The FCC 313-page Internet Regulations Order is accompanied by 70-plus pages of statements by the five commissioners, and the two that dissented in the vote to adopt the new regulations.
Republican Commissioner Ajit Pai had this to say:
“Americans love the free and open Internet, We relish our freedom to speak, to post, to rally, to learn, to listen, to watch, and to connect online.”
“The Internet has become a powerful force for freedom, both at home and abroad. So it is sad to witness the FCC’s unprecedented attempt to replace that freedom with government control.”
AT&T Vice President said:
“Unfortunately, the order released today begins a period of uncertainty that will damage broadband investment in the United States. Ultimately, though, we are confident the issue will be resolved by bipartisan action by Congress or a future FCC, or by the courts.”
Here is the direct link to the FCC.gov for internet regulations (a.k.a. Net Neutrality) FCC.GOV
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/department-of-the-internet.jpg350620Allen Westhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngAllen West2015-03-13 07:43:172015-03-13 16:14:08FCC to America: We passed it, Now you can read it! #NetNeutrality
The folks at the Environmental Protection Agency, starting with a long line of its administrators that now includes Gina McCarthy, think you and the Congress of the United States are stupid. They have been telling lies for so long they can’t imagine that their chokehold on the American economy will ever end.
EPA Director Gina McCarthy
It is, however, coming to an end and the reason is a Republican-controlled Congress responding to the countless businesses and individuals being ravaged by a ruthless bureaucracy driven by an environmental agenda determined to deprive America of the energy sources vital to our lives and the nation’s existence.
This was on display in early March when Gina McCarthy testified to the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee, asking for a nearly $500 million increase in its 2016 budget. The total discretionary budget request would have topped out at $8.6 billion and would reward states nearly $4 billion to go along with the EPA’s Clean Power Plan.
The problem is that the Clean Power Plan is really about no power or far more costly power in those states where the EPA has been shutting down coal-fired plants that not long ago provided fifty percent of all the electricity in the nation.
“More than 72 gigawatts (GW) of electrical generating capacity have already, or are now set to retire because of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulations. The regulations causing these closures include the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (colloquially called MATS, or Utility MACT), proposed Cross State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), and the proposed regulation of carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants.
To put 72 GW in perspective, that is enough electrical generation capacity to reliably power 44.7 million homes—or every home in every state west of the Mississippi River, excluding Texas. In other words, EPA is shutting down enough generating capacity to power every home in Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana.
Plants closed or soon to be closed. For a larger view click on the map.
Over 94 percent these retirements will come from generating units at coal-fired power plants, shuttering over one-fifth of the U.S.’s coal-fired generating capacity. While some of the effected units will be converted to use new fuels, American families and businesses will pay the price with higher utility bills and less reliability for their electricity.”
What nation would knowingly reduce its capacity to produce the electricity that everyone depends upon?
Answer: The United States of America.
Why? Because the EPA has been telling us that coal-fired plants produce carbon dioxide (CO2) and it is causing ours and the world’s temperature to increase to a point that threatens our lives. They have been claiming that everything from blizzards to droughts, hurricanes to forest fires, are the result of the CO2 that coal-fired plants produce.
That is a huge, stupendous lie.
In the Senate Committee meeting, McCarthy said, “Climate change is real. It is happening. It is a threat. Humans are causing the majority of that threat…the impacts are being felt. Climate change is not a religion. It is not a belief system. It’s a scientific fact. And our challenge is to move forward with the actions we need to protect future generations.”
Climate change is real. It’s been real for 4.5 billion years and it has absolutely nothing to do with anything that humans do, least of all heating, cooling and lighting their homes, running their businesses, and everything else that requires electricity.
McCarthy said that the EPA’s overall goal was to save the planet from rising sea levels, massive storms, and other climate events that impact our lives. No, that’s not why the EPA was created in 1970. Its job was to clean the water and the air. It has done a relatively good job, but its mandate had nothing to do with the climate, nor does the provision of energy have any impact on the climate.
The reverse is true. The climate has a lot of impact on us.
Regarding the “science” McCarthy referred to, according to a 2013 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, there were record low tornadoes, record low hurricanes, record gain in Arctic and Antarctic ice, no change in the rate of sea levels, and there had been NO WARMING at that point for 17—now 19—years.
