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Six Bullets Dodged with Hillary's LossThe current news cycle is monopolized by two narratives. In one, Trump supporters are cheering the great and promising future. In the other, oppositional progressives are screeching about how hateful and daft he and his supporters are. But in the midst of this chaotic national quarrel, one important person has managed to slip away: Hillary Clinton. Not only metaphorically but literally. Maybe she’s seeking asylum in Russia. Anyway, while Trump’s impending reign isn’t anything to be ecstatic over, a relief of what America avoided in a Clinton presidency is definitely warranted. So let’s take a moment to examine some avoided disasters that likely would’ve happened had Hillary Clinton won. The Death of the Sharing Economy Last year Hillary pledged to "crack down" on companies like Uber and Airbnb.Democrats and even some Republicans have expressed their disgust of the abusive exploitation that’s found in the sharing economy. And by abusive exploitation, they mean disgust at innovative markets that are free from their regulatory micromanagement and competitive to their lobbied interests. Hillary Clinton is on the same track. Last year she pledged to “crack down” on companies like Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, Lending Club, Dogvacay, etc. These are companies that are frowned upon by taxi and hotel cartels, street corner title loan shops, and many more awful, out-of-date institutions. With Hillary out of office, the sharing economy and all those who benefit from its employment opportunities and convenience get to live to see another day. Minority Unemployment Minimum wage increases, overtime rules, high corporate taxes; all these policies have historically and presently had a negative impact on employment opportunities among minority communities. This is particularly true of youth and blacks in middle- and lower-class America. Hillary Clinton supports all of these initiatives and more. Her policies included manufactured outsourcing of labor due to uncompetitive corporate tax rates, which disincentivizes businesses to stay in the States, and, instead, offsets the insane tax by employing workers in other countries like China and Mexico. So when it comes to the American labor force and those who are un- or underemployed, they may have dodged a huge bullet. Globalism and Imperialism War with Russia is bad, m’kay? Hillary’s foreign policy mainly consisted of the same hawkish neoconservative interventionism as George W. Bush. It also included expansion of mass surveillance, the continuation of illegal execution of civilians via drones, and hostile sanctioning of world powers. This would likely end in the same results of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen spread throughout the Middle East. In addition to terrible military strategy, she’s also a staunch globalist, using government to achieve it. This is not to be confused with the internationalization of cooperative cultures and markets. She wants global governance, which means increased concentration of elitist wealth, power, and bureaucratic controls over our everyday lives. Healthcare It was she who reminded voters that Obamacare used to be Hillarycare. This is not something you want to brag about in the same month the government announced premiums would rise between 10% and 60%, adding to a bill people are forced to pay, for healthcare they can’t afford to use. This program is a disaster. It’s no wonder that 83% of voters who hated the program rejected her at the ballot. Whatever comes after – and everyone knows that Trump already walked back from his promise to repeal – it is not likely to be as bad as it would have been if a Hillary-in-denial shepherded this program out of its current morass. Guns Hillary has made no secret of her opposition to the Second Amendment.Hillary has made no secret of her opposition to the Second Amendment. She wants increased restrictions on ownership, use, and distribution of firearms. For people like me who value their ability to defend themselves and their neighbors, and partake in a fun recreational sport, Hillary Clinton’s defeat is good news. And with her out of the way, things like the Hearing Protection Act, which calls for the removal of suppressors from the NFA registry, and the Annual Defense Authorization bill, which would allow military personnel to carry their firearms on base, have a chance of success. This is what should be meant when referring to common sense gun laws. The removal of bureaucracy and infringement, not the expansion of it. Energy Clean energy development is a necessary and beneficial innovation that should be, and is being, supported by various companies such as Tesla Motors, Shell, British Petroleum, General Electric, Boeing, etc. But while these green energy investments are awesome, they’re also expensive and often come at your expense. Clinton favored artificially inflating costs on many industries, like oil and coal, causing higher energy prices for average Americans. She also favored increasing already-challenging barriers for developing nations to afford the vital energy to jumpstart their economies. Trump may have said green energy is a Chinese hoax, but chances are he’s not going to prohibit private companies from continuing their investments in renewable alternatives. In contrast, Clinton definitely would’ve sanctioned the fossil fuel industry, leading to even more financial hardship for the already-crippled middle class. Some may have their fingers crossed for Trump's promise to make America great again, while others are finding ways to numb their fears in dismay. Regardless of your prediction of what the future yields, one fact remains true. The guaranteed continuation of progressive attacks on enterprise, growth, and liberty was avoided. And I think that warrants a bit of relief for all of us. TJ BrownTaleed J. Brown is a content intern at FEE and hosts the popular YouTube channel "That Guy T". This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article. Follow libertyLOL on your favorite social media sites:FacebookYoutube Tumblr Pintrest Countable: Government Made Simple Steemit blog on a blockchain Patreon Gab.ai libertyLOL's Liberty Blog RSS Feed We also run a couple twitterbots which provide great quotes and book suggestions: Murray Rothbard Suggests Tom Woods Suggests Jason Stapleton Suggests Progressive Contradictions MORE FROM LIBERTYLOL:
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Back by popular demand following the Free Hayek Audio Streams post located here is a collection of video streams. But first, have you seen the Keynes vs Hayek Rap Battle yet? It's awesome!
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The Road to Serfdom is narrated and streamable here. It is largely relevant to today's popular socialist movement within the United States.
Hayek interviewed in 1978, 1 (RM) Hayek interviewed in 1978, 2 (RM) Hayek interviewed in 1978, 3 (RM) "Get the equivalent of a Ph.D. in libertarian thought and free-market economics online for just 24 cents a day." Most of us learned politically correct U.S. history in school. The economics was at least as bad. It's never too late to learn the truth. At Liberty Classroom, you can learn real U.S. history, Western civilization, and free-market economics from professors you can trust. Short on time? No problem. You can learn in your car. FIND OUT MORE HERE More from LibertyLOL:Now that Donald Trump has been elected, one of my main goals will be to convince him and his team that it would be wrong to leave government spending on autopilot (and it would be even worse to spend more money and increase the burden of government!). Since Trump semi-endorsed the Penny Plan, I don’t think this is a hopeless quest. But it will be an uphill battle since populists have a “public choice” incentive to appease interest groups. But we have a very powerful weapon in this battle. It’s called evidence. And now there’s even more data on our side. The Institute for Economic Affairs in London has just published an excellent new book on fiscal policy. Edited by Philip Booth, Taxation, Government Spending, & Economic Growth is must reading for those who want to understand the deleterious impact of the modern welfare state. The IEA’s Director General, Mark Littlewood, explains the goal in the book’s foreword.
The most depressing part of the book is contained in Chapter 3. As you can see from Table 7, the burden of government used to be rather modest in western nations. Indeed, I’ve made the point that it was during the era of small government that the western world became rich. But now look at the numbers. Pay special attention to the period between 1960 and 1980, which is when the welfare state exploded in many of the countries (aided and abetted by the value-added tax). But let’s not cry about unfortunate historical developments. It will be more productive if we measure the harm so we can educate policy makers about the need for spending restraint. And the book is filled with lots of useful information in that quest. In Chapter 4, David Smith explains the interaction between fiscal policy and economic performance, noting that excessive government not only reduces the level of economic output, but also the future growth rate.
He provides a micro-economic explanation for why various government activities hinder growth (I offer eight reasons in this video, by the way).
In other words, he’s saying that not only is government too big. He’s also pointing out that much of the spending is seemingly designed to impose economic damage by discouraging the productive use and allocation of labor and capital. I also like that he explains that the real problem is spending, not just red ink (a point I often make, but not always successfully, when talking to politicians).
He then reviews some of the research on the “Rahn Curve.”
Incidentally, I like and dislike what he wrote in this section. I like it because the obvious conclusion is that the burden of government is excessive in both the United States (37.9 percent of GDP according to OECD fiscal data) and the United Kingdom (43.3 percent of GDP). And we can use this data to argue for much-needed spending restraint. But I don’t like the above passage because I think the growth-maximizing size of government is well below 20 percent of GDP. As I’ve previously explained, academic researchers are constrained by the lack of data for small-government economies. So when they crunch numbers (relying in all cases on post-WWII data, and in most cases on much more recent figures), they basically find that Hong Kong and Singapore grow the fastest and they think that implies the public sector should consume 20 percent of economic output. But that implies, if you recall the data in Table 7 from above, that nations would have enjoyed more growth in 1870 if they doubled the burden of government spending. I think that’s nonsensical. What’s really happening is that researchers are simply measuring the downward-sloping portion of the Rahn Curve. But just because Hong Kong and Singapore are the first two jurisdictions that can be plotted, that doesn’t mean the Rahn Curve peaks at that point. But I realize I’m nit-picking, so let’s go back to the book. In the following chapter, Professor Patrick Miniford shares some additional research on the link between government spending and economic performance. I especially like how he shares a very useful table looking at some scholarly findings on the relationship between the overall fiscal burden and national prosperity. He also shares the conclusions from additional research.
And he discusses some new statistical findings, along with the potential implications for the United Kingdom.
I’m sure the data and conclusions also apply to the United States. Which brings me back to where I started. I fretted yesterday that Trump’s election will be a challenge to advocates of economic liberty. Indeed, he explicitly called for more infrastructure spending and implicitly called for more VA spending in his acceptance speech. Combined with his apparent rejection of entitlement reform, this doesn’t instill much confidence. But that’s all the more reason to disseminate this new research on the bad consequences of letting America become more like France. Republished from Dan Mitchell's blog. Daniel J. MitchellDaniel J. Mitchell is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute who specializes in fiscal policy, particularly tax reform, international tax competition, and the economic burden of government spending. He also serves on the editorial board of the Cayman Financial Review. This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article. Follow libertyLOL on your favorite social media sites:FacebookYoutube Tumblr Pintrest Countable: Government Made Simple Steemit blog on a blockchain Patreon Gab.ai libertyLOL's Liberty Blog RSS Feed We also run a couple twitterbots which provide great quotes and book suggestions: Murray Rothbard Suggests Tom Woods Suggests Jason Stapleton Suggests Progressive Contradictions MORE FROM LIBERTYLOL:
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After giving businesses more than six months to prepare, the final U.S. Department of Labor rule change regarding overtime regulations will become effective Dec. 1, affecting more than 4.2 million workers within the United States. With only one month left, do you know how the law will impact you and your employees?
If you recall back in June 2015, President Barack Obama proposed an adjustment to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) — which establishes the 40-hour workweek and rules to provide employees with a minimum wage and time and a half of their regular rate pay for working overtime — that would raise the minimum salary threshold for exempt employees. Obama's main goal with the new rule is to strengthen the middle class, expand opportunity and grow the economy.
Check out Jason Stapleton's take below:
Patrice L. Onwuka from IWF.org says the first day of December can't come slow enough for many American employers who are scrambling to figure out how to avoid a financial blow when the Obama Administration’s new overtime rule kicks in. Check out her article "New Overtime Rules Will Have Unintended Consequences" here.
Overtime Rules Based on Bogus Economic TheoryThis very day, millions of business managers are pulling their hair out, dealing with a genuine and traumatizing October Surprise that has nothing to do with the election. The Department of Labor, on its own and without a vote from Congress, has made a seemingly small administrative change that is profoundly and disastrously affecting the lives of probably tens of millions of people (if you include everyone directly and indirectly affected). Its final implementation happens December 1, which means the clock is ticking. People who six months ago imagined a career with a particular company now find themselves ghosted in light of financial realities.Anyone making less than $48,000 a year in salary is directly affected, and for many businesses this means thousands of people. This seemingly small change is upending many things about people’s career paths, sense of professional identity, and life plans. And so many others, who are seeking entry-level positions to show how awesome they are, will be denied the opportunity to enter professional life at all, and their absence will not be counted because the costs are unseen. People who six months ago imagined a career with a particular company now find themselves ghosted in light of financial realities. The regulatory change sounds merely technical at first. The government requires overtime pay for anyone working more than 40 hours per week (“time and a half”), but it only pertains to employees making less than $23.6K a year. We’ve come to think of this rule as applying only to entry-level wage employees. No, You Can’t I can recall being 18 years old and begging for more time but being denied by my boss due to this rule – an early experience in dealing with the effects of government regulation. It’s a strange situation: I wanted to work more and my employer wanted me to work more, but government rules made it too costly, so we both lost out. Such rules prevent mutually beneficial exchanges. If you force payment, it means forgoing other things.Still, you were safe once you got on salary and made more than $23.6K. Only then are you free to work as much as you want. But now the Department of Labor, with the stroke of a pen, has raised this level to $48K, meaning that some 4.2 million people are immediately and directly affected. If they work more than 40 hours per week, the regulations now require that employers pay them more for extra hours. That means, at minimum, massive new record-keeping requirements for both individuals and businesses. It turns out that businesses do not have some box stuffed with cash somewhere in a closet that they can raid to toss more money to existing employees. If you force payment, it means forgoing other things. Bureaucrats with lifetime jobs know nothing about work in the private sector.The new rule could mean that millions of people will be reclassified to a lower-status job position: from salaried to per-hour wage. That’s not what anyone wants to happen. Of course, the Department of Labor – because bureaucrats with lifetime jobs know nothing about work in the private sector – thinks that this is going to create new opportunities for the good life, because passing laws does this for society. Actually, the rule is hugely disruptive of people’s actual plans and their capacity to make their own deals with their employers. People who desire to work more will be denied the chance, effectively forbidden by their own bosses from providing more value. It’s true that probably millions of others making between $35-40K will be bumped up to $48K, a raise forced by administrative edict. This is so they can escape the overtime rules, but it comes at a cost. They will be required to put in more value to the company in order to earn this salary increase, which means more work and less leisure time on their part – exactly the opposite of the stated purpose of the new rule. Entry-level positions will be foregone in favor of regulatory compliance.These raises also come at the expense of job creation. Entry-level positions will be foregone in favor of regulatory compliance, which is to say that this small change is a job destroyer of the first order. Bad Theory There are many terrible features of this change. The old law was becoming mercifully less and less relevant to