Hodak Value

Tyler Cowen has created a kerfuffle among libertarians by suggesting that they should stop worrying and learn to love big government. He says:

The more wealth we have, the more government we can afford. Furthermore, the better government operates, the more government people will demand. That is the fundamental paradox of libertarianism. Many initial victories bring later defeats.

I am not so worried about this paradox of libertarianism. Overall libertarians should embrace these developments. We should embrace a world with growing wealth, growing positive liberty, and yes, growing government. We don���t have to favor the growth in government per se, but we do need to recognize that sometimes it is a package deal.

The global trend is clearly toward greater wealth and greater freedom. The trend in America, however, appears to re-inforce the notion of a "package deal" that Cowen is espousing. But the U.S. is not evidence of a counter-trend so much as an example of a fortuitous starting point as a libertarian's wet dream that could not last.

If you didn't think that anything could enhance one's experience at the Grand Canyon, think again. The Hualapai Indians have created a stunning new attraction there--The Skywalk. This bridge 4000 feet above the canyon floor looks like an experience that would leave one breathless. However, this journalist's description of his first steps out over the abyss revealed less about his spiritual awakening or engineering prowess than of his collectivist instincts:

The Skywalk's builders have said repeatedly that the deck is extremely durable. It's essentially a huge steel horseshoe, capable of withstanding 100 mph (160 kph) winds and holding several hundred 200-pound (90-kilogram) people at a time.

I had no reason to doubt them. But out on the edge, my mind was racing: I tried to remember if any government regulatory agency had checked how well this thing was anchored to the cliff.

This is plainly an emotional reaction to a scary situation. But I think this comment is scary, and I have an emotional reaction to it: Why the f*@k would anyone trust that a government regulatory agency has a greater interest in or expertise about the soundness of this structure than would the tribe that financed it, the engineers that built it, or the insurer bearing its risk?

And yet, I can't say I'm surprised. News writers are notoriously wary of private agents and their self-interests versus "the government," as if its agents were somehow endowed with a greater degree of expertise or caring for their fellow man. They often can't fathom that, even regardless of their economic interests, the owners and operators would be any less concerned about their guests tumbling down the side of the Grand Canyon than some bureaucrat with a tape measure and some forms to fill out. It kind of leaves me breathless.

I've driven down to Maryland many, many times over the years. It's where I'm from, and most of my family still lives there. At the Delaware border, there was a quaint sign saying "Welcome to Maryland - The Free State."

Now, Maryland has a lot to recommend for it--lovely rivers, Chesapeake crabs, green hills as far as the eye can see. Freedom, not so much. Few states are bluer than Maryland. Marylanders love government, and not just because so many of them are federal workers. Their liberalism runs much deeper than that. For me,the only way to view the "Free State" motto on the welcome sign was with a sense of humor.

Well, the old motto is gone. Now the sign just says, "Maryland Welcomes You." No pretense about freedom. In a way, the change represents a kind of truth in advertising. I just wonder if the bureaucrats who made the change were conscious of this truth?

Here is what WaPo had to say about Our Dear Senator:

"Schenectady Mayor Brian Stratton needed help: Bechtel Plant Machinery, a prominent local employer, had announced it was relocating to Pittsburgh.

"On Nov. 15, Clinton called Stratton, Schumer and Rep. Michael R. McNulty (N.Y.) to her Senate office for a meeting with Bechtel officials. Stratton described Clinton as 'totally enraged and totally engaged' and said she demanded to see the data that had informed Bechtel's decision.

"Schumer reminded the executives that Bechtel relied heavily on federal contracts, that Democrats were now the majority party, and that Clinton was a member of the Armed Services Committee. Her presumed front-runner status for the 2008 Democratic nomination was never mentioned, Schumer said. But he described it as 'the 800-pound gorilla in the room.'

"Two weeks later, Bechtel announced it was suspending the move. Relocating remained the better option, Bechtel executive T.F. Hash wrote to the senators. But he added: 'I am, however, mindful of the difficulties this decision has placed on our employees and the community.'

The Bechtel executive's note reminded me of statements read by hostages, plainly under duress, when they're placed before the media.

It's clear that the Post is heralding this as a political achievement. It's clear that Ms. Clinton is quite proud of this vignette, too. In fact, I was made aware of it by her own staff who felt that it "might be of interest" to me. Yeah, it was.

It's rare that we get to see into the heart of coercion. We got this glimpse because the Senators from New York apparently have no shame about conspiring against the citizens of the United States to deprive a legitimate company of the opportunity to fairly compete in government contracts. When I see displays of raw power like this supposedly exercised on my behalf, I wonder what I could do to help those without the guns. I wonder how I could apologize to Bechtel for being complicit by virtue of my citizenship. I wonder how the public and the press could be so morally barren as to applaud this kind of behavior. I wonder...where the heck are the Senators from Pennsylvania?

The WSJ makes hay about SEC Chairman Christopher Cox:

Instead of the split, partisan votes that had become the norm under his predecessor, Mr. Cox, a former California congressman, brought a politician's desire to seek the broadest support possible. The commission unanimously approved rules relating to disclosure of executive pay and using technology to improve the proxy process. Under his leadership, every vote on a proposed rule has resulted in a 5-0 decision.

But now, critics are expressing frustration with this approach, arguing that because of the time Mr. Cox takes to reach a consensus the SEC is moving too slowly on important topics, leaving Wall Street and investors without guidance on key issues. The debate gets to the heart of big questions about the role of an SEC chairman: Should he push for fewer, unanimous decisions that will endure? Or should he target contentious changes, even if he alienates colleagues and interest groups?

Actually, Mr. Cox's approach is consistent with a minimalist approach to regulation that he clearly espoused as a congressman--only adopt regulations that nearly everyone thinks are reasonable. The real reason his approach is irking his critics is that these critics are invariably special interest groups, organizations that must now work harder than just drum up support in the majority to satisfy their parochial interests. His critics like regulation, and they want more of it.

Wall Street and investors, if anything, suffer from too much "guidance." I would guess that Chairman Cox would probably prefer to knock down a good deal of regulation, if his was the only vote that counted. Unfortunately, he's in charge of a regulatory agency, not a deregulatory agency. This is the best one can do when one truly cares about investors as a whole.

As mentioned in the article, even Cox couldn't do anything to stop the new "compensation lawyer full employment act" passed under the banner of enhanced executive compensation disclosure, despite my best attempt.

On the fine Coyote Blog, a commenter recently used the term "giving back" to describe taxes paid in support of social programs. I don't know how the term "giving back" ever got equated to paying taxes, but this use of the term really needs to be taken out to the back forty and shot.

I liken it to the idea that people used to have (and many still have) about praising Jesus: "If it's the right thing to do, why not have a law?" Because, as Jefferson pointed out, threatening sanctions against unbelievers taints everyone's religion. If your neighbor sings in church, is it an expression of piety or fear? If there's a law, one can't know. Part of the genius of the Founding Fathers was their realization that laws enforcing religion potentially subject all religious expression to question. They saw religious freedom as perfecting their ability to express their beliefs.

A similar argument attaches to "giving back" by way of taxation. Sure, most people don't want to see the poor, especially the elderly poor, suffering. But as it stands now, no one can say that we take care of our poor because of collective compassion when the threat of violence stands right behind that "compassion." One can argue whether or not our poor would be worse off without transfer payments, but one cannot call government transfer payments "giving back" since there is no choice about the "giving," even if much of it may have otherwise been freely given absent coercion.

Today is International Workers' Day throughout the socialist and communist world, including the Daily Kos, who took this opportunity to slam Wal-Mart. They noted that Wal-Mart was investigated by Human Rights Watch, noting that:

Human Rights Watch, a non-governmental group based in New York, is best known for scathing reports on political issues such as the Rwandan genocide and the Congo's use of children in its military.

My standard for concern about an organization is somewhat different. If an organization has people beating down the doors to get in, it's probably not a problem how they're treating their workers. If an institution has people risking their lives to flee, that's probably an institution that needs some outside monitoring.

The workers of the world deserve better.

That's really what we have today, and the Democrats finally want to do something about it because it hits their blue state, urban constituencies hardest. Of course, their prescription is exactly the right one for discouraging economic growth--increase the income threshold for the AMT, increase tax rates on the highest earners, and raise the tax rate on dividends and capital gains.

David Henderson's WSJ editorial alternatively puts forth one of my favorite ideas in recent years: don't get rid of the AMT--transform the AMT into a flat tax, and let the rest of the tax code gradually disappear with inflation. Henderson proposes a couple of tweaks to the AMT to make it really flat: eliminate the few deductions it still offers, and reduce the rate from 26/28 percent back to something more reasonable, if not optimal.

This proposal solves several problems at once. In the near-term, the reduced rates dramatically reduce the number of people getting "trapped" into the AMT. But as incomes continue to rise, the people getting "trapped" are paying a more reasonable rate, say 20 percent on income above the global exemption of $45,000. Over time, that exemption will get inflated away--a good thing in Henderson's view, as it brings more of the middle class into the tax pool.

Of course, if you're a liberal Democrat, you'll hate this idea for the three reasons upon which your politics are based: (1) It's not punitively progressive on the most productive people in our society, and becomes less so over time, (2) it eventually eliminates "cherished" deductions like home mortgage interest and deductions for state and local taxes and other items favored by the politically well-connected, and (3) it eliminates one's ability to use the tax code for social engineering.

Unfortunately, Henderson limits his arguments for a flat tax to supply-side theory, making the fairness argument literally as an afterthought. So let me bring fairness front and center:

- It's unfair for a majority of the people to vote away the wealth of a minority for the simple reason that the minority has more of it, legally earned.
- It's unfair to create beneficiaries of tax breaks at the expense of those who don't get them. Why should renters be penalized at the expense of owners in the tax code? Who are these people who usurp this right to decide who is worthy and who isn't?
- It's unfair to subject every citizen to rules so dense and incomprehensible that they must hire professionals to comply with the law or, at best, sacrifice several spring days each year to understand what, exactly, is required of them.

Last week, Harvard professor Dani Rodrick pointedly rebutted what he considered a misconception about the universal benefits of free trade--what one might call the libertarian fallacy:

So here is a straightforward economics question: under what conditions will trade liberalization enhance economic performance? If you answered "under any and all," you flunk. Here is the correct answer:

* The liberalization must be complete or else the reduction in import restrictions must take into account the potentially quite complicated structure of substitutability and complementarity across restricted commodities.
* There must be no externalities or microeconomic market imperfections other than the trade restrictions in question, or if there are some, the second-best interactions that are entailed must not be adverse.
* There must not be any increasing returns to scale, or else activities with scale economies must expand "on average."
* The home economy must be ���small��� in world markets, or else the liberalization must not put the economy on the wrong side of the ���optimum tariff.���
* The economy must be in reasonably full employment, or if not, the monetary and fiscal authorities must have effective tools of demand management at their disposal.
* The income-redistributive effects of the liberalization should not be judged undesirable by society at large, or if they are, there must be compensatory tax-transfer schemes with low enough excess burden.
* There must be no adverse effects on the fiscal balance, or if there are, there must be alternative and expedient ways of making up for the lost fiscal revenues.
* The economy must not have a trade deficit that is already "too large," or else nominal wages or the exchange rate must adjust to compensate.
* The liberalization must be politically sustainable and hence credible so that economic agents do not fear or anticipate a reversal.

I could expand the list, but you get the point. And all of this is needed just to ensure static benefits. If you want dynamic (growth) benefits, we would have to add an even larger number of other prerequisites.

It turns out that the same day Rodrick posted this list, President Bush appointed a new "manufacturing czar." I don't know what the United States needs with a "manufacturing czar," but one would hope that he would account for at least some of Rodrick's points in recommending trade policy.

So, which points do you think a "manufacturing czar" would consider from Rodrick's menu? I say only this one:

* Will this policy result in more votes or fewer votes for our party's candidates in the next election?

Consider what happened last time Bush tried to appoint a manufacturing czar who at least somewhat reflected a healthy view of competition in our manufacturing sector:

Democrats questioned why the Bush administration chose Raimondo to guide government efforts to stop the hemorrhage of U.S. manufacturing jobs, while he had laid off 75 of his workers in 2002 after announcing he was building a $3 million plant in China.

Raimondo defended his company's operations in China, saying the Chinese plant didn't mean lost jobs for his four U.S. plants but rather was an effort to sell into the Chinese market. Behlen manufactures steel buildings and farm equipment.

Sending jobs offshore is a touchy issue for the Bush administration in an election year.

Today's New York Sun had an article about The Beacon School's problems with the government regarding unauthorized class trips they took to Cuba. I can sympathize with their silly entanglements the government, but not with their ultimate motivation:

A 2004 graduate of Beacon, David Goodman, dismissed claims that the teacher who took students to Cuba this year, Nathan Turner, was anti-American, but said he taught history with a " Howard Zinn kind of look at the world."

"He is off the charts liberal," Mr. Goodman, who said he has liberal views, said. "A lot of the school is like that. I came out of there feeling that it was too leftist and they weren't giving you enough of a general history."

Most New York liberals will say that history can't be taught without a political slant, much the way that creationists don't think biology is a "value-free" science. Objectivity is impossible, they figure, so you might as well offer a perspective that is "right" (as in "left"). My son's school readily admits that they offer an "alternative" (read "left") perspective on history, but they say they expect their students to challenge it. I will grant that they allow students to challenge their perspective, but to "expect" your average New York high school student to challenge a teacher's liberal slant on a subject is, I think, hysterically disingenuous.

Less than 24 hours after predicting the end of large-scale experiments in central planning, I got a vivid reminder of what is going on in Venezuela.

"We are building socialism and fighting capitalism!" says co-op leader Juan Nava, standing amid wooden shacks on what used to be Mr. Lecuna's land.

The government bills land reform as a way to make Venezuela self-sufficient in food. But so far, the effect has been to undercut production of beef, sugar and other foods, as productive land is handed to city dwellers with no knowledge of farming. Established farmers and ranchers, fearing their land may be seized next, are cutting investment in their operations to a minimum.

The chaos in the countryside has contributed to shortages in basic items like milk and meat, a paradox in a country enjoying an economic boom traceable to high oil prices.

Mr. Ch?�vez blames the shortages on "speculation" by distributors and producers. Agriculture Minister Elias Jaua recently called a news conference to deny there's been any decline in food production during the eight years of Ch?�vez rule.

Co-op members have uprooted about 540 acres of sugar cane planted by the former owner, Mr. Lecuna. The co-op's Mr. Nava, a wiry former construction worker in plastic sandals, says members have planted 60 acres of plantains, a figure he ups later in the interview to 170. Lecuna ranch hands say it's 10 acres at most.

When we see a nation rising up and thwarting all attempts to derail people's government, the inspiration and motivation we derive is inexpressible.

Today's lesson is that China represents "A Shining Model of Wealth Without Liberty." Here is author James Mann's breathless warning:

This all adds up to a startling new challenge to the future of liberal democracy. And the result is ominous for the cause of freedom around the world. China's single-party state offers continuing hope not only to such largely isolated dictatorships as Burma, Zimbabwe, Syria and North Korea but also to some key U.S. friends who themselves resist calls for democracy (say, Egypt or Pakistan) and to our neighbors in Cuba and Venezuela.

Here is another view.

"Everyone said the fall of the Berlin Wall would herald the spread of democracy around the world. I think the experts and pundits got it wrong. Democracy has made inroads, to be sure. But what really took off was the spread of capitalism. It was the opening of markets that has made the most difference to the most people, lifting millions out of poverty."

Which view do you think holds more merit?

The WSJ presents a great example of this:

Sen. Hillary Clinton took the first step toward outlining her health-care agenda, suggesting a range of cost-cutting moves that she says would wring $120 billion of savings from insurance companies, drug makers and the rest of the health-care system.

She will draw from those savings when she details a much-anticipated plan for providing health coverage for the uninsured later this year.

The "savings," of course, are the product of an infantile imagination, the kind of things that kids dream up who have never actually struggled with the reality of turning managerial initiative into market-tested products or services when they say things like, "I'll invent a laser that gets rid of cancer" or "I'll invent shoes that never go out of style." You don't want to discourage the tykes, but you're not about to give them a hundred billion dollars to test their cute theories. But Dr. Hillary will no doubt convince millions of voters that she should be given that access to our tax dollars because she has the cure to what ails them.

The spending--that will be very real. Hillary actually has a track record on that one.

Chicago, that is, where I'll be the next couple days. I hate cigarette smoke. When I was growing up, I nagged my smoking dad so much about the smell that he finally quit (just as I was going to college). If I was driving with him and he wanted to light up, I would make him roll down the window an inch. Even if it was sleeting. (I figured out that one inch was all that was needed to neatly suction out the smoke of a cigarette close to the window of a moving car.) Even then, I'd complain about being to able to smell it. I was a total bastard about the smoke. I just seize up when I smell cigarettes. I literally can't breath around it. I look for the closest exit so I can catch my breath. I think it has to do with my lung operation as an infant. I really hate cigarette smoke. In fact, there is probably only one thing I hate worse than cigarette smoke: sanctimonious, paternalistic, do-gooding legislators subjecting an entire major city to the same bratiness visited on my poor dad.

On our flight back from Switzerland, our airline showed a segment from CBS���s 60 Minutes. In my (much) younger days, I was continually amazed at CBS���s capacity to expose human cupidity and folly week after week. How could they do it? So, I finally got an answer���they invented it. And the viewers believe it, as I did before I got an economic education.

This story was about the awesome power of Big Pharma to undermine our democracy. The context was the passage of the Medicare prescription drug plan without the ability of government to negotiate drug prices. The blame for this was placed on Big Pharma's lobbying spending. If I were quite ignorant about this issue, I would have been awed by this story. Instead, I was awed by what was left out:

�Ģ The pharmaceutical industry, instead of being portrayed as creating a profitable new market for its drugs, could have been seen as acting defensively to protect their profits from a major change in how drugs are distributed in this country.
�Ģ The prevention of a government buyer���s cartel (for which Big Pharma was heavily criticized in this report) might have been worth it for reasons other than preserving drug company profits.
�Ģ The power of lobbyists and the revolving door between Congress and lucrative lobbying opportunities is not owned by Big Pharma, or Big Business generally.

Instead, the CBS reporter was shocked, shocked that all these Washington people were following the money. I was shocked not so much by CBS's perspective as by how completely one-sided was their presentation. Their unstated premise was that government should be free to use a certain segment of the population (e.g., those involved in producing drugs) to do what is ���right��� (according to CBS���s, selling drugs cheaply enough to undermine their profits), however that certain segment should not so aggressively resist being used.

Even taking the story at face value, a more realistic remedy would be to make government less attractive to all this wealth and influence by reducing the amount of government interference in the economy. But long before anyone could make such a point on a show on CBS, you'd hear the tick, tick, tick, tick, tick...

A recent Sun article includes this tidbit:

Governor Rell of Connecticut, who is considering a medical marijuana bill that lawmakers sent to her desk earlier this month, has also given mixed signals about her position. She has said it's important to help seriously ill people alleviate their pain, but has expressed fear that legalizing the drug would undermine the message that recreational use of marijuana is dangerous.

So, the Governor begins with a well-worn lie. In fact, recreational use of marijuana is no more dangerous than recreationally driving around town, possibly much less so. She then continues with the awesome hubris of power: Who is Governor Rell to make trade-offs for seriously ill people trying to alleviate their pain vs. the "message" conveyed by legalizing the drug? It's legal to clog your toilet with tennis balls, to drink red ink from a pen, and to fill one's underwear with polyester carpet remnants. What does that say to the people? To our children?

Politicians, get over yourself. Realistically, the only people likely to pay attention to your moralistic messages about how they should live their lives are people who are smoking something.

Check out this lede:

The government regulates real-world commerce and crime. But as virtual worlds become more complex, should the government regulate virtual life?

Did it come from The Onion or the MSM?

Every now and then, I figure that maybe Europe is at a stage where it might begin keeping America honest. They may look over here at our freedoms, and decide they don't want to be collectivist also-rans anymore, that they're ready to step up to the challenge of being the place where the world wants to live, and reduce taxes, and reduce regulations, and spread those human rights like warm Nutella on a baguette.

Then they pull shit like this.

A former KGB officer suggests that international lack of regard for our president is merely a reflection of our own disrespect for him. He recollects for us a youthful impression:

My father spent most of his life working for General Motors in Romania and had a picture of President Truman in our house in Bucharest. While "America" was a vague place somewhere thousands of miles away, he was her tangible symbol. For us, it was he who had helped save civilization from the Nazi barbarians, and it was he who helped restore our freedom after the war -- if only for a brief while. We learned that America loved Truman, and we loved America. It was as simple as that.

Aside from the principled and consequentialist qualms I'd have about the level of propaganda that would be needed to make Americans feel good about someone like Bush (or any recent president, not to pick on W), I wonder about the value of doing so. Clearly, it helps to achieve "national" objectives for everyone to be behind a leader proposing them. But are national objectives all they're cracked up to be?

I'm also skeptical about the psychology of former-Soviets, even those of good will towards America. I have had many friends from the former Soviet Union. They have been uniformly smart people, some of them quite brilliant, but nearly all of them possessing a peculiar blind spot with regards to propaganda and the associated freedom of the press. I know that to them, my "knee-jerk" defense of an unfettered press, even one prone to printing lies, seemed equally peculiar. So, when I expressed my doubt about the long-run efficacy of propaganda, I would use my Russian friends themselves as Exhibit A: you won't find a more cynical people on earth than Russians, and I don't think it's genetic. Furthermore, no amount of propaganda got the Russians to forget about the Beatles or blue jeans. Decades of hero worship nurtured by propaganda did not prevent Lenin's statue from toppling all over the communist world, including in cities named after him. In the long run, I don't think W's image can be resurrected with fawning press coverage. If anything, presidents like Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy, and Reagan get far better press treatment today than they got in their own day.

The most disturbing thing about this Russian's nostalgic recollection, however, is his grown-up expression of a child's most collectivist impulse--hero worship. Our press already possesses the most annoying tendency to credit collective effort to a single individual, even as it subtly undermines the value of the individual in nearly every other way. They aggrandize individuals because their readers relate to individuals, not ephemeral forces. We buy celebrities, not concepts. The press certainly has an interest in selling us the notion that W's daily schedule is newsworthy, or that it matters why Brad broke up with Angelina. Even if idolatry is good business in catering to human nature, though, I really don't see the virtue of supporting it as a matter of public policy.

On my way home from a little camping trip with my sons, we stopped for gas. At the cashier's window was a sign, no doubt created by the good State of New York, warning that buying cigarettes for minors could get you into trouble. The tag line was:

Its not just wrong, it's illegal

What struck me about this sign was the implied hierarchy of authority. It appears to say that 'illegal' should outweigh 'immoral.' Try this in the context of a more extreme message: Killing someone is not just wrong; hey buddy, it could get you jail time!

Maybe it's because I believe that we should only have laws against activities that everyone unequivocally finds morally wrong that I feel that law should be the afterthought to moral repulse. To have enforcement rely with more weight on illegality than immorality says, to me, either:

A) Those of us subject to the laws but not making them are morally stunted compared to those making the laws (the "moral superiority" theory of law making)
B) Those making the law don't really believe or care so much about its moral weight (the "power trip" theory of law making)

A corollary to the second theory is (C) that the immorality of the law is inherently unclear to the broad citizenry, which for me raises the question if there should be a law about such a thing. (I don't believe this would apply to a ban on cigarettes sold to minors.)

Which theory do you think best explains such a sign? (Or, feel free to suggest another.)

CNN reports that U.S. life expectancy lags behind other countries'. This sounds like an article about a scientific health study, but it isn't. When one starts to read it, one quickly sees that this is a puff piece devoted to a particular policy perspective riding a thin surface of statistics.

The article starts with this paragon of objectivity:

"Something's wrong here when one of the richest countries in the world, the one that spends the most on health care, is not able to keep up with other countries," said Dr. Christopher Murray, head of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

"The Institute will focus its competencies to pursue research, education, and evaluation across different topical areas."

"The Institute strives to be the lighthouse standard for high-quality information on health that is valid, comparable, comprehensible, and freely available in the public domain."

Given the way Dr. Murray is spouting off about policy, I doubt that his institute will contribute anything useful to the discourse on health care. For example, the highest life expectancies are to be found in places like Japan, Singapore, and the tiny countries of Andorra and San Marino. For anyone with a decent grasp of geography and demographics, these countries stand out as having relatively homogenous populations. Is it possible that demographic differences in diverse countries might have a material impact on aggregate results? A credible researcher would ask and answer that question before you could even raise it--certainly before speculating about policy differences at the root of aggregate results.

So, let's do what Dr. Murray wouldn't, and tease out a couple of facts. First, the article notes that blacks live shorter lives than whites*. The average U.S. longevity is, according to this article, 77.9 years, and the longevity of blacks is 73.3 years. From other sources, one would know that similar disparities exists between Hispanics and Native Americans, making up 15 percent of the population, versus the average American. Taking apart just these demographic pieces, what remains is an average longevity for mostly Asians and Whites that would easily place the U.S. in league with Japan and most of Western Europe.

So, I would like to see a report on how Americans fare by demographic type versus their cousins in ancestral lands. We know, for instance, that African Americans live far longer than Africans in Africa, even those nations not ravaged by AIDS. Mexican Americans almost certainly live longer than Mexicans in Mexico. Do French Americans live longer than the French in France? I"m not sure, but several of my French relatives in need of specialized care have come to the U.S. for treatments. That's at once telling, and a potential source of muddying the comparison. How about Japanese-Americans or German-Americans versus their native counterparts? Is it possible that the American cousins of Asians and Europeans actually live longer? If so, would all the people clamoring for socialized medicine in the U.S. begin clamoring for market-based health care in the rest of the World? None of us may live long enough to see that.

* see parenthetical comments below the fold

It sounds like a joke:

A rabbi, a Roman Catholic priest and a Baptist minister joined Senate Democrats in making a moral argument for the legislation.

While most people who aren't Democrats or Republicans would say the two parties are barely distinguishable, I would say that when it comes to spending, nearly all Democrats are focused on the worthiness of the end, while many Republicans are concerned about the process.

Typical Democrat take:

“In St. Luke’s Gospel, we are told that Jesus instructed his disciples to ‘let the little children come unto me, and do not hinder them,’” said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts. “We urge Congress and the president to support our bipartisan legislation and let little children have health care.”

Senator John Ensign of Nevada, chairman of the campaign committee for Senate Republicans, denounced the bill as “a step toward the Democrats’ ultimate goal of a single-payer, government-run health care system.”

Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, responded [to Ensign]: “That’s a nice, sweet, cute little argument, but it does not solve the problem of how you help these kids. I am not about to allow these children to go without health care.”

The easiest way to get enough people to agree to pay for a disingenuous policy is to promise enough people that the money won't be spent too far from home:

The bill would increase the federal money available to every state next year.

While people in advanced countries initiate mass protests over the possibility of a company being able to fire an employee, or equate WalMart's employment practices with human rights abuses, or call the toe-tapping of a confused Senator a national scandal, it kind of returns some perspective to watch the military leaders of a country like Myanmar draw the blinds on it's nation and begin a rampage of intimidation and murder against its own people.

The moral equivalence of the latter event with the former is part of the deconstruction of Western civilization, like the notion of economic violence used to describe consenting adults making informed choices for mutual economic gain. Notwithstanding that deconstruction, the West is at least leaving behind the practice of mass violence against its own people, while the junta in Myanmar shows us the most vivid example of coercion, revealing the essence of government.

Of of the few virtues of democracy is that it at least diffuses government power; tyranny of the majority is slightly better than tyranny of a ruling family. So, like Churchill, I'm far from a fan of democracy, but I'm happy when the klieg lights shine upon cynical, arrogant rulers trying to have their way with unarmed civilians, monks no less, simply because they can. The bright lights make them stop and hide their faces, at least for a moment. The Burmese generals are desperately trying to keep that light from shining in their dark corner of the world. But it's too late. Their legitimacy is gone. All that is left is their brute force, and there aren't enough guns to stop the rise of a people against a government that has lost the sanction of its victims.

"We tell the government, 'Take what you want, just give me and my family the essentials of life — food, shelter and an education,'"

- Egyptian union activist in a recent article about unrest in that country.

Contrast this with:

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."

- Benjamin Franklin

314. That's the number of congresscritters who voted to ban the incandescent light bulb.

If you care about reasons why Congress would do such a thing, you can read this. If you think Congress is a bunch of dim bulbs, you can read this (gated). If you want to see why the intended effects are likely to be outweighed by the unintended effects, read this.

If you're, like me, wondering where Congress gets off even being able to ban the light bulb, read this, and get back to me with an explanation that Washington or Madison might understand.

Spain has banned spanking. Spain, of course, is not the first political jurisdiction to suggest that maybe Daddy doesn't know best.

Now, I have often joked about not beating my kids enough--almost always with my kids in hearing distance--but I personally never saw a reason to actually strike them. I remember being struck by my own dad many times (probably more than he actually did), and not with fond memories, and resisted creating those same memories for my kids. But I would not have surrendered my right to do so. I certainly wouldn't have handed power to the state to develop the bureaucratic machinery necessary to distinguish, say, a pat on a youngster's butt, or aggressive handling of a child in need of reminding who is in charge, versus illegal "striking."

It takes a certain mindset to presume that the government can effectively make these distinctions. One such genius is Sally Lieber. As is typical of the kind of blindly liberal buttinsky that regularly gets elected in California, she proposed a bill to ban spanking, i.e., expanding government's reach into the family room, without actually having raised any children herself.

"Responsible parents have to give up the privilege to physically discipline their children for the sake of protecting children that aren't being hit once in a blue moon or in a light way."

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino is working overtime to prevent the opening of in-store health clinics that offer affordable treatments for minor illnesses. You read that right. You can read more here. This is from a Mayor who claims that "Boston is known internationally for our innovations in healthcare..."

I guess as long as the innovations are not done by the market place, which gets us to the nub of this Mayor's puzzling stance:

"Allowing retailers to make money off of sick people is wrong."

HT: Coyoteblog

Over 100 officials burst into the plant. These were the same officials who had been known, in previous similar raids, to have "used humiliation, opposite-sex searches and long periods of secrecy." Here is how it went down:

Larson said the agents told workers to stay in place then separated them by asking those with identification to stand to the right and those with other papers, to stand to the left.

"There was plenty of hollering," Larson said. "You couldn't go anywhere."

When asked who was separated, Larson said those standing in the group with other papers were all Hispanic.

I remember when we didn't live in a society where hundreds of people could be rounded up and asked for their papers.

The philosophy behind the Berlin Wall was straight-forward: Your person and your property belong to the state. Couldn't happen here, right?

Well, Congress has just passed a law that goes half way--you can leave if you want, but we'll tax everything on your way out, even if you haven't realized the gain, even if that gain occurred in a foreign bank while you were living and working outside of the U.S., even if you have spent most of your life in another country--perhaps your birthplace--where you are also a citizen, from which you have filed a U.S. tax return because ours is virtually the only country on earth that taxes its citizens no matter where they earn their money.

Now, the only way to escape U.S. taxes is to leave the country and renounce your U.S. citizenship. The U.S. then refers to you, who gifted us with a lifetime of talent, hard-work, and tax payments as a "tax traitor," bans you from re-entering the U.S., and claims tax on your future income, or all your assets upon death at a 45 percent rate, for the next ten years. What is about to change is that silly "next ten years" loophole. Congress no longer wants to wait; they intend to tax all unrealized gains immediately, and will tax your American children on your gifts at the 45 percent rate whenever you die.

This is amazing (not in a good way):

Your head will explode when you're done. Really.

From that fringe, left-wing cult--the Australian Broadcasting Corporation--telling the average Aussie kid that they should die at about 9 years old to make way for the "good" kids who don't use energy or have money. Where is the outrage? We'll check back.

HT: The awesome Coyote Blog

MMM shows she's worth whatever Atlantic is paying her in this brilliant fisking of the Chicago 'Gang of 100' whine about the proposed Friedman Institute. Her money quote:

Their assessment of the effects of the "neoliberal global order" is forehead slapping, head shaking, did-they-really-say that? stupid. I haven't heard such transparently wishful claptrap since my fifteen-year-old boyfriend tried to convince me that sex provided unparalleled aerobic exercise. If you put all 100 in a room with unlimited access to Lexis-Nexis and a mountain-sized peyote stash to bring their quasi-communist fantasy life into 3D technicolor, they still couldn't name a country where neoliberalism has undermined a vibrant democracy.

That was pretty much exactly what Minneapolis police told this doctor.