think the judiciary has become too deferential to executive agencies, allowing bureaucrats to interpret statutes contrary to how Congress wrote them.
Well, later this month the Court will hear a case that, precisely because it doesn’t involve a hot-button issue such as immigration or transgender bathroom access, could be the perfect vehicle for reasserting judicial review of a relatively unfettered bureaucracy. Digital Realty v. Somers involves the question of who gets whistleblower protection under Dodd-Frank, an issue that is clearly addressed in the statute but has nonetheless bedeviled the courts, generating a jumble of contradictory rulings and confusion in the workplace.
Congress passed Dodd-Frank in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, and the law’s whistleblower provisions provide incentives for employees to report securities violations to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The goal was to strengthen the agency’s ability to prosecute the sorts of misdeeds that contributed to the crisis. Congress thus defined a “whistleblower” as an “individual who provides . . . information relating to a violation of the securities laws to the Commission.”
The current case involves a Dodd-Frank claim by a man named Paul Somers against his previous employer, Digital Realty Trust. Somers alleges that he was fired in 2014 for reporting violations of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (one of the laws covered by Dodd-Frank’s whistleblower provisions) to company management. Digital moved to dismiss this claim because Somers had failed to report the alleged violations “to the Commission” as the law requires.
Not only is this language clear in Dodd-Frank, but different provisions in Sarbanes-Oxley apply to internal whistleblowers. These protections require administrative review before a case reaches the federal courts, and they come with lower potential damages and a shorter statute of limitations. In other words, Congress determined that statutes incentivizing two different activities with distinct policy ramifications — reporting to the SEC versus to company executives or anyone else — should provide different protections.
The law’s plain language should have thwarted any attempt at administrative mischief, but the SEC was feeling particularly inspired as it promulgated rules for enforcing Dodd-Frank. The agency maintained Congress’s definition during the public-comment period of that process, but before the rule became final, the agency surreptitiously decided it could improve on Congress’s work. In the final rule, it expanded the anti-retaliation provision to include individuals who merely reported a violation — without necessarily reporting it to the SEC. The SEC gave no explanation or notice for this change, but simply ruled by fiat.
According to the SEC’s creative interpretation, people reporting protected activity to anyone — local police, their kid’s soccer coach, maybe even a think-tank scholar — qualify for Dodd-Frank’s whistleblower protections if they can claim a nexus between that reporting activity and the employer’s retaliatory behavior.
Some have attempted to justify this kind of overreach by invoking the Supreme Court’s 1984 ruling in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council. There, the high court held that agency interpretations are due judicial deference when (1) the statute is ambiguous and (2) the agency’s rule is reasonable. Neither condition applies here. Nevertheless, both the district court and the Ninth Circuit cited Chevron in rejecting Digital’s commonsense reading of the statute.
Thus the parties will argue over whether Congress meant to limit Dodd-Frank’s whistleblower protections to persons reporting violations to the SEC when Congress expressly defined a whistleblower as an individual who reports protected activity to the SEC. This case epitomizes how Chevron deference has gone too far. What started as a necessary tool for preventing courts from unduly meddling in administrative decision-making has warped into courts’ refraining from checking the executive branch altogether.
Reasonable people can disagree as to whether Congress got the law right. But it’s not an agency’s role to rewrite laws it dislikes.
The SEC essentially nullified Sarbanes-Oxley and unilaterally expanded Dodd-Frank’s whistleblower provisions. What self-respecting plaintiff’s attorney would pursue a Sarbanes-Oxley claim arising from internal reporting when Dodd-Frank’s easier, more lucrative path beckons? If an agency is entitled to deference under such circumstances — where the text is so clear and the rulemaking process so suspect — it raises questions about the whole enterprise of judicial review.
The SEC essentially nullified Sarbanes-Oxley and unilaterally expanded Dodd-Frank’s whistleblower provisions. What self-respecting plaintiff’s attorney would pursue a Sarbanes-Oxley claim arising from internal reporting when Dodd-Frank’s easier, more lucrative path beckons? If an agency is entitled to deference under such circumstances — where the text is so clear and the rulemaking process so suspect — it raises questions about the whole enterprise of judicial review.
While Digital Realty has played second fiddle to the flashier cases up this term, it may be the case with the most significant and long-lasting practical effects. Indeed, whether the justices scold lower courts for manufacturing ambiguity to trigger Chevron or call for a broader rethink of judicial deference — just so long as they don’t simply agree with the SEC’s statutory interpretation, which seems unlikely — it will bring us one step closer to restoring constitutional balance among the branches of government.
Sometimes big gifts arrive in small packages. Digital Realty v. Somers, one of this term’s “sleeper” cases, may just be the one Justice Gorsuch and his colleagues were waiting for.
This is what really matters
From Jake Novak at CNBC.
Judges that respect the law, particularly the Constitution, are far more important than passing legislation.
-------------------------------------------------
President Donald Trump should give special thanks to two U.S. Senators this Thanksgiving weekend. One is still serving in the Senate, the other recently retired. One is a Republican. The other a Democrat. And what should President Trump be thanking them for? Quite simply they have handed him one of the biggest victories any president could claim in the past 45 years.
Yes, this has happened even as one of the most widely covered stories of the past year has been President Trump's difficulties in working with Congress. The growing rift between him and Republican Senators John McCain, Jeff Flake, and Bob Corker alone has made headlines for months. For a U.S. president to have this many public feuds with senators from his own party this early in his presidency is really unprecedented and makes for hot news copy.
But that story ignores a bigger and longer-lasting development in the federal judiciary. That brings us first to naming the Republican gift giver: Senator Chuck Grassley from Iowa. The longtime member of Congress has big time clout as the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. And Grassley has just used that clout to eliminate one of the final hurdles in the already furious pace of Trump administration judicial appointments to the federal bench.
Late last week, Grassley decided not to honor a Senate tradition of holding up hearings for judicial nominees who aren't cleared by their own home state senators. That tradition is known as the "blue slip courtesy" born out of time before nationwide communication technology when a given state's senators had access to much more information about nominees than their colleagues from the rest of the country. Grassley correctly noted that Democrats were now trying to use the blue slips tradition to replace the filibuster, and he's having none of that. As recently as last month, the Democrats and much of the news media's punditry were expecting Grassley, who is no fan of the president, to keep the blue slip tradition in place. But Grassley gave Trump this very special gift instead.
And that brings us to the Democrat who provided the initial generous source of President Trump's solid triumph: Former Senate Majority Leader, and Democrat, Harry Reid. Reid is a major reason this good fortune has befallen President Trump because Reid was the one who killed the filibuster rule for judicial nominees in 2013. And when he killed it, it was gone for good.
Republicans were powerless to stop a series of President Obama's judicial nominees after that. That is, until they won control of the Senate in the 2014 elections. The GOP may have failed at using that majority to achieve much, especially making even a dent in Obamacare. But they were able to freeze the Obama nomination process in its tracks, most notably by delaying and eventually killing Merrick Garland's nomination for the Supreme Court.
That long period of confirmation obstruction has given President Trump a huge number of seats to fill; twice as many as President Obama's also large number of vacancies when he took office in 2009. The Christian Science Monitor reports this is likely the most vacancies for a president to fill in 40 years. And the Trump team hasn't been wasting much time.
For those who believe President Trump won the 2016 election thanks to a series of Democratic Party errors, this is cut from the exact same cloth.
Consider that as of November 3rd, 13 Trump nominees to the courts have been confirmed this year. The big name is Supreme Court Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, but we also have eight new federal appeals court judges, and four new U.S. district court judges. President Trump has now already surpassed the last four presidents' records for first-year judifical confirmations. And he's even tied President Ronald Reagan number of appeals court confirmations in year one.
But this isn't just about sheer numbers, it's about ideology too. While President Trump and conservatives have diverged in matters of policy several times over the past year, the judicial nomination process is decidedly not one of them. The nominees sent to the Senate from the White House are more conservative and even younger than what we saw during President George W. Bush's two terms in office.
In case the importance of making an impact on the courts is lost on anyone, just note the many setbacks the Trump administration has suffered this year alone thanks to the courts. Delays and changes to the White House-imposed travel and immigration bans have grabbed the most attention. But the administration is also dealing with judicial push back and other potential hurdles on everything from its opposition to the AT&T-Time Warner merger to its transgender military ban.
Now fast forward a couple of years where the Trump judicial appointment surge will have set in across the federal system. Just for this administration alone, that could make a huge difference. And for conservative causes and cases over time, it will be even more significant.
Sure, the tax reform and Obamacare repeal bills may be jeopardized by internal spats between the GOP and the White House. But real history is being made in the courts all thanks to a bad bet made by Senator Reid and remarkable cooperation between the Trump team, Senator Grassley, and Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. While the fights with other senators like Flake et al may grab headlines, these judicial confirmations will have a much bigger impact.
And unless the Democrats win control of the Senate in 2018, there's nothing they can do about it.
So on this Thanksgiving weekend the most grateful person in America should be President Trump. An unlikely set of benefactors has truly given him the political gift that will keep on giving.
Judges that respect the law, particularly the Constitution, are far more important than passing legislation.
-------------------------------------------------
President Donald Trump should give special thanks to two U.S. Senators this Thanksgiving weekend. One is still serving in the Senate, the other recently retired. One is a Republican. The other a Democrat. And what should President Trump be thanking them for? Quite simply they have handed him one of the biggest victories any president could claim in the past 45 years.
Yes, this has happened even as one of the most widely covered stories of the past year has been President Trump's difficulties in working with Congress. The growing rift between him and Republican Senators John McCain, Jeff Flake, and Bob Corker alone has made headlines for months. For a U.S. president to have this many public feuds with senators from his own party this early in his presidency is really unprecedented and makes for hot news copy.
But that story ignores a bigger and longer-lasting development in the federal judiciary. That brings us first to naming the Republican gift giver: Senator Chuck Grassley from Iowa. The longtime member of Congress has big time clout as the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. And Grassley has just used that clout to eliminate one of the final hurdles in the already furious pace of Trump administration judicial appointments to the federal bench.
Late last week, Grassley decided not to honor a Senate tradition of holding up hearings for judicial nominees who aren't cleared by their own home state senators. That tradition is known as the "blue slip courtesy" born out of time before nationwide communication technology when a given state's senators had access to much more information about nominees than their colleagues from the rest of the country. Grassley correctly noted that Democrats were now trying to use the blue slips tradition to replace the filibuster, and he's having none of that. As recently as last month, the Democrats and much of the news media's punditry were expecting Grassley, who is no fan of the president, to keep the blue slip tradition in place. But Grassley gave Trump this very special gift instead.
And that brings us to the Democrat who provided the initial generous source of President Trump's solid triumph: Former Senate Majority Leader, and Democrat, Harry Reid. Reid is a major reason this good fortune has befallen President Trump because Reid was the one who killed the filibuster rule for judicial nominees in 2013. And when he killed it, it was gone for good.
Republicans were powerless to stop a series of President Obama's judicial nominees after that. That is, until they won control of the Senate in the 2014 elections. The GOP may have failed at using that majority to achieve much, especially making even a dent in Obamacare. But they were able to freeze the Obama nomination process in its tracks, most notably by delaying and eventually killing Merrick Garland's nomination for the Supreme Court.
That long period of confirmation obstruction has given President Trump a huge number of seats to fill; twice as many as President Obama's also large number of vacancies when he took office in 2009. The Christian Science Monitor reports this is likely the most vacancies for a president to fill in 40 years. And the Trump team hasn't been wasting much time.
For those who believe President Trump won the 2016 election thanks to a series of Democratic Party errors, this is cut from the exact same cloth.
Consider that as of November 3rd, 13 Trump nominees to the courts have been confirmed this year. The big name is Supreme Court Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, but we also have eight new federal appeals court judges, and four new U.S. district court judges. President Trump has now already surpassed the last four presidents' records for first-year judifical confirmations. And he's even tied President Ronald Reagan number of appeals court confirmations in year one.
But this isn't just about sheer numbers, it's about ideology too. While President Trump and conservatives have diverged in matters of policy several times over the past year, the judicial nomination process is decidedly not one of them. The nominees sent to the Senate from the White House are more conservative and even younger than what we saw during President George W. Bush's two terms in office.
In case the importance of making an impact on the courts is lost on anyone, just note the many setbacks the Trump administration has suffered this year alone thanks to the courts. Delays and changes to the White House-imposed travel and immigration bans have grabbed the most attention. But the administration is also dealing with judicial push back and other potential hurdles on everything from its opposition to the AT&T-Time Warner merger to its transgender military ban.
Now fast forward a couple of years where the Trump judicial appointment surge will have set in across the federal system. Just for this administration alone, that could make a huge difference. And for conservative causes and cases over time, it will be even more significant.
Sure, the tax reform and Obamacare repeal bills may be jeopardized by internal spats between the GOP and the White House. But real history is being made in the courts all thanks to a bad bet made by Senator Reid and remarkable cooperation between the Trump team, Senator Grassley, and Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. While the fights with other senators like Flake et al may grab headlines, these judicial confirmations will have a much bigger impact.
And unless the Democrats win control of the Senate in 2018, there's nothing they can do about it.
So on this Thanksgiving weekend the most grateful person in America should be President Trump. An unlikely set of benefactors has truly given him the political gift that will keep on giving.
Friday, November 24, 2017
The Economist on the inheritance tax – an example of non-think
Here is an Economist article, with my comments in italics.
The remarkable thing about the article is its lack of consideration of basic economic theory and a failure to focus on what produces a high standard of living for most of the people over time. Instead it falls into the trap of basing policy on “fairness”, “equality” and other subjective and economically irrelevant issues. The problem with the latter is that it leads to policies that feel good but make most people worse off over time. “feel good” is a poor substitute for useful analysis.
Another remarkable aspect is the incompatibility of the authors’ expressed opinions and preferences with freedom.
------------------------------------------------------------
No Tax is popular. But one attracts particular venom. Inheritance tax is routinely seen as the least fair by Britons and Americans. This hostility spans income brackets. Indeed, surveys suggest that opposition to inheritance and estate taxes (one levied on heirs and the other on legacies) is even stronger among the poor than the rich.
Politicians know a vote-winner when they see one. The estate of a dead adult American is 95% less likely to face tax now than in the 1960s. And Republicans want to go all the way: the House of Representatives has passed a tax-reform plan that would completely abolish “death taxes” by 2025. For a time before the second world war, Britons were more likely to pay death duties than income tax; today less than 5% of estates catch the taxman’s eye. It is not just Anglo-Saxons. Revenue from these taxes in OECD countries, as a share of total government revenue, has fallen sharply since the 1960s (see article). Many other countries have gone down the same path. In 2004 even the egalitarian Swedes decided that their inheritance tax should be abolished.
There is good reason for this. Inheritance taxes penalize those who save and invest vs. those who consume. It is the former that produce economic growth that benefits all.
Yet this trend towards trifling or zero estate taxes ought to give pause. Such levies pit two vital liberal principles against each other. One is that governments should leave people to dispose of their wealth as they see fit. The other is that a permanent, hereditary elite makes a society unhealthy and unfair. How to choose between them?
The two “vital liberal principles” should be characterized as freedom versus theft.
Government should leave people to dispose of their wealth as they see fit – just as it leaves people to spend their wealth as they see fit while they are alive. Spending wealth now is no different from giving it to someone else to spend later. Inheritance taxes encouraging consumption now versus investment now, which reduces economic growth, creates fewer jobs, and reduces the standard of living for the average citizen.
A permanent hereditary elite does not exist. It is a hypothetical that ignores the tendency of wealth to grow more slowly than family members and ignores the diverse views of those family members. Where are the rich descendants of railroad barons, etc.
An “unhealthy society” is a meaningless substitute for analysis, as is “hereditary elite”. “Fair” is always in the eye of the beholder and has no analytical value.
The remarkable thing about the article is its lack of consideration of basic economic theory and a failure to focus on what produces a high standard of living for most of the people over time. Instead it falls into the trap of basing policy on “fairness”, “equality” and other subjective and economically irrelevant issues. The problem with the latter is that it leads to policies that feel good but make most people worse off over time. “feel good” is a poor substitute for useful analysis.
Another remarkable aspect is the incompatibility of the authors’ expressed opinions and preferences with freedom.
------------------------------------------------------------
No Tax is popular. But one attracts particular venom. Inheritance tax is routinely seen as the least fair by Britons and Americans. This hostility spans income brackets. Indeed, surveys suggest that opposition to inheritance and estate taxes (one levied on heirs and the other on legacies) is even stronger among the poor than the rich.
Politicians know a vote-winner when they see one. The estate of a dead adult American is 95% less likely to face tax now than in the 1960s. And Republicans want to go all the way: the House of Representatives has passed a tax-reform plan that would completely abolish “death taxes” by 2025. For a time before the second world war, Britons were more likely to pay death duties than income tax; today less than 5% of estates catch the taxman’s eye. It is not just Anglo-Saxons. Revenue from these taxes in OECD countries, as a share of total government revenue, has fallen sharply since the 1960s (see article). Many other countries have gone down the same path. In 2004 even the egalitarian Swedes decided that their inheritance tax should be abolished.
There is good reason for this. Inheritance taxes penalize those who save and invest vs. those who consume. It is the former that produce economic growth that benefits all.
Yet this trend towards trifling or zero estate taxes ought to give pause. Such levies pit two vital liberal principles against each other. One is that governments should leave people to dispose of their wealth as they see fit. The other is that a permanent, hereditary elite makes a society unhealthy and unfair. How to choose between them?
The two “vital liberal principles” should be characterized as freedom versus theft.
Government should leave people to dispose of their wealth as they see fit – just as it leaves people to spend their wealth as they see fit while they are alive. Spending wealth now is no different from giving it to someone else to spend later. Inheritance taxes encouraging consumption now versus investment now, which reduces economic growth, creates fewer jobs, and reduces the standard of living for the average citizen.
A permanent hereditary elite does not exist. It is a hypothetical that ignores the tendency of wealth to grow more slowly than family members and ignores the diverse views of those family members. Where are the rich descendants of railroad barons, etc.
An “unhealthy society” is a meaningless substitute for analysis, as is “hereditary elite”. “Fair” is always in the eye of the beholder and has no analytical value.
Thursday, November 23, 2017
George Will: Another year of American hilarity
George Will in the Washington Post.
You can't make this stuff up.
We are doomed.
----------------------------------------
Tryptophan, an amino acid in turkey, is unjustly blamed for what mere gluttony does, making Americans comatose every fourth Thursday in November. But before nodding off, give thanks for another year of American hilarity, including:
A company curried favor with advanced thinkers by commissioning for Manhattan’s financial district the “Fearless Girl” bronze statue, which exalts female intrepidity in the face of a rampant bull (representing (1) a surging stock market or (2) toxic masculinity). Then the company paid a $5 million settlement, mostly for paying 305 female executives less than men in comparable positions. New York’s decrepit subway system took action: Henceforth, gender-neutral announcements will address “passengers” rather than “ladies and gentlemen.” Washington’s subway banned a civil liberties group’s ad consisting entirely of the text of the First Amendment, which ostensibly violated the rule against ads “intended to influence members of the public regarding an issue on which there are varying opinions.”
California now can jail certain caregivers who “willfully and repeatedly fail to use a resident’s preferred name or pronouns.” A Massachusetts librarian rejected a donation of Dr. Seuss books because they are “steeped in racist propaganda,” and the New Yorker discovered that “Thomas the Tank Engine” is “authoritarian.” Always alert about planetary crises, the New Yorker also reported: “The world is running out of sand.”
A food truck offering free lunches to workers cleaning up after Hurricane Irma was banished from a Florida town because its operator had no government permit to do that. United Airlines said: Assault? Don’t be misled by your eyes. That passenger dragged off the plane was just being “re-accommodated.”
Even Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) went to Mississippi, to the Nissan plant in Canton, to help the United Automobile Workers with yet another attempt to convince Southern workers of the delights of unionization. The workers, 80 percent of whom are black, voted 2-to-1 against the UAW. A New York Times tweet about the South reported a shooting at a nightclub “in downtown Arkansas.” Louisiana’s Democratic Party joined the virtue-signaling by changing the name of its Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner.
In toney and oh-so-progressive Malibu, Calif., the city council voted to become a sanctuary city. The councilwoman who made the motion for protecting illegal immigrants said: “Our city depends on a Hispanic population to support our comfortable lifestyle.” In more-progressive-than-thou Oregon, where you can get state-subsidized gender reassignment surgery at age 15 without parental permission, the legislature made 21 the age at which adults can buy cigarettes.
UCLA researchers warned that because Americans’ pets eat meat, they endanger the planet by generating 64 million tons of carbon dioxide. Forty-two years after the government began (with fuel economy standards) trying to push Americans into gas-sipping cars, the three best-selling vehicles were the Ford, Chevrolet and Ram pickup trucks. A year after a NASA climatologist (from the “settled” science of climate) said California was “in a drought forever,” torrential rains threatened to break dams.
Pierce College in Los Angeles was sued after it prevented a student from giving away Spanish-language copies of the U.S. Constitution because he was outside the .003 percent of the campus designated a “free speech zone.” Two years after social justice warriors convulsed the University of Missouri in Columbia, freshman enrollment was down 35 percent. An Arizona State University professor allowed some students in her human rights class to stage anti-Donald Trump protests in lieu of final exams. The University of Arizona guide directed instructors to encourage students to say “ouch” when something said in class hurts their feelings. Clemson University’s diversity training washed brains with this idea: Expecting punctuality might be insensitive because in some cultures time is considered “fluid.” The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that student snowflakes are not the only victims of academic suffering. It seems that after the nine-month school year, professors endure isolation, solitude and depression during their three-month vacations.
Massachusetts continues to be surprised that the smuggling of cigarettes into the state increased when state cigarette taxes increased. Although San Francisco’s hourly minimum wage has not yet reached its destination of $15, the city is surprised that so many small businesses have closed. McDonald’s probably was not surprised when its shares surged after it announced plans to replace cashiers with digital ordering kiosks in 2,500 restaurants.
Finally, Domino’s Pizza is going to need bigger menus. Government labeling regulations require calorie counts for every variation of items sold, which Domino’s says (counting different topping and crusts) includes about 34 million possible combinations. None, however, has excessive tryptophan.
You can't make this stuff up.
We are doomed.
----------------------------------------
Tryptophan, an amino acid in turkey, is unjustly blamed for what mere gluttony does, making Americans comatose every fourth Thursday in November. But before nodding off, give thanks for another year of American hilarity, including:
A company curried favor with advanced thinkers by commissioning for Manhattan’s financial district the “Fearless Girl” bronze statue, which exalts female intrepidity in the face of a rampant bull (representing (1) a surging stock market or (2) toxic masculinity). Then the company paid a $5 million settlement, mostly for paying 305 female executives less than men in comparable positions. New York’s decrepit subway system took action: Henceforth, gender-neutral announcements will address “passengers” rather than “ladies and gentlemen.” Washington’s subway banned a civil liberties group’s ad consisting entirely of the text of the First Amendment, which ostensibly violated the rule against ads “intended to influence members of the public regarding an issue on which there are varying opinions.”
California now can jail certain caregivers who “willfully and repeatedly fail to use a resident’s preferred name or pronouns.” A Massachusetts librarian rejected a donation of Dr. Seuss books because they are “steeped in racist propaganda,” and the New Yorker discovered that “Thomas the Tank Engine” is “authoritarian.” Always alert about planetary crises, the New Yorker also reported: “The world is running out of sand.”
A food truck offering free lunches to workers cleaning up after Hurricane Irma was banished from a Florida town because its operator had no government permit to do that. United Airlines said: Assault? Don’t be misled by your eyes. That passenger dragged off the plane was just being “re-accommodated.”
Even Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) went to Mississippi, to the Nissan plant in Canton, to help the United Automobile Workers with yet another attempt to convince Southern workers of the delights of unionization. The workers, 80 percent of whom are black, voted 2-to-1 against the UAW. A New York Times tweet about the South reported a shooting at a nightclub “in downtown Arkansas.” Louisiana’s Democratic Party joined the virtue-signaling by changing the name of its Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner.
In toney and oh-so-progressive Malibu, Calif., the city council voted to become a sanctuary city. The councilwoman who made the motion for protecting illegal immigrants said: “Our city depends on a Hispanic population to support our comfortable lifestyle.” In more-progressive-than-thou Oregon, where you can get state-subsidized gender reassignment surgery at age 15 without parental permission, the legislature made 21 the age at which adults can buy cigarettes.
UCLA researchers warned that because Americans’ pets eat meat, they endanger the planet by generating 64 million tons of carbon dioxide. Forty-two years after the government began (with fuel economy standards) trying to push Americans into gas-sipping cars, the three best-selling vehicles were the Ford, Chevrolet and Ram pickup trucks. A year after a NASA climatologist (from the “settled” science of climate) said California was “in a drought forever,” torrential rains threatened to break dams.
Pierce College in Los Angeles was sued after it prevented a student from giving away Spanish-language copies of the U.S. Constitution because he was outside the .003 percent of the campus designated a “free speech zone.” Two years after social justice warriors convulsed the University of Missouri in Columbia, freshman enrollment was down 35 percent. An Arizona State University professor allowed some students in her human rights class to stage anti-Donald Trump protests in lieu of final exams. The University of Arizona guide directed instructors to encourage students to say “ouch” when something said in class hurts their feelings. Clemson University’s diversity training washed brains with this idea: Expecting punctuality might be insensitive because in some cultures time is considered “fluid.” The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that student snowflakes are not the only victims of academic suffering. It seems that after the nine-month school year, professors endure isolation, solitude and depression during their three-month vacations.
Massachusetts continues to be surprised that the smuggling of cigarettes into the state increased when state cigarette taxes increased. Although San Francisco’s hourly minimum wage has not yet reached its destination of $15, the city is surprised that so many small businesses have closed. McDonald’s probably was not surprised when its shares surged after it announced plans to replace cashiers with digital ordering kiosks in 2,500 restaurants.
Finally, Domino’s Pizza is going to need bigger menus. Government labeling regulations require calorie counts for every variation of items sold, which Domino’s says (counting different topping and crusts) includes about 34 million possible combinations. None, however, has excessive tryptophan.
Net Neutrality: An example of politicians serving special interests at your expense
The Trump Administration has torpedoed Net Neutrality, and rightfully so.
Here is an article by Jeffrey Tucker at the Foundation for Economic Education that puts Net Neutrality in perspective.
----------------------------------------
At long last, with the end of “net neutrality,” competition could soon come to the industry that delivers Internet services to you. You might be able to pick among a range of packages, some minimalist and some maximalist, depending on how you use the service. Or you could choose a package that charges based only on what you consume, rather than sharing fees with everyone else.
Internet socialism is dead; long live market forces.
With market-based pricing finally permitted, we could see new entrants to the industry because it might make economic sense for the first time to innovate. The growing competition will lead, over the long run, to innovation and falling prices. Consumers will find themselves in the driver’s seat rather than crawling and begging for service and paying whatever the provider demands.
Ajit Pai, chairman of the FCC, is exactly right. “Under my proposal, the federal government will stop micromanaging the internet. Instead, the F.C.C. would simply require internet service providers to be transparent about their practices so that consumers can buy the service plan that’s best for them.”
A Fed for Communication
The old rules pushed by the Obama administration had locked down the industry with regulation that only helped incumbent service providers and major content delivery services. They called it a triumph of “free expression and democratic principles.” It was anything but. It was actually a power grab. It created an Internet communication cartel not unlike the way the banking system works under the Federal Reserve.
Net Neutrality had the backing of all the top names in content delivery, from Google to Yahoo to Netflix to Amazon. It’s had the quiet support of the leading Internet service providers Comcast and Verizon. The opposition, in contrast, had been represented by small players in the industry, hardware providers like Cisco, free-market think tanks and disinterested professors, and a small group of writers and pundits who know something about freedom and free-market economics.
The public at large should have been rising up in opposition, but people were largely ignorant of what was going on with net neutrality. Consumers imagined that they would get censorship-free access and low prices. That’s not what happened.
Here’s what’s was really going on with net neutrality. The incumbent rulers of the world’s most exciting technology decided to lock down the prevailing market conditions to protect themselves against rising upstarts in a fast-changing market. The imposition of a rule against throttling content or using the market price system to allocate bandwidth resources protects against innovations that would disrupt the status quo.
Industrial Giants
What was sold as economic fairness and a wonderful favor to consumers was actually a sop to industrial giants who were seeking untrammeled access to your wallet and an end to competitive threats to market power.
Let’s grasp the position of the large content providers. Here we see the obvious special interests at work. Netflix, Amazon, and the rest don’t want ISPs to charge either them or their consumers for their high-bandwidth content. They would rather the ISPs themselves absorb the higher costs of such provision. It’s very clear how getting the government to make price discrimination illegal is in their interest. It means no threats to their business model.
By analogy, let’s imagine that a retailer furniture company were in a position to offload all their shipping costs to the trucking industry. By government decree, the truckers were not permitted to charge any more or less whether they were shipping one chair or a whole houseful of furniture. Would the furniture sellers favor such a deal? Absolutely. They could call this “furniture neutrality” and fob it off on the public as preventing control of furniture by the shipping industry.
But that leaves the question about why the opposition from the ISPs themselves (the truckers by analogy) would either be silent or quietly in favor of such a rule change. Here is where matters get complicated. After many years of experimentation in the provision of Internet services — times when we went from telephone dial-up to landlines to T1 connections to 4G and 5G data coverage — the winner in the market (for now) has been the cable companies. Consumers prefer the speed and bandwidth over all existing options.
But what about the future? What kind of services are going to replace the cable services, which are by-and-large monopolies due to special privileges from states and localities? It’s hard to know for sure but there are some impressive ideas out there. Costs are falling for all kinds of wireless and even distributed systems.
Raising Costs
If you are a dominant player in the market — an incumbent firm like Comcast and Verizon — you really face two threats to your business model. You have to keep your existing consumer base onboard and you have to protect against upstarts seeking to poach consumers from you.
For established firms, a rule like net neutrality can raise the costs of doing business, but there is a wonderful upside to this: your future potential competitors face the same costs. You are in a much better position to absorb higher costs than those barking at your heels. This means that you can slow down development, cool it on your investments in fiber optics, and generally rest on your laurels more.
But how can you sell such a nefarious plan? You get in good with the regulators. You support the idea in general, with some reservations, while tweaking the legislation in your favor. You know full well that this raises the costs to new competitors. When it passes, call it a vote for the “open internet” that will “preserve the right to communicate freely online.”
Neutrality was Deceptive
But when you look closely at the effects, the reality was exactly the opposite. Net neutrality closed down market competition by generally putting government and its corporate backers in charge of deciding who can and cannot play in the market. It erected barriers to entry for upstart firms while hugely subsidizing the largest and most well-heeled content providers.
So what are the costs to the rest of us? It meant no price reductions in internet service. It could mean the opposite. Your bills went up and there was very little competition. It also meant a slowing down in the pace of technological development due to the reduction in competition that followed the imposition of this rule. In other words, it was like all government regulation: most of the costs were unseen, and the benefits were concentrated in the hands of the ruling class.
There was an additional threat: the FCC had reclassified the internet as a public utility. It meant a blank check for government control across the board. Think of the medical marketplace, which is now entirely owned by a non-competitive cartel of industry insiders. This was the future of the internet under net neutrality.
Good riddance, then. No more government-managed control of the industry. No more price fixing. No more of the largest players using government power to protect their monopoly structure.
In the short term, the shift by the FCC does not mean the immediate emergence of a free marketplace for Internet service. But it is a step. If we let this experiment in liberalization run a few years, we will see massive new entrants into the sector. As with every good or service provided by market forces, consumers will gain the benefit of innovation and falling prices.
The end of net neutrality is the best single deregulatory initiative yet taken by the Trump administration. The simultaneous, contradictory, and economically absurd attempt by the Justice Department to stop the merger of Time-/Warner and AT&T–which might only be a government attempt to punish CNN and therefore an abuse of presidential power–is another matter for another time.
We should take our deregulation where we can get it.
Here is an article by Jeffrey Tucker at the Foundation for Economic Education that puts Net Neutrality in perspective.
----------------------------------------
At long last, with the end of “net neutrality,” competition could soon come to the industry that delivers Internet services to you. You might be able to pick among a range of packages, some minimalist and some maximalist, depending on how you use the service. Or you could choose a package that charges based only on what you consume, rather than sharing fees with everyone else.
Internet socialism is dead; long live market forces.
With market-based pricing finally permitted, we could see new entrants to the industry because it might make economic sense for the first time to innovate. The growing competition will lead, over the long run, to innovation and falling prices. Consumers will find themselves in the driver’s seat rather than crawling and begging for service and paying whatever the provider demands.
Ajit Pai, chairman of the FCC, is exactly right. “Under my proposal, the federal government will stop micromanaging the internet. Instead, the F.C.C. would simply require internet service providers to be transparent about their practices so that consumers can buy the service plan that’s best for them.”
A Fed for Communication
The old rules pushed by the Obama administration had locked down the industry with regulation that only helped incumbent service providers and major content delivery services. They called it a triumph of “free expression and democratic principles.” It was anything but. It was actually a power grab. It created an Internet communication cartel not unlike the way the banking system works under the Federal Reserve.
Net Neutrality had the backing of all the top names in content delivery, from Google to Yahoo to Netflix to Amazon. It’s had the quiet support of the leading Internet service providers Comcast and Verizon. The opposition, in contrast, had been represented by small players in the industry, hardware providers like Cisco, free-market think tanks and disinterested professors, and a small group of writers and pundits who know something about freedom and free-market economics.
The public at large should have been rising up in opposition, but people were largely ignorant of what was going on with net neutrality. Consumers imagined that they would get censorship-free access and low prices. That’s not what happened.
Here’s what’s was really going on with net neutrality. The incumbent rulers of the world’s most exciting technology decided to lock down the prevailing market conditions to protect themselves against rising upstarts in a fast-changing market. The imposition of a rule against throttling content or using the market price system to allocate bandwidth resources protects against innovations that would disrupt the status quo.
Industrial Giants
What was sold as economic fairness and a wonderful favor to consumers was actually a sop to industrial giants who were seeking untrammeled access to your wallet and an end to competitive threats to market power.
Let’s grasp the position of the large content providers. Here we see the obvious special interests at work. Netflix, Amazon, and the rest don’t want ISPs to charge either them or their consumers for their high-bandwidth content. They would rather the ISPs themselves absorb the higher costs of such provision. It’s very clear how getting the government to make price discrimination illegal is in their interest. It means no threats to their business model.
By analogy, let’s imagine that a retailer furniture company were in a position to offload all their shipping costs to the trucking industry. By government decree, the truckers were not permitted to charge any more or less whether they were shipping one chair or a whole houseful of furniture. Would the furniture sellers favor such a deal? Absolutely. They could call this “furniture neutrality” and fob it off on the public as preventing control of furniture by the shipping industry.
But that leaves the question about why the opposition from the ISPs themselves (the truckers by analogy) would either be silent or quietly in favor of such a rule change. Here is where matters get complicated. After many years of experimentation in the provision of Internet services — times when we went from telephone dial-up to landlines to T1 connections to 4G and 5G data coverage — the winner in the market (for now) has been the cable companies. Consumers prefer the speed and bandwidth over all existing options.
But what about the future? What kind of services are going to replace the cable services, which are by-and-large monopolies due to special privileges from states and localities? It’s hard to know for sure but there are some impressive ideas out there. Costs are falling for all kinds of wireless and even distributed systems.
Raising Costs
If you are a dominant player in the market — an incumbent firm like Comcast and Verizon — you really face two threats to your business model. You have to keep your existing consumer base onboard and you have to protect against upstarts seeking to poach consumers from you.
For established firms, a rule like net neutrality can raise the costs of doing business, but there is a wonderful upside to this: your future potential competitors face the same costs. You are in a much better position to absorb higher costs than those barking at your heels. This means that you can slow down development, cool it on your investments in fiber optics, and generally rest on your laurels more.
But how can you sell such a nefarious plan? You get in good with the regulators. You support the idea in general, with some reservations, while tweaking the legislation in your favor. You know full well that this raises the costs to new competitors. When it passes, call it a vote for the “open internet” that will “preserve the right to communicate freely online.”
Neutrality was Deceptive
But when you look closely at the effects, the reality was exactly the opposite. Net neutrality closed down market competition by generally putting government and its corporate backers in charge of deciding who can and cannot play in the market. It erected barriers to entry for upstart firms while hugely subsidizing the largest and most well-heeled content providers.
So what are the costs to the rest of us? It meant no price reductions in internet service. It could mean the opposite. Your bills went up and there was very little competition. It also meant a slowing down in the pace of technological development due to the reduction in competition that followed the imposition of this rule. In other words, it was like all government regulation: most of the costs were unseen, and the benefits were concentrated in the hands of the ruling class.
There was an additional threat: the FCC had reclassified the internet as a public utility. It meant a blank check for government control across the board. Think of the medical marketplace, which is now entirely owned by a non-competitive cartel of industry insiders. This was the future of the internet under net neutrality.
Good riddance, then. No more government-managed control of the industry. No more price fixing. No more of the largest players using government power to protect their monopoly structure.
In the short term, the shift by the FCC does not mean the immediate emergence of a free marketplace for Internet service. But it is a step. If we let this experiment in liberalization run a few years, we will see massive new entrants into the sector. As with every good or service provided by market forces, consumers will gain the benefit of innovation and falling prices.
The end of net neutrality is the best single deregulatory initiative yet taken by the Trump administration. The simultaneous, contradictory, and economically absurd attempt by the Justice Department to stop the merger of Time-/Warner and AT&T–which might only be a government attempt to punish CNN and therefore an abuse of presidential power–is another matter for another time.
We should take our deregulation where we can get it.
Tax Dumbth
Veronique De Rugy in the National Review.
VDR is on target. Law Makers can be relied upon to mess things up.
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There are a lot of things I don’t like in the House and the Senate tax bills. I haven’t been shy about them. Yet even I recognize that the parts of the bills that are bad economics may be politically necessary in order to get two of the most important features of the reform proposals:
While the House and the Senate bills have different approaches to tackling these issues, both chambers deserve some credit for sticking to their guns. This is particularly true for SALT (the Senate plan would eliminate SALT and the House plan would keep a limited property-tax deduction) considering the extreme pressure from special-interest groups. Besides, the president has made it clear that a 20 percent corporate tax rate is the highest he will accept.
What on earth is Senator Collins talking about? Middle-class earners aren’t the ones benefiting from SALT. As I wrote recently:
Since the number of filers who itemize will drop significantly if the standard deduction is doubled, there will be fewer taxpayers claiming the deduction in the first place. In addition, a majority of those itemizing and claiming the deduction will benefit from lower marginal rates overall. To be sure, there will be some losers, but they are likely to be seriously high-income earners. Now you know me. I am not in favor of jacking up higher-income earners’ marginal tax rates to raise revenue in order to pay for counter-productive tax handouts.
VDR is on target. Law Makers can be relied upon to mess things up.
--------------------------------------------
There are a lot of things I don’t like in the House and the Senate tax bills. I haven’t been shy about them. Yet even I recognize that the parts of the bills that are bad economics may be politically necessary in order to get two of the most important features of the reform proposals:
a) A permanent reduction of the corporate tax rate to 20 percent from its current 35 percent and
b) the reduction or elimination of the state and local tax deductions (SALT).
The corporate-tax-rate cut is the most pro-growth provision in the tax-reform bills. It will trigger economic growth and some wage increases, improve competitiveness, and reduce corporate malinvestment and tax avoidance. The elimination of SALT will simplify taxes by getting rid of a profound unfairness and distortion in our tax code.
While the House and the Senate bills have different approaches to tackling these issues, both chambers deserve some credit for sticking to their guns. This is particularly true for SALT (the Senate plan would eliminate SALT and the House plan would keep a limited property-tax deduction) considering the extreme pressure from special-interest groups. Besides, the president has made it clear that a 20 percent corporate tax rate is the highest he will accept.
This is why I was puzzled to hear yesterday that Senator Susan Collins (R., Maine) is now arguing that we should settle on a higher corporate tax rate and use the revenue from that to restore SALT. According to ABC News:
I also think the reduction in the business tax rate is too steep, and that we could go to 22 percent, and then use that money, which is about $200 billion, to restore the tax deduction for state and local property taxes. That would really help middle-income taxpayers.
What on earth is Senator Collins talking about? Middle-class earners aren’t the ones benefiting from SALT. As I wrote recently:
Data show that the lion’s share of the SALT flows to high-income taxpayers, who are most likely to itemize. According to the Tax Policy Center, “about 10 percent of tax filers with incomes less than $50,000 claimed the SALT deduction in 2014, compared with about 81 percent of tax filers with incomes exceeding $100,000.”
Brian Rield of the Manhattan Institute breaks is down further:
Wealthy families are four times more likely to utilize SALT than other families. Only 24 million of 125 million tax filers earning under $100,000 take the deduction, typically lowering their taxes by $1,000. By contrast, 20 million of the 25 million filers earning over $100,000 take the deduction and typically save $4,000 (and often much more), even accounting for the Alternative Minimum Tax.
In fact, half the savings accrue to the richest 5 percent of taxpayers — and in New York, half of the SALT savings go to families making over $500,000.
To see why, imagine state income taxes rising by $1,000 for each family. A wealthy family in the 40 percent bracket may deduct that $1,000 and see its federal taxes fall by $400 (subject to the AMT). A family in the 25 percent bracket receives a $250 federal income tax cut. The 70 percent of taxpayers who don’t itemize their income taxes — often middle and lower incomes — receive zero federal income tax relief.
Since the number of filers who itemize will drop significantly if the standard deduction is doubled, there will be fewer taxpayers claiming the deduction in the first place. In addition, a majority of those itemizing and claiming the deduction will benefit from lower marginal rates overall. To be sure, there will be some losers, but they are likely to be seriously high-income earners. Now you know me. I am not in favor of jacking up higher-income earners’ marginal tax rates to raise revenue in order to pay for counter-productive tax handouts.
I am not in favor of jacking up marginal rates, period. But I have no problem getting rid of unfair tax subsidies such as SALT that benefit those higher-income earners.
Is Senator Collins (along with many Democrats in New York and California) really ready to go to war to protect these taxpayers at the expense of some of the economic growth that would have been produced by lower corporate rates? Apparently, she is.
Wednesday, November 22, 2017
The Trade Deficit Isn't Big Enough
An old comment written in the year 2000. Just as true now.
If the anti- trade crowd’s fears are correct then the problem with the trade deficit is that it isn’t big enough.
Consider what the anti-trade crowd might portray as a worst case scenario. In dollars, US prices of everything are above foreign prices for the same things. In foreign currency, foreign prices of everything are below US prices for the same things. Moreover there is no comparative advantage in anything (The comparative advantage constraint is for the Techies. You can ignore it.).
We start with normal trade and suddenly introduce this worst case scenario. Both US and foreign consumers stop buying US goods and increase their buying of foreign goods. Both actions increase the US trade deficit, tremendously. Foreigners now have a huge trade surplus, and. foreign employment goes through the roof. Ostensibly, this is good for foreigners.
Since everyone has stopped buying US goods, US employment heads toward zero. However, US purchases of foreign goods don’t immediately go to zero, because US households have cash reserves that will last awhile.
The anti-trade crowd would characterize this as a disaster for us. They are wrong. While our cash reserves last, foreigners are sending us food, cars, computers, and other things that are useful. They are getting nothing useful in return, only pieces of paper called dollars. They must be keeping their dollars, because the scenario can exist only if they do. The reality is that foreigners have become our slaves.
The anti-trade crowd might counter that this bliss will end soon, because we will run out of money. That presumes our government fails to act appropriately. As long as the foreigners don’t wise up, and they keep hoarding their dollars, then, for all practical purposes, their dollars have been destroyed. Then, it doesn’t matter if our government replaces them, by printing more, and giving them to us. In this manner, we can continue to buy foreign goods, forever.
Evidently, the anti-trade crowd’s worst nightmare really is the closest we in the US could ever come to heaven on earth. If the anti-traders’ fears were real, then we all could retire on as high a standard of living as we wanted. Unfortunately, the anti-traders are wrong.
The problem is that foreigners are not stupid enough to fall for this. They will buy US goods with their dollars. After all, getting something for your work is better than getting nothing. If foreigners start buying US goods, we’ll have to produce them. That, unfortunately, means work for us. Our utopia will collapse.
The end result is that foreigners will buy about the same value of US goods as we buy of foreign goods. But if that’s true, how can there be a trade deficit? Easy, just don’t count some of the foreign buying of US goods. For example, suppose foreigners buy Rockefeller Center with their dollars. Rockefeller Center is not counted as an export, because the foreigners do not ship it home.
The real problem with the trade deficit is its definition and how we misinterpret it. The only important thing is whether foreigners have bought something produced here, not what the something is, and not whether they ship it home. Indeed, it’s better if they buy Rockefeller Center, and leave it here, rather than TV sets that they ship home. If Rockefeller Center stays here, we can extort the foreigners if they don’t treat us right. If push comes to shove, we can expropriate Rockefeller Center back. The same goes for just about all the other things not counted as exports that foreigners buy with their dollars, such as stocks and bonds.
The international trade story has much more to it than the trade deficit. But keep in mind that if the anti-traders are so wrong on this aspect of international trade, they’re probably pretty wrong on the rest of it.
If the anti- trade crowd’s fears are correct then the problem with the trade deficit is that it isn’t big enough.
Consider what the anti-trade crowd might portray as a worst case scenario. In dollars, US prices of everything are above foreign prices for the same things. In foreign currency, foreign prices of everything are below US prices for the same things. Moreover there is no comparative advantage in anything (The comparative advantage constraint is for the Techies. You can ignore it.).
We start with normal trade and suddenly introduce this worst case scenario. Both US and foreign consumers stop buying US goods and increase their buying of foreign goods. Both actions increase the US trade deficit, tremendously. Foreigners now have a huge trade surplus, and. foreign employment goes through the roof. Ostensibly, this is good for foreigners.
Since everyone has stopped buying US goods, US employment heads toward zero. However, US purchases of foreign goods don’t immediately go to zero, because US households have cash reserves that will last awhile.
The anti-trade crowd would characterize this as a disaster for us. They are wrong. While our cash reserves last, foreigners are sending us food, cars, computers, and other things that are useful. They are getting nothing useful in return, only pieces of paper called dollars. They must be keeping their dollars, because the scenario can exist only if they do. The reality is that foreigners have become our slaves.
The anti-trade crowd might counter that this bliss will end soon, because we will run out of money. That presumes our government fails to act appropriately. As long as the foreigners don’t wise up, and they keep hoarding their dollars, then, for all practical purposes, their dollars have been destroyed. Then, it doesn’t matter if our government replaces them, by printing more, and giving them to us. In this manner, we can continue to buy foreign goods, forever.
Evidently, the anti-trade crowd’s worst nightmare really is the closest we in the US could ever come to heaven on earth. If the anti-traders’ fears were real, then we all could retire on as high a standard of living as we wanted. Unfortunately, the anti-traders are wrong.
The problem is that foreigners are not stupid enough to fall for this. They will buy US goods with their dollars. After all, getting something for your work is better than getting nothing. If foreigners start buying US goods, we’ll have to produce them. That, unfortunately, means work for us. Our utopia will collapse.
The end result is that foreigners will buy about the same value of US goods as we buy of foreign goods. But if that’s true, how can there be a trade deficit? Easy, just don’t count some of the foreign buying of US goods. For example, suppose foreigners buy Rockefeller Center with their dollars. Rockefeller Center is not counted as an export, because the foreigners do not ship it home.
The real problem with the trade deficit is its definition and how we misinterpret it. The only important thing is whether foreigners have bought something produced here, not what the something is, and not whether they ship it home. Indeed, it’s better if they buy Rockefeller Center, and leave it here, rather than TV sets that they ship home. If Rockefeller Center stays here, we can extort the foreigners if they don’t treat us right. If push comes to shove, we can expropriate Rockefeller Center back. The same goes for just about all the other things not counted as exports that foreigners buy with their dollars, such as stocks and bonds.
The international trade story has much more to it than the trade deficit. But keep in mind that if the anti-traders are so wrong on this aspect of international trade, they’re probably pretty wrong on the rest of it.
Sunday, November 19, 2017
Tuesday, November 14, 2017
Scientific American is not scientific when it comes to guns
From John Lott's website. John R. Lott, Jr., PhD, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center
Melinda Wenner Moyer’s article “Journey to Gunland” (October 2017) is very biased and ignores virtually all of the literature on right-to-carry laws and gun ownership since 1998. About two thirds of the peer-reviewed, published literature shows concealed carry laws help reduce crime. I even provided Moyer with those published papers, but she doesn’t provide a single reference to or quote from them. Moyer appears completely unaware any of my research after 1998, making no mention of the 2nd and 3rd editions of More Guns, Less Crime (University of Chicago Press, 2000, 2010).
Moyer cites the National Research Council (NRC), but fails to accurately describe its findings. The council was more supportive of right-to-carry laws than it was of any other gun law. As is typical of NRC reports, the 2005 “Firearms and Violence” by the council refrained from endorsing any of the over 100 different gun regulations it studied.
However, there was one unexpected dissent by preeminent criminologist James Q. Wilson. Dissents in NRC reports are extremely rare. In the 10 years prior to the NRC report there were only two dissents out of 236 reports. Wilson, who had always supported gun control, had been on four previous panels but never had written a dissent. Finally, however, he pointed out the NRC’s own regressions consistently show right-to-carry laws reduce murder rates.
Moyer quotes physician Garen Wintemute: “Few studies…suggest that liberalizing access to concealed firearms has, on balance, beneficial effects.” But Moyer ignores 24 peer-reviewed publications just showing that crime in the U.S. drops after people are allowed to carry concealed handguns.
She references a recent unpublished paper by John Donohue, Abhay Aneja and Kyle Weber, but, unlike other studies, they don’t measure the number of permits issued, account for any other gun-control laws or deal with well-known statistical errors (such as truncation problems from a lot of zero values in the crime rates). The study also relies almost exclusively on trends in Hawaii to predict violent crime rates in Idaho, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska and Utah.
Take one example of Moyer’s sloppiness or bias in her article. Moyer has a long discussion of Arthur Kellermann’s work on the risks of guns in the home, and notes that Kellermann studied “444 people who had been killed between 1987 and 1992 at home.” But Moyer fails to note that, in fact, in only eight of these 444 homicide cases was the murder weapon a gun that had been kept in the home (The New England Journal of Medicine, February 3, 1994, p. 368). If Moyer had even read the 1998 edition of More Guns, Less Crime, she would have learned this.
Melinda Wenner Moyer responds (Lott's rejoinders not in italics):
John R. Lott, Jr., is wrong in his claims. He asserts “two thirds of the peer-reviewed, published literature shows that concealed carry laws help reduce crime.” This figure comes from a 2012 paper Lott himself wrote for the Maryland Law Review. In it he asserts that 18 peer-reviewed studies show right-to-carry laws reduce violent crime but only 11 suggest a different result.Moyer uses an older list from Dr. Lott’s 2012 paper in the University of Maryland Law Review, not the more complete list on our website that we provided to her.
But his two-thirds claim is false. Many of these 18 supposed pro-carry studies are off-topic. One is a paper by Lott on gun storage laws that has nothing to do with concealed carry. A second paper investigates how abortion relates to crime, a third concerns laws that prevent minors from owning guns—again, irrelevant to concealed carry. Lott also includes the second edition of his own book as one of these 18 peer-reviewed studies.
Just because a paper is generally on safe storage laws or abortion doesn’t mean that it doesn’t also account for other factors. Those papers also include a variable for right-to-carry laws. Even though I provided her with links to actual copies of the papers, it appears that Moyer did nothing more than read the titles of the papers.
Dr. Lott’s paper on safe storage laws (see Table 3 on page 679) also discusses right-to-carry laws, waiting periods, and one-gun-a-month rules (and their adoption by neighboring states). The paper is filled with results concerning right-to-carry laws.
The next paper on preventing minors from owning gun also examines overall crime rates. It finds, “A rough summary is that the shall-issue laws have little discernable impact except for reducing rape.”
The abortion paper does also deal with right-to-carry laws, see the bottom of Table 2 on page 14.
The link to the list of research on right-to-carry laws was to the 3rd edition of More Guns, Less Crime from 2010.
In total, one third of his pro–concealed-carry citations refer to his own work. Not only does Lott inflate the number of studies that support his thesis, but he also completely omits many peer-reviewed studies that belong on the other side.Yes, a number of the pro-carry papers are by Dr. Lott, but he was counting only peer-reviewed papers. And the three papers we’ve mentioned are all peer-reviewed. Many of Lott’s papers were co-authored with others.
Lott is also wrong in his contention that I ignore 24 peer-reviewed publications “showing that crime in the U.S. drops after people are allowed to carry concealed handguns.” Included among these 24, which are listed on his Web site, are the irrelevant papers mentioned above, as well as other studies that do not show links between concealed carry policies and low crime. One of them, for example, is a paper on the relationship between crime and subscriptions to Handguns magazine.None of the papers linked to on the CPRC are irrelevant. All the papers linked to deal with right-to-carry laws.
As an example, there was indeed a link to a paper with Plassmann that discusses Handguns magazine, and that paper also deals with permitted concealed handgun laws. Whether she didn’t read the paper or is pretending the paper did something different than it did, the paper does account for concealed handgun laws.
Lott’s inaccuracies certainly do not reflect the true weight of the evidence. My investigation involved far more than the impact of concealed-carry laws and ultimately concluded that more guns—period—are associated with more crime and violence.Moyer doesn’t accurately describe the literature, and in any case she ignores all of the pro-carry papers by authors other than myself. Nor does Moyer defend the Donohue, Aneja and Weber paper that she emphasized in her article, and that I critiqued.
Lott mistakenly states that I did not mention that one National Research Council committee member dissented from the committee’s conclusion that “it is not possible to determine that there is a causal link between the passage of right-to-carry laws and crime rates.” I did, in fact, state in my piece that the vote was not unanimous. And 14 of the 15 members did agree with the committee conclusion, a fact Lott ignores. Clearly an overwhelming consensus had been reached among the researchers.Dr. Lott’s letter to the magazine read: “As is typical of NRC reports, the 2005 ‘Firearms and Violence’ report by the council concluded that there was no conclusive evidence for any of the over 100 different gun regulations that it studied.” Scientific American changed the wording to “refrained from endorsing.” But the key point is that the NRC reports come to the same non-conclusion about virtually everything that they study, including all gun control laws. The only real endorsement was the extremely rare dissent made by one council member in support of Dr. Lott’s work.
Finally, Lott criticizes me for omitting a detail about the Kellerman study that he considers important—but it is not. The study found the odds of being murdered nearly tripled among those who kept guns at home. Lott says it is important that most of these homicides did not involve the resident’s gun. That is a straw man. The study was designed to assess the relationship between keeping a gun in the home and the risk of being murdered by any weapon. Murder victims are murder victims, regardless of weapon or means.One would think that if increased gun ownership in the home was responsible for increased homicides of that home’s residents, you would want to mention that in only eight of the 444 homicide cases that were studied was the murder weapon a gun that had been kept in the home. You are left with two options: either the homicides in the home are being committed by people from outside the home or by people in the home are using a non-gun weapon.
Does Moyer really want to argue that having a gun in the home increases the odds of a non-gun homicide? What is the exact mechanism that she thinks exists here? Kellermann’s paper concluded that “guns kept in the home are associated with an increase in the risk of homicide by a family member or intimate acquaintance.” So why does a gun mean that a family member or intimate acquaintance is more likely to kill someone in the home with a non-gun weapon?
In any case, others accurately summarize Kellermann’s findings this way: “Keeping a gun in the home carries a murder risk 2.7 times greater than not keeping one, according to a study by Arthur Kellermann. . . . The study found that people are 21 times more likely to be killed by someone they know than a stranger breaking into the house.”
The notion that Kellermann’s paper was seriously designed to “assess the relationship between keeping a gun in the home and the risk of being murdered by any weapon” is wrong. My book, “More Guns, Less Crime (University of Chicago Press, all three editions), explains what the problems are.
Monday, November 13, 2017
Some professors and universities do not deserve respect
From Jonathan Turley's blog.
The trend in this day and age of too many people is toward intolerance, restriction of speech, and a host of other limitations on freedom. Some of the worst are found in university faculties.
We are in a dangerous downtrend.
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We previously discussed the case of Fresno State University Public Health Professor Dr. Gregory Thatcher recruited students to destroy pro-life messages written on the sidewalks and wrongly told the pro-life students that they had no free speech rights in the matter. As I stated earlier, I find it extraordinary that the university did not seriously discipline or terminate Thatcher, but he still remains on the faculty. A district court has now ordered Thatcher to pay $17,000 and undergo First Amendment training. However, Thatcher remains defiant and the university appears complicit in his actions by the lack of disciplinary action.
The pro-life students had written messages on the sidewalk like “You CAN be pregnant & successful” and “Unborn lives matter” to “Women need love, NOT abortion.” The lawsuit alleges that Thatcher got students from his 8 a.m. class to help remove the anti-abortion messages and that their chalk was taken away to write pro-choice slogans on the sidewalk.
The video below shows two students rubbing out the chalk statements despite the pro-life students saying that they have permission to write such messages. The students seem entirely unconcerned that they are censoring speech and engaging in a grossly intolerant act. Instead, they refer to their teacher as telling them that they should do so. Thatcher then walks up. If the encounter with students was chilling, the encounter with Thatcher is positively glacial. Thatcher invokes the controversial restriction of free speech to “zones” and says that there is no free speech rights for this type of writing outside of that zone. When the students explain that they have permission, he then proceed to rub out their messages and declared “you have permission to put it down — I have permission to get rid of it.” It is a shocking and disgraceful demonstration by Thatcher and should be worthy of serious discipline. However, we have seen repeatedly that faculty members have remained silent in the face of anti-free speech conduct directed toward conservatives or pro-life advocates.
In the video of the incident, Thatcher comes across as an intolerant bully who who used his position on campus to try to censor opposing views.
Of course, the “others’ thoughts and opinions” happen to be a basic respect for free speech — an area in which Thatcher appears to be both ignorant and intolerant. Moreover, Thatcher did not appear to “love . . . . learn[ing] other’s thoughts and opinions” when he was taunting and censoring these pro-life activists.
It is equally clear that he remains contemptful of the free speech claims of the victims and equally undeterred in such matters. His comments reveal a deeper problem at Fresno State University where faculty can lead students in seeking to censor opposing views and not face serious punishment.
The incident raises troubling memories of the controversy surrounding the confrontation of Feminist Studies Associate Professor Mireille Miller-Young with pro-life advocates on campus of the University of California at Santa Barbara. Miller-Young led her students in attacking the pro-life display, stealing their display, and then committing battery on one of the young women. She was convicted and sentenced for the crime. Despite the shocking conduct of Miller-Young and the clear violation of the most fundamental values for all academics in guaranteeing free speech and associational rights, the faculty overwhelmingly supported Miller-Young and the university decided not to impose any meaningful discipline. To make matter worse, Michael D. Young, Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs, not only issued a statement that seemed to blame the victims but faculty defended Miller-Young’s conduct. Faculty and student defenders attacked the pro-life advocates and one even referred to them as “terrorists” who did not deserve free speech. Miller-Young should have been fired but was instead lionized by faculty and students.
Like Miller-Young, Thatcher actively encouraged his students to deny others free speech rights. In arguing that there could be no such free speech outside of the free speech zone, Thatcher appears unaware that the “free speech area” was eliminated two years ago.
Thatcher remains listed as faculty in the Department of Public Health.
The trend in this day and age of too many people is toward intolerance, restriction of speech, and a host of other limitations on freedom. Some of the worst are found in university faculties.
We are in a dangerous downtrend.
-------------------------------------------------------
We previously discussed the case of Fresno State University Public Health Professor Dr. Gregory Thatcher recruited students to destroy pro-life messages written on the sidewalks and wrongly told the pro-life students that they had no free speech rights in the matter. As I stated earlier, I find it extraordinary that the university did not seriously discipline or terminate Thatcher, but he still remains on the faculty. A district court has now ordered Thatcher to pay $17,000 and undergo First Amendment training. However, Thatcher remains defiant and the university appears complicit in his actions by the lack of disciplinary action.
The pro-life students had written messages on the sidewalk like “You CAN be pregnant & successful” and “Unborn lives matter” to “Women need love, NOT abortion.” The lawsuit alleges that Thatcher got students from his 8 a.m. class to help remove the anti-abortion messages and that their chalk was taken away to write pro-choice slogans on the sidewalk.
The video below shows two students rubbing out the chalk statements despite the pro-life students saying that they have permission to write such messages. The students seem entirely unconcerned that they are censoring speech and engaging in a grossly intolerant act. Instead, they refer to their teacher as telling them that they should do so. Thatcher then walks up. If the encounter with students was chilling, the encounter with Thatcher is positively glacial. Thatcher invokes the controversial restriction of free speech to “zones” and says that there is no free speech rights for this type of writing outside of that zone. When the students explain that they have permission, he then proceed to rub out their messages and declared “you have permission to put it down — I have permission to get rid of it.” It is a shocking and disgraceful demonstration by Thatcher and should be worthy of serious discipline. However, we have seen repeatedly that faculty members have remained silent in the face of anti-free speech conduct directed toward conservatives or pro-life advocates.
In the video of the incident, Thatcher comes across as an intolerant bully who who used his position on campus to try to censor opposing views.
Video
The money will largely go to attorneys’ fees for the victims, but Thatcher will pay $1,000 to Tasy and $1,000 to another student, Jesus Herrera. Thatcher appeared unrepented in comments after the settlement. He noted that he would not have to pay a cent from his own pocket and that any money would be paid by his insurance company. He then added this disturbing comment:
“I did not, in any way, admit to any wrongdoing. I did agree to sit through a training seminar because I love to learn others’ thoughts and opinions.”
The money will largely go to attorneys’ fees for the victims, but Thatcher will pay $1,000 to Tasy and $1,000 to another student, Jesus Herrera. Thatcher appeared unrepented in comments after the settlement. He noted that he would not have to pay a cent from his own pocket and that any money would be paid by his insurance company. He then added this disturbing comment:
“I did not, in any way, admit to any wrongdoing. I did agree to sit through a training seminar because I love to learn others’ thoughts and opinions.”
Of course, the “others’ thoughts and opinions” happen to be a basic respect for free speech — an area in which Thatcher appears to be both ignorant and intolerant. Moreover, Thatcher did not appear to “love . . . . learn[ing] other’s thoughts and opinions” when he was taunting and censoring these pro-life activists.
It is equally clear that he remains contemptful of the free speech claims of the victims and equally undeterred in such matters. His comments reveal a deeper problem at Fresno State University where faculty can lead students in seeking to censor opposing views and not face serious punishment.
The incident raises troubling memories of the controversy surrounding the confrontation of Feminist Studies Associate Professor Mireille Miller-Young with pro-life advocates on campus of the University of California at Santa Barbara. Miller-Young led her students in attacking the pro-life display, stealing their display, and then committing battery on one of the young women. She was convicted and sentenced for the crime. Despite the shocking conduct of Miller-Young and the clear violation of the most fundamental values for all academics in guaranteeing free speech and associational rights, the faculty overwhelmingly supported Miller-Young and the university decided not to impose any meaningful discipline. To make matter worse, Michael D. Young, Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs, not only issued a statement that seemed to blame the victims but faculty defended Miller-Young’s conduct. Faculty and student defenders attacked the pro-life advocates and one even referred to them as “terrorists” who did not deserve free speech. Miller-Young should have been fired but was instead lionized by faculty and students.
Like Miller-Young, Thatcher actively encouraged his students to deny others free speech rights. In arguing that there could be no such free speech outside of the free speech zone, Thatcher appears unaware that the “free speech area” was eliminated two years ago.
Thatcher remains listed as faculty in the Department of Public Health.
Friday, November 10, 2017
Protectionism
From Don Boudreaux's blog. Not the whole story, but good points.
The essence of protectionism is captured nicely in this headline that just appeared at World Trade Online:
Protectionists are masters of frightening economically uninformed people with hypotheticals. ‘What if all of our farmers go bankrupt and we are then left at the mercy of our military enemies to supply us with food? Do you want to risk that outcome?!’ – is the sort of absurd ‘argument’ that protectionists mistake for serious argument. This sort of precautionary-principle argument is prevalent when protectionists are trying to persuade people to allow the government to restrict their – the people’s – access to goods and services.
But the true essence of protectionism is captured nicely by this headline. No one with any sense can possibly interpret the demands of the U.S. citrus industry as reflecting anything other than an attempt to pick the pockets of consumers by denying to consumers access to imported lemons.
Protectionism in theory is dubious. Protectionism in practice is cronyist thuggery dressed up as “policy.”
The essence of protectionism is captured nicely in this headline that just appeared at World Trade Online:
Protectionists are masters of frightening economically uninformed people with hypotheticals. ‘What if all of our farmers go bankrupt and we are then left at the mercy of our military enemies to supply us with food? Do you want to risk that outcome?!’ – is the sort of absurd ‘argument’ that protectionists mistake for serious argument. This sort of precautionary-principle argument is prevalent when protectionists are trying to persuade people to allow the government to restrict their – the people’s – access to goods and services.
But the true essence of protectionism is captured nicely by this headline. No one with any sense can possibly interpret the demands of the U.S. citrus industry as reflecting anything other than an attempt to pick the pockets of consumers by denying to consumers access to imported lemons.
Protectionism in theory is dubious. Protectionism in practice is cronyist thuggery dressed up as “policy.”
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