American workers, one of the few good trends in business today. It was always an overly scripted, planned, and coercive way of granting “labor rights” by administrative edict, with all the secondary consequences that kind of bureaucratic rationalism inevitably entails. The Obama administration – with its unfailing instinct for making more messes within sectors that were repairing themselves gradually – has seen fit to blot out of the few good trends in labor markets today. But consider too just how strange the government’s fixation on “labor hours” is. The idea is that the number of hours you work is the only real determination of the value you bring to your job, the only and definitive way to measure productivity. It’s like they are taking seriously Woody Allen’s dictum that “eighty percent of success is just showing up.” Clock in, clock out. You work more (or just show up more), you thereby produce more value; it’s the assumption that productivity is machine-like, and that value is somehow inherent in labor. The Labor Theory of Value Students of history will recognize this whole idea as the labor theory of value. If labor is the source of value, it is surely exploitation for the capitalist to gain so much in profit from the sale of goods. Government still adheres to it. Its outlines were mapped out by the classical economists, possibly even dating back to St. Thomas Aquinas. The classic formulation comes from David Ricardo, as a mistaken derivation of the relationship between cause and effect: “The value of a commodity, or the quantity of any other commodity for which it will exchange, depends on the relative quantity of labour which is necessary for its production..." This minor error, intuitively plausible, persisted for centuries. It took Karl Marx to add the reductio ad absurdum: if labor is the source of value, it is surely exploitation for the capitalist to gain so much in profit from the sale of goods. Everything that doesn’t return to the worker constitutes ill-gotten gains and hence exploitation of the working man. Now, just a moment’s reflection makes you realize that this supposed relationship between work and value is not direct. You can’t just make anything, do anything, sit in a chair, show up on time and vanish at the appointed hour, make whatever, and have the results be thereby valued in the marketplace. The Marxian mania over the labor theory of value caused a generation of economists in the late 19th century to rethink the whole issue and discover the actual source of value. Value emanates from the human mind itself. It is the consumers who act on their values in the marketplace for final goods and services that signal producers about their own decisions. (Their theory in time came to be called the Subjective Theory of Value.) And all capitalists know this. Everything they produce, every penny they spend on workers or research or marketing, is subject to a final test in the marketplace. Consumers can make a rock valuable or worthless, a song go gold or die immediately, a smartphone all the rage or sit on the shelf, a strip mall become a profit center or be boarded up due to lack of interest. There is nothing that more labor can add to determine whether something is or isn’t a success in the marketplace. Work as a Proxy It’s true that sizable portions of today’s contracting workforce charge “by the hour” for its work. By doing so, what you have is the estimation of the passage of time in value terms, given the existence of opportunity costs for the use of that time. But charging by the hour is only a convenient proxy for productivity in general; it is not claiming literally that the passage of time on the clock somehow causes wealth to be produced. And every contractor knows this: if your results are not good, the contract will be discontinued. The Department of Labor wildly exaggerates the role of labor hours in discerning, determining, and measuring economic value.But in the hands of bureaucrats, the allegorical proxy becomes the real thing. With its mechanical understanding of the process of wealth generation, the Department of Labor wildly exaggerates the role of labor hours in discerning, determining, and measuring economic value. It cares nothing for smarter work, more efficient work, the differences in talent between workers, the aspect of learning, the role of entrepreneurship in speculating about the value of future final output, or anything else. Instead, they use a model derived from mechanics to govern human action, which is anything but mechanical. The subjective theory of economic value was a revolutionary insight precisely because it blew up the old assumptions concerning the causative relationship between work and reward. In theory, a worker who has one billion-dollar insight that took 5 seconds to discern is worth vastly more than a worker who spent ten thousand hours making mud pies. And what does this imply about the capacity of outside agents in government to manage economic relationships? It means it can’t be done. We have to leave to market forces to work out what is best for everyone in the ongoing process of experimentation, marketing, innovation, and learning. Bad Theory Comes Home But tell that to the arrogant public servants ensconced in marble palaces in the Beltway. Armed with their dated and formalistic models, they imagine that they can merely change a rule and thereby cause justice to be newly born in the world. They have been trying for 100 years, limiting work, channeling work, managing work, slicing and dicing work. The greatest and most intense cost will be felt by the young and ambitious among entry-level employees. There is far more complexity in labor markets than these rules would indicate. This is especially true today, when people work from everywhere, whenever, however, under an ever-greater variety of institutional arrangements. Every intervention designed to manipulate outcomes will produce unexpected costs that benefit neither workers nor capitalists. At best the attempt creates headaches. At worst, it ruins lives. What will be the worst result of this rule? It will reduce productivity, demoralize many employees, and create vast and useless paperwork. I continue to believe that the greatest and most intense cost will be felt by the young and ambitious among entry-level employees. This person might be hired at $32K but desire to put in an extra 10, 20, or 30 hours will be blocked by supervisors. Excellence is punished. Ambition is blocked. Dreams are crushed. And all from one change in the regulations. In the real world, as versus the artificial models tossed around the halls of the regulatory bureaucracies, bad theory leads to a worsening of the quality of life. And all this happens at the worst possible time for both business and labor. Yes, markets will adapt. They always do. But never think that it doesn’t come at a high cost.
Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker is Director of Content for the Foundation for Economic Education and CLO of the startup Liberty.me. Author of five books, and many thousands of articles, he speaks at FEE summer seminars and other events. His latest book is Bit by Bit: How P2P Is Freeing the World. Follow on Twitter and Like on Facebook. Email. Tweets by @jeffreyatucker This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article. More from LibertyLOL:
I was first interested in Rules for Radicals when I saw the image above. This is exactly what we have seen over the past 40 years so I decided to read the book. I wanted to be able to better identify when its strategy was used against the American people. Also, I wanted you to save ten hours of your life. You're welcome. Main salient points to follow:
So how do we combat this effective progressive agitation? Our first weapon is information. Call it out when we see it. Call out the immoral tactics. Call out the abuse of inaccurately creating social problems. Call out the divisive nature of media and government along social, racial, class and religious lines. Call out biased news reporting and holding the 4th branch of government accountable to facts and logic. If you want to read more, check out Barack Obama's Rules for Revolution by David Horowitz below. Also Six Alinsky Rules That Explain Obama’s Words and Deeds located here.
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Central Bank Failure
Since the Brexit vote, panicking Central Banks have flooded the world with more money in attempt to stabilize the financial system. Over thirteen trillion dollars of bonds around the world are yielding negative interest rates, which means nearly 30% of all worldwide government debt is at negative rates. This is a historical first. I believe that the policy of the money kings of the global central banks is starting to fail. Over the last ten years, the United States has averaged 1.8% GDP growth, the worst in US history. The only success the Federal Reserve and other Central Bankers can point to is an artificially high stock market. Underneath the glow of record highs lies a ticking time bomb of over-extended consumers, decreased industrial production, European-banking problems, Brexit, a massive debt bubble in China, ISIS, deflation and a contentious US presidential election. If there is a recession in the United States, the Federal Reserve will have a very difficult time cutting rates. It is this reason that a Fed rate hike could be in the cards. It would at least give The Fed some room to maneuver back down if recession strikes. The Fed should have raised rates over two years ago. At zero rates leading into a recession, The Fed only really has three options: fiscal spending, deregulation or currency depreciation. Fiscal spending has been an emphasized topic from both US Presidential candidates, particularly infrastructure spending in the United States. Both candidates agree that the United States has lacked infrastructure spending and is in need of a big build-out. This will be one of the big themes in the stock market over the next couple of years. One positive aspect about potential infrastructure spending is that current record low interest rates allow for cheap borrowing. I believe we should require infrastructure bonds to be established as mortgage bonds that pay down the debt at the end. This will eliminate the open-ended borrowing where debt spirals even higher. Instead the projects will be paid off in thirty years just like a home. The final way for a central bank to control inflation at zero interest rates is currency depreciation. I am expecting a major currency problem in the next 6-18 months that will likely lead to higher inflation. Evidence of the transition from deflation to inflation appears as central banks overplay their hand and currencies begin to fall. Over time, this will be good for gold and hard assets. Aspin Speech Long time readers of the MaxOut Savings Report know that I believe Stanley Fischer, the Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve, is the most respected member of the Fed. Over the weekend, Fischer delivered an influential speech at the Aspin Institute laying out some important points on US economic standing. First, he made the case that over the last two years the United States has weathered a number of economic shocks. The events in China, a 20% rise in dollar value, and the Brexit vote have had little effect on the US economy and the labor market. I believe this could translate to a more hands off Fed. The next time the stock market falls, don’t expect the Fed to rush in and talk it up. Regarding negative interest rates Fischer stated that it is “something that the Fed has no plans to introduce”. That was a clear statement. Stanley Fischer also commented on the “exceptionally slow labor productivity growth….Business productivity growth is reported to have declined for the last three quarters, its worst performance since 1979”. Negative productivity is potentially a result of incorrect measurement or poor business investment. Stanley stated the key to boosting the productivity growth and long run potential of the economy is likely found in effective fiscal and “more-effective regulatory policy.” This statement hints the Federal Reserve is concerned that government regulation has become over reaching and is now negatively affecting economic growth. Regulatory Policy is an area that the United States can make tremendous headway. The beauty of deregulating the economy is in the resulting increase in growth and hiring. Deregulation and regulation efficiency are low cost compared to big ticket deficits such as tax cuts and infrastructure spending. Remember deregulation will grow the economy at no cost!
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libertyLOL and doesn't cost you a penny more at checkout! More from LibertyLOL:Lessons from the A-taco-lypseMarco Gutierrez unknowingly gave the best pitch for liberty last week—and he did so only using five words. During an interview with MSNBC, the founder of Latinos for Trump warned that if his candidate didn’t win in November, there would be “taco trucks on every corner.” This hypothetical taco truck bubble denotes another issue that is not being widely discussed. Obviously, Gutierrez intended to rattle the cages of nativists left and right—one side to call him racist, while the other can only seem to muster up dystopian platitudes about being “invaded by illegal immigrants.” But Gutierrez’s words backfired beautifully. Within seconds, #TacoTrucksOnEveryCorner was trending, and a vocal (and wildly humorous) majority of Americans gave a collective thumbs up to this compelling vision for the future. Unsurprising to those who mocked Gutierrez, the idea of taco trucks on every corner is very appealing. The most obvious issue raised by this conversation is immigration. However, this hypothetical taco truck bubble denotes another issue that is not being widely discussed: how local governments tend to restrict – rather than embrace – entrepreneurial trends, and unnecessarily insert themselves between consumers and businesses. The “Roach Coach” Renaissance Once derogatorily referred to as “roach coaches,” taco trucks have morphed into a diverse, eclectic, and highly profitable industry. In less than a decade, a growing army of foodie entrepreneurs – peddling mobile culinary treats once only available in traditional brick-and-mortar restaurants – have created an $800 million industry, and its popularity continues to grow by the day. This revolutionary business model has been widely embraced by consumers worldwide. We are, arguably, at our economy’s peak quantity of food trucks at this very moment. Yet, judging by the vociferous reaction to Gutierrez’s misguided “a-taco-lypse,” the current availability of food trucks isn’t enough; people are demanding more. Food trucks are a part of a broader pattern of entrepreneurship that jettisons traditional institutions, skirts around bureaucratic oversight, and provides an in-demand service or product directly to a very eager consumer base. With the advent of Uber, AirBnB, and a number of other cutting-edge businesses, this revolutionary business model has been widely embraced by consumers worldwide. Oddly enough, research indicates that these businesses produce a mass psychological perk as well, inspiring human engagement, promoting a broader sense of trust, and – in the words of NYU professor Arun Sundarajan – “reversing America’s decades-long slide into mass cynicism.” (This author in particular has discovered a direct correlation between his own happiness and proximity to tacos.) Local Government’s Motto: “When in Doubt, Tax, Regulate, or Ban it” Unfortunately, bypassing barriers of entry has produced unintended political costs on the backend. Political leaders and regulatory agencies are in a panic to retrofit existing policies that didn’t initially include these new businesses into their statutory calculations. The result of this panic: heavy-handed and obtuse rules that seem to be more about maintaining economic control than safeguarding a public good. AirBnB has faced relentless backlash from a variety of municipalities who want to register hosts, set size requirements for each shared space, and even mandate business licenses for participants. New York is currently debating a hefty series of fines for AirBnB hosts who “illegally” advertise restricted types of properties for rent with contract agreements shorter than 30 days. Meanwhile, Uber and Lyft have both faced significant pushback from local governments and taxi unions, demonstrating an obvious incestuous relationship between the two entities. The most glaring example of this collusion came in the form a per-ride tax imposed in Massachusetts, where revenue extracted from the ride-sharing industry directly subsidizes the failing taxi industry’s efforts to innovate and implement their own ride-sharing technology. These concerted efforts to rein in new companies highlight how “a very simple business model can become muddied when it meets real-world markets, and alters them,” writes Adam Chandler of The Atlantic. Ordinances? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Ordinances The same applies to the food truck movement and how they have disrupted local municipalities’ grip on economic planning. For example, food trucks have recently become a hotbed issue in Chicago. In 2012, the city passed a series of restrictions on the food truck industry – from how big their vehicles could be to how long they could do business in one physical location. Last month, the Chicago Sun-Times and local news affiliate ABC7 released a “damning” report that found that food truck operators were typically in violation of these ordinances and oversight was lax. (They say it like these are bad things.) Consumer behavior seems to support these maverick business practices. However, what’s missing from the journalistic investigation is any discussion of an incurred damage or perceived social ill created by the food truck industry. Are people getting sick from the food truck cuisine? What damages are caused by food trucks that remain in the same spot for three or four hours at a time? Other than breaking capricious and unenforceable rules, the perceived “lawlessness” of the Chicago food trucks does not demonstrate a significant liability to public safety. Global positioning devices are required on all Chicago food trucks, so local regulators can investigate operators who are violating the “two hour rule”, which mandates the food trucks cannot remain at the same physical location for this short and arbitrary timeframe. The Chicago Sun-Times/ABC7 report highlights the fact that many food trucks ignore the two-hour rule. The report quotes Emily Darland, a food truck owner in Chicago, who isn’t shy about her own brazen violation of this rule (and many others): “Nobody moves after two hours,” Darland said. “No one does. “The people making the rules have no idea what it’s like to be out here in business.” So where’s the crackdown on this food truck piracy? With so many food trucks in violation of the law, there must be good Samaritans snitching to local law enforcement about these lawless foodies, right? Not so much. In fact, consumer behavior seems to support these maverick business practices. For example, to warrant an investigation by the City of Chicago, complaints must be filed before regulators can pull GPS data on specific operators who might be staying beyond their two-hour window. Mika Stambaugh, a spokeswoman for the Business Affairs Department of the city government that oversees these ordinances, states, “We haven’t received enough complaints warranting a GPS search.” Food truck patrons apparently can’t talk on the phone with law enforcement when they are sporting a mouthful of savory Korean barbeque, Latin American paletas, deep-dish pizza, hot dogs with every imaginable garnishment, pretzel-bunned deli sandwich, or whatever unique food truck delicacy that are currently stuffing their mouths with at the moment. (If that last sentence didn’t make you drool, there are also food trucks that specialize in kale.) Envisioning the taco truck utopia elicits an age-old political motto: “think globally, act locally.” While supporting less restrictive immigration policies from their federal government, taco truck utopians must also turn their attention to the local ordinances that needlessly attempt (and often fail) to centrally plan industries that pose no immediate threat to the public at large. In other words, don’t tread on my taco trucks. Jay StooksberryJay Stooksberry is a freelance writer with a passion for liberty, skepticism, humor, and whiskey. When he's not writing, he splits his time between marketing consultation and spending time with his wife and son. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter. This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article. More from LibertyLOL:
From the article:
The news has once again rolled around that the EpiPen, a specific brand of epinephrine auto-injector, has risen in price astronomically – far beyond the normal rate of inflation. Most recently, the company behind the EpiPen, Mylan, has reportedly raised their price from $100 to $500 per pack – right when school is about to start. Naturally, this has made things more difficult for working class parents to acquire the item by their own means, and caused outcry (especially in liberal media) about how once again this is an example of “runaway capitalism” at work where greed is allowed and exploitation is real. After further review, they've determined that the FDA regulations have actually decreased competition which CREATED the same monopoly that allows Mylan the opportunity to raise their prices. For one thing, Mylan holds a patent on a type of design that meets specific legal requirements hoisted upon schools for auto-injectors. Mylan therefore exploits this. Also, the FDA is reportedly barring competing companies that do manage to meet the same technical requirements by recalling their offerings based on higher standards than set for EpiPen, or by asking them to undergo more arbitrary testing before true consideration is offered. Insert cronyism here. Most members of the decision-making board of the FDA are huge stockholders in multiple big pharmaceutical companies. This is a blatant conflict of interest. Any person or entity who benefits financially from the profits of a particular industry should never be allowed to hold a position which exercises regulatory control over that same industry. It should be highly illegal. It probably already is and just isn't being enforced. At this point, Big Pharma enjoys a government enforced monopoly. While new drugs should be verified, the fact that it costs an average of $802 million and over 7.5 years before your drug is brought to market and you make your first sale is proof that there are significant barriers to entry created by the government.
From Encyclopedia.com:
It would not stretch matters to say that the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 (P.L. 59-384, 34 Stat. 768), also known as the Wiley Act, stands as the most consequential regulatory statute in the history of the United States. The act not only gave unprecedented new regulatory powers to the federal government, it also empowered a bureau that evolved into today's Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The legacy of the 1906 act includes federal regulatory authority over one-quarter of gross domestic product, and includes market gatekeeping power over human and animal drugs, foods and preservatives, medical devices, biologics and vaccines. Other statutes (such as the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, the Sherman and Clayton antitrust laws, and the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914) have received more study, but the Pure Food and Drug Act has had the longest-lasting and most widespread economic, political, and institutional impact. Today, the FDA regulates $1 trillion worth of products a year. Could the FDA reduce it's regulations and cut it's budget and market effect by 50%? I think so. To find out more about the FDA's charter, check out there page here.
12NOV EDIT: David Stockman's book is COMPLETE!
David Stockman was working on a new book and was releasing snippets in his blog over at http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/ It delves into the good and bad of the Trump campaign and platform and outlines a more consistent way forward based on free markets, fiscal rectitude, sound money, constitutional liberty, non-intervention abroad, minimalist government at home and decentralized political rule. Here's a great list of actual deals that the next President, whoever it is, should immediately negotiate: Ten Great Deals For The Donald If Donald Trump is elected, eschews a law and order crusade and does not capitulate to the destructive policies of the Wall Street/Washington/bicoastal establishment, there is a way forward. The political outlaw who considers himself to be the world’s greatest deal-maker would need to do just that. To wit, a President Trump determined to rid the nation of its mutant regime of Bubble Finance at home and failed interventionism abroad would need to make Ten Great Deals. A Peace Deal with Putin for dismantlement of NATO, cooperation in the middle east, strangulation of ISIS by the Shiite Crescent and a comprehensive worldwide agreement to end the arms trade and pave the way for general disarmament. A Jobs Deal based on slashing taxes on business and workers and replacing them with taxes on consumption and imports. A Sound Money Deal to repeal Humphrey-Hawkins, end the Fed’s war on savers and cash, abolish the FOMC and limit the Fed’s remit to passively providing liquidity at a penalty spread over market interest rates based on sound commercial collateral. A Glass-Steagall Deal to break up the giant financial conglomerates, limit the Fed’s liquidity window to “narrow banks” which only take deposits and make loans and deny deposit insurance to any banking institution involved in Wall Street trading, derivatives and other forms of financial gambling. A Federalist Deal to turn back most of Washington’s domestic grant and welfare programs to the states and localities in return for a mega-block grant with a 30-year phase-out. A Regulatory Deal based on an absolute 4-year freeze on every single pending regulation, and then subjecting every existing statute to strict cost-benefit rules thereafter. A Liberty Deal to get Washington out of the war on drugs, criminal law enforcement and regulation of private conduct and morality. A Health Care Deal based on the repeal of Obamacare and tax preferences for employer insurance plans and their replacement with wide-open provider competition, consumer choice and individual health tax credits. A Fiscal Deal to slash post-disarmament defense spending, devolve education and other domestic programs to local government and to clawback unearned social security/medicare entitlements benefits from the affluent elderly. And a Governance Deal to amend the constitution to rescind Citizens United, impose term limits and establish public finance of all Federal elections. More from LibertyLOL:
Bernie Sanders, who just made headlines for buying his third house for $600,000, refused to comment when a Univision reporter asked for his thoughts on Venezuela.
For a short time, Venezuela -- now a miserable #176 out of 178 countries in the Economic Freedom of the World Index -- was all the rage among leftist journalists and academics. Columnist David Sirota wrote an article for Salon called "Hugo Chavez's Economic Miracle," in which he chided free-marketeers for their dogmatism, and for refusing to acknowledge the clear merits of Venezuela's system. Haven't heard much from ol' Dave lately. Via Target Liberty, here's a depiction of the GDP figures in Venezuela and South Korea (for reference).
Oh, but we support the Scandinavian model of socialism, say your friends.
Later this month I'll be speaking on the show to Sweden's Dr. Nima Sanandaji, author of the forthcoming (August 23) book Debunking Utopia: Exposing the Myth of Nordic Socialism. That will be fun. Meanwhile, my friend Bob Murphy, the brilliant economist, just finished his course on the history of economic thought for Tom Wood's Liberty Classroom. He covers Karl Marx, the source of all this trouble. But he also covers lots of good guys, and helps us understand economics better by tracing out where the good ideas came from, and why the bad ideas were wrong. It's course #17. Members are downloading it like crazy. As the tagline says, it's the history and economics they didn't teach you. Take 20 smackers off one of our annual memberships with coupon code SMASH (all caps), or 100 smackers off a lifetime membership with code MASTERY (all caps). Recall Ludwig von Mises' warning: Everyone, in his own interests, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle. No one can stand aside with unconcern: the interests of everyone hang on the result. Whether he chooses or not, every man is drawn into the great historical struggle, the decisive battle into which our epoch has plunged us. Join that struggle: http://www.LibertyClassroom.com -Tom Woods |
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