When Sen. Jeff Sessions asked McCarthy a number of questions about droughts and hurricanes, she either dodged providing a specific answer or claimed, as with hurricanes, that “I cannot answer that question. It’s a very complicated issue.”
Asked about the computer models on which the EPA makes its regulatory decisions, McCarthy replied, “I do not know what the models actually are predicting that you are referring to.” Sen. Sessions said that it was incredible that the Administrator of the EPA “doesn’t know whether their predictions have been right or wrong.”
As for any “science” the EPA may be using, much of it is SECRET.
H. Sterling Burnett, the managing editor of the Heartland Institute’s Environment & Climate News, reported on The Secret Science Reform Act (HR 4012) introduced by the House Science Committee late last year. The bill would “prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from proposing, finalizing, or disseminating regulations or assessments based on science that is not transparent or reproducible.”
The House passed the Act on November 20, 2014 and it has been received in the Senate, read twice, and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. If it passes the Senate, that will be a giant leap forward in gaining oversight and control of the EPA.
Until then, the EPA’s administrator and staff will continue to work their mischief in the belief that both Congress and the rest of us are stupid. We’re not.
Warmed over regulations from 80 years ago won’t fix the Web by LAWRENCE W. REED.
Last month, the Federal Communications Commission launched a historic power grab over the Internet, euphemistically known as “net neutrality,” based on a Great Depression-era law to regulate public utilities. While entrepreneurs are pursuing cutting-edge business models and developing previously unimaginable technologies, Washington bureaucrats are reaching back eight decades to find a rationale to control a booming industry that didn’t even exist 25 years ago.
Conventional wisdom holds that government regulation is created by benevolent policymakers in order to protect the public from dangerous, exploitative private industry. But the idealistic progressives who push for an expansive regulatory state rarely follow up to see what the regulation accomplished in practice. That job is usually left to those whose warnings about incentives and unintended consequences were ignored in the first place.
People who support high-minded regulation in theory should survey how such bureaucratic “solutions” have tended to work (or not) in practice. That history gives us little reason to expect that the latest, greatest experiment in heavy-handed control will turn out any differently.
Consider one of the first attempts to control American communications. Mail delivery was humming along just fine until Congress banned privately-delivered first class mail in the 19th century. It did so not because private firms were lousy, but precisely because they were so good they were depriving the federal post office of business and hence congressmen of patronage jobs.
Or look closer at one of the textbook cases for regulation: the government’s noble attempt to save us from the predatory railroad robber barons. In reality, it was federal and state subsidies to railroads, not market forces, that produced the abuses that led to the creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission, which then played a central role in bankrupting American railroads and strangling interstate commerce for decades.
Anti-trust regulations were also sold as a way to protect the little guy from the big guy. But now we know that, in practice, they’ve functioned to curtail competition, slow innovation, and stop the little guy from ever becoming a big guy.
The 1906 Meat Inspection Act, lauded as the first of many crucial “public safety” regulations, was inspired by Upton Sinclair’s fictional work The Jungle and was supported by the major meat packers who wanted to put the taxpayers on the hook for the cost of inspection. The upshot was that government inspectors actually spread deadly disease through unscientific and unsanitary methods of detecting meat quality.
In 1913, Congress created the Federal Reserve System and told the country it would protect the integrity of the currency, iron out the business cycle, and promote full employment. A hundred years later, we have gotten a dollar worth perhaps a nickel of its 1913 value, a Great Depression, a Great Recession, and more volatility than in the century before the Fed.
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal was a blizzard of regulations designed to help prop up big industry and labor unions; we now know its principal effect was prolonging the Great Depression by about seven years.
The Civil Aeronautics Board, for instance, cartelized the airline industry for decades, restricting plane travel to wealthy citizens who could afford the high fares it mandated, until its dissolution in 1985. Interstate trucking also suffered from high prices under similarly byzantine rules and restrictions until it was deregulated in the 1970s and 1980s.
Remember the FCC’s Orwellian “fairness doctrine”? In the name of “fairness,” the FCC stifled diversity of opinion in broadcasting. The doctrine’s abolition led to an immediate blossoming of new voices and new media, but now the same government agency that censors radio and television is putting itself in charge of making sure the Internet is “fair” and “open” and “neutral,” so that corporations don’t slow down our content. Like so many benign-sounding schemes before it, Internet at the speed of government is liable to be more (and, in the end, quite a bit less) than regulation activists bargained for.
In the Wall Street Journal, L. Gordon Crovitz asks, “What if at the beginning of the Web, Washington had opted for Obamanet instead of the open Internet?” The thought is appalling: “Yellow Pages publishers could have invoked ‘harm’ and ‘unjust and unreasonable’ competition from online telephone directories. This could have strangled Alta Vista and Excite, the early leaders in search, and relegated Google to a Stanford student project. Newspapers could have lobbied against Craigslist for depriving them of classified advertising. Encyclopedia Britannica could have lobbied against Wikipedia.”
One would think that with such a sorry track record, Washington would be looking for market-based ways to solve problems, instead of constantly taking on the responsibility of fixing every real or imagined problem. But such is not the nature of the beast.
So here we are in 2015 with this massive, wondrous, global network called the Internet. It’s empowering billions of people, rich and poor, with a universe of knowledge and opportunities. While virtually everyone is going online for virtually everything, from education and entertainment to shopping and employment, here come the troglodyte regulators with their 80-year-old hammers, once again, planning to “fix” it for us. No thanks.
Lawrence W. (“Larry”) Reed became president of FEE in 2008 after serving as chairman of its board of trustees in the 1990s and both writing and speaking for FEE since the late 1970s. Prior to becoming FEE’s president, he served for 20 years as president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Midland, Michigan. He also taught economics full-time from 1977 to 1984 at Northwood University in Michigan and chaired its department of economics from 1982 to 1984.
EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is courtesy of FEE and Shutterstock.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/PostInternetdetails.jpg314631Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFoundation for Economic Education (FEE)2015-03-12 07:50:102015-03-12 07:50:10Internet at the Speed of Government
We often hear that individual investors are myopic. They make decisions based on a relatively short time horizon, so forget about the long run. That’s why we need government officials to step in with regulations, as well as corrective taxes and subsidies, to guide the market toward long-term social goals. Or so the story goes.
Though this view of markets versus government is common, it has things exactly backwards: markets do contain sophisticated mechanisms for rewarding long-term planning, and democratic political institutions encourage extremely short-term thinking.
The fundamental institution for promoting proper planning is private property. The owner of a piece of property has an incentive to take actions that enhance its market value. For example, consider the owner of a giant tin deposit who must decide how rapidly to extract the resource.
Those who are naïve about the operations of a market economy might suppose that the greedy capitalist owner would “strip mine” the deposit as quickly as possible, channeling all of the accessible tin into projects serving the current generation while ignoring the needs of future generations. A moment’s reflection shows this is nonsense.
The greedy capitalist owner is at least vaguely familiar with the notion that tin deposits — unlike apples and wheat — do not naturally replenish themselves year after year. An extra pound of tin extracted and sold this year means exactly one fewer pound of tin that this deposit can yield in some future year. Once we realize that the greedy capitalist doesn’t want to maximize revenue but instead wants to maximize market value, it is obvious that he must take the future into account when making current decisions.
Specifically, to maximize the market value of his asset, the owner should extract additional pounds of tin in the present (putting the proceeds in a financial investment earning the market rate of interest), until the point at which he would earn a greater return by leaving the next pound of tin in the deposit, to be sold next year at the expected market price. For example, if tin is selling today at $8 per pound, and the interest rate on financial assets is 10 percent, then the owner would halt his operations if he ever came to confidently expect the price of tin next year to be $8.80 or higher. (I’m assuming the marginal costs of extraction and selling are the same, year to year, just to keep things simple. See this article for a more comprehensive explanation using oil.) Once he reaches this point, the best “investment” of his additional units of tin would be to leave them in the mine, “ripening” for another year.
Thus we see that a greedy capitalist would implicitly (and unwittingly) take into account the desires of consumers next year when making current production decisions. He would be guided not by altruistic concern, but instead by personal enrichment. We see the familiar pattern of market prices guiding even selfish individuals into promoting the general welfare. If for some reason tin were expected to be scarcer in the future, then its expected spot price in the future would be higher. This would lead owners to hold tin off the market in the present, thus driving up its price even today, in anticipation of the expected future price. Modern financial and commodities markets — with futures and forward contracts, as well as more exotic derivatives — refine things even more, drawing on the dispersed knowledge and different risk appetites of millions of people.
The critics of capitalism would probably complain again at this point, bemoaning the fact that the greedy owner was now “undersupplying tin” and gouging today’s consumers with artificially higher prices. But if so, the critics need to make up their minds: do we want the tin going to the present or to the future? There’s a finite amount of it to go around — that’s the whole (alleged) problem.
Notice that even if a particular owner of a tin deposit is diagnosed with terminal cancer, he still has an incentive to behave in this “efficient” manner. The reason is that he can sell the tin deposit outright. The market value of the entire deposit will reflect the (present discounted) future flow of net income derived from owning the deposit and operating it in the optimal manner indefinitely. If the owner ever thinks, Well, if I had 10 years left, I would run the operation in such-and-such a way, then that decision won’t change just because he only has one year left. Instead, he can sell the operation to the highest bidder, including people who do have 10 or more years left of expected life.
Thus, we see that contrary to the critics, a pure market economy contains sophisticated mechanisms to guide owners into acting as farsighted stewards of depletable natural resources. In complete contrast, political officials who control natural resources face no such incentives. Because they can’t personally pocket the revenues, or bequeath the asset to their heirs, political officials have the incentive to maximize thecurrent income from the natural resources under their temporary control, to the extent that they are guided by pecuniary motives.
Even here, it’s usually not the case that the government sells access to a resource in order to maximize current receipts. Rather, what often happens is that the government officials will give sweetheart deals to private interests (such as a logging company operating in a state-owned forest), allowing these officials to develop a business relationship that will benefit them after leaving government.
Private owners in a free-market economy have the incentive to maximize the long-term value of their property, which implicitly leads them to consider the desires of future generations. Democratically elected government officials, on the other hand, act as temporary custodians who will not personally benefit from maintaining the market value of the assets they control.
Rental car companies would be foolish to suppose that their customers will put the more expensive high-octane gas into their vehicles, even though the customers might do so if they personally owned the rental car. Yet, for some reason, millions of voters think that politicians with two-year terms will be more farsighted when it comes to economic resources than private shareholders will be.
Robert P. Murphy has a PhD in economics from NYU. He is the author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism and The Politically Incorrect Guide to The Great Depression and the New Deal. He is also the Senior Economist with the Institute for Energy Research and a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. You can find him at http://consultingbyrpm.com/.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/20150310_Myopiadetails.jpg314631Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFoundation for Economic Education (FEE)2015-03-12 07:42:052015-03-12 07:42:56Are Markets Myopic? The illusion of government looking out for the long term by ROBERT P. MURPHY
On March 5th, a standing room only crowd of geographically and politically diverse groups came together in the Capitol Building of the Florida State Legislature for the “March for the Children” to support changes to our system of education spelled out in SB 1496 by Senator Evers and companion bill, HB 1121, by Representative Tobia.
“This bill has been a thoughtful product of education experts researching for years, advised by efforts in other states and national experts on standards and testing. It is NOT a political, knee- jerk, kick the can down the road, back room deal to appease corporate cronies,” said the Chair of the Florida Citizens Alliance Common Core Issue as she spoke to the crowd.
Senator Evers (R) spoke about the need for education reform in his seamless solution which will increase academic standards, end high stakes testing, increase learning time while reducing testing time, provide excellent accountability through adoption of nationally normed testing, and reduce costs dramatically. Senator Bullard (D) then spoke and announced he would co-sponsor the bill, highlighting that education is a NON-partisan issue and we all should work together to pass this bill. There is critical bipartisan recognition that our Florida legislators need to take a comprehensive approach to replacing Common core and its components with a total solution. Teachers, opt out groups, school boards, parents, and citizens are working together in support of these reforms.
The public has clamored for restoration of local control, ending High Stakes Testing, the end of data mining, reducing the sheer amount of testing, removal of Common Core standards and the end of Federal meddling in education which is unconstitutional and violated three separate federal laws.
The BIG kicker to HB 1121 is that tests will be administered on PAPER, so kids can stay in their own desks. No more musical chairs causing a huge loss of class time for learning. No more unfunded mandates from the state causing HUGE sums of money spent on computers for testing and technology for greater bandwidth. This could save our taxpayers and school districts over $2 Billion by some estimates just for starters. And what does a 3rd grader know about keyboarding skills? We don’t need to test keyboarding skills. We want to know their knowledge level. “The only ones who gain by computerizing testing are the testing and computer companies who have been ardent proponents of Common Core and high stakes testing,” Said Kathy Doan, Co-founder of www.StopCommonCoreFL.com.
The timing of the conference was serendipitous as the new Florida State Assessments (FSA) were scheduled to debut March 2 in schools throughout Florida and it highlighted the enormous problems as it crashed Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and a week of education was lost while administrators pointed fingers to Tallahassee in a large “see I told you so” moment.
Miami-Dade County’s School’s Superintendent Alberto Carvalho described the restart of computerized retesting Thursday as a “Massive, catastrophic fail.” While reports were being fed at the same time in the House Education Committee that “all is well and only a few thousand students were delayed.” He and many other Superintendents have been outspoken about the selection of AIR and about the state’s schools to be ready for this test.
At least 13 of the most populace counties halted the exams and had to deal with the major disruptions and dislocations, eroding confidence already weakened in the new FSA exams which were tested in Utah last year. In that state, there is movement to eliminate the test created by AIR which is a non-profit company not accustomed to academic testing at all, but which received a contract from the FLDOE for $220,000,000 to create Florida’s test and administer it over 5 years. There were concerns about the validity of the test and its measure of the students’ knowledge.
After the press conference, attendees broke down into smaller groups and went to their legislators office to urge them to co-sponsor these two companion bills. Some had driven from as far as West Palm Beach and Naples to register their support. They were able to convince four legislators to co-sponsor the bills immediately and about 20 more said they were likely to co-sponsor after they read the entire bill (imaging that!).
Many School Board members from around the state will be carrying the same message next week.
UPDATE: This week, the Florida House committee on K-12 Education will vote on their Kick the Can down the road bill which does not solve the problem. Florida have a live bill in the house and senate that seamlessly solves our education problems. To read at SB 1496 and HB 1121 go here: http://public.lobbytools.com/index.cfm?type=bills&id=40316#coms
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/repeal-common-core.jpg383600Chris Quackenbushhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngChris Quackenbush2015-03-07 13:01:422015-03-07 13:13:09Florida: Common Core 2015 Legislative Update
The Perceived Problems of Global Population Growth Are Failures of Governance by CHRISTOPHER LINGLE…
Once again the Bush administration has come under fire for a decision that runs counter to conventional wisdom. Undeterred by widespread denunciations after opposing the Kyoto Protocol, it announced that funds appropriated by Congress to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) would be cut back. With all the hue and cry about the dangers of population growth in the world, it would seem that an agency that supports reproductive health in developing countries should be a sacred cow. Even so, it is fair to ask whether this indicates a sort of bullheadness or insensitivity on the part of the President and his team or whether many of the shapers of world opinion have their facts wrong.
Unfortunately, this issue has become wrapped up with the abortion controversy. Both sides have sought to occupy the moral high ground. For its part, the Bush administration points to the use of UNFPA funds to support compulsory abortions in China. This should be uncontroversial to anyone outside the policy-making corridors of Beijing. It beggars the imagination that pro-choice advocates would support the use of force to require abortions, contraception, or sterilization.
From their side, population planners and reproductive-rights advocates insist that cutting funds will harm the interests of many women, especially in developing countries. Funding cuts are paired with horrific images of millions of unwanted pregnancies, related medical complications, and an unabated spread of AIDS. (See Nicholas D. Kristof’s op-ed “Devastated Women,” New York Times, April 26.)
The Bush administration might have found itself on more tenable ground if it shifted the debate toward the persistent negative image associated with population increases per se. For herein lies a truly prickly question. Neglected in this debate is that having more human beings actually constitutes a net gain. Instead, supporters of population planning (both voluntary or involuntary) start with the assumption that there are already too many of us on our fair earth. And there is surprisingly little dissent to this view. Sharp declines in infant mortality and improved health care have increased life spans and contributed to the population’s nearly quadrupling within a century, from around 1.6 billion in 1900 to almost 6 billion in 2000. Worries about a global population explosion brought warnings of worldwide famine and immiseration. Happily, these predictions have not been borne out. One eloquent body of work that should be more widely heeded is that of the late economist Julian Simon, who had a remarkably undismal view of the world. His optimism is best expressed in his book The Ultimate Resource. Therein, he identifies human beings as being capable of resolving most problems that confront us.
Ignoring the view of thinkers like Simon, political leaders in both India and China were caught in the trap of a negative logic that allowed abusive acts against their citizens in the name of “sound” public policy. Clearly, the forced sterilization and abortions they pursued were a violation of the most basic principles of human dignity. Their actions reflect a disregard for the value-added potential that is inherent in each and every human being. Yet they are obviously not alone. Even conventional economic data calculation reflects a negative bias against population growth.
Consider the calculation of per capita income whereby national income is divided by the size of the population. This means that an additional person will increase the denominator and reflect a decrease in the material well-being of a community. However, a batch of new puppies born to a breeder will increase the numerator and reflect an enhancement in economic conditions. Such an anomaly comes from ignoring the imputed present value of the future flow of benefits from a newly born human.
Despite their likely denials of such, there is an implicit racism in the demands of population-control advocates. Since many Western developed countries have shrinking populations, insistence on limiting population growth involves holding back the numbers of black, brown, and yellow peoples.
Although considerable evidence refutes the dismal view of population growth, it persists. Consider the fact that the areas of highest population density are the most prosperous and often the most hospitable. Amsterdam, Hong Kong, London, Singapore, and Tokyo are prime examples of this. And even though Bombay and Cairo are heavily polluted, they are both certainly more prosperous and productive than the surrounding countryside.
Exaggerated Dangers
Interestingly, advocates of population control are subject to strong personal incentives to exaggerate the dangers. Concocting horrific images of overpopulation allows politicians to lay claim to more resources from taxpayers (whose numbers they paradoxically wish to see increase!). Similarly, “nongovernmental organizations” (NGOs) stand to gain funds by beating the same drum.
It turns out that population growth has internal checks. For example, people who are richer, healthier, and better educated tend to have smaller families. According to U.N. estimates, there will be little growth in the world’s population growth after 2100 and the population will be stable at just below 11 billion. This is because the population growth rate peaked at about 2 percent a year in the early 1960s and has been declining ever since. It is now 1.26 percent and is expected to fall to 0.46 percent in 2050. Countries where fertility rates are at sub-replacement levels constitute about 44 percent of the world’s total population and include many developing countries. On the one hand, high rates of economic development along with rising per capita income has heralded a declining pace of population growth due to rapid decreases in birthrates. On the other hand, it is troubling counterpoint that countries with lower levels of economic development are experiencing a discernible decline in life spans.
Many countries have population profiles that show increased aging. With progressive improvement in life expectancies and health conditions during long intervals of peace, the median age of many populations has increased. With more individuals able to better their lives, it can be said that the overall human condition has improved.
There are other ways to cope with local population growth. One of the simplest would be to allow more open immigration. However, populists mount opposition by invoking the fear of infiltration by terrorist organizations or the dilution of indigenous culture. These claims find eager support among trade unionists who want to keep out other workers who seek to improve their lot. Looking at it from a purely economic standpoint, there is considerable evidence that migration yields net benefits to receiving countries. Incoming migrants tend to be younger and healthier than the receiving population. And their choice to move away from the familiarities of their home country implies a high initiative to work. In all events, most economic migrants take up jobs that locals are unwilling or unable to fill.
The other way to offset the pressures of the peopling of the earth is to take steps to allow higher economic growth. There are various benefits from this. First, increases in average income tend to lead to declining birth rates. Second, higher levels of income provide both the desire and the means to solve a wide range of problems.
The perceived problems of global population growth are failures of governance. Instead of diverting resources toward population control, governments and NGOs should support open immigration and policies that promote economic growth.
ABOUT CHRISTOPHER LINGLE
Christopher Lingle is a professor of economics at Universidad Francisco Marroquín.
EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is courtesy of FEE and Shutterstock.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/20150306_detail.jpg313631Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFoundation for Economic Education (FEE)2015-03-06 17:56:572015-03-06 17:56:57The Inhumanity of Population Control
The smart choice is innovation at the edge by ANDREAS ANTONOPOULOS…
“Every device employed to bolster individual freedom must have as its chief purpose the impairment of the absoluteness of power.” — Eric Hoffer
In computer and communications networks, decentralization leads to faster innovation, greater openness, and lower cost. Decentralization creates the conditions for competition and diversity in the services the network provides.
But how can you tell if a network is decentralized, and what makes it more likely to be decentralized? Network “intelligence” is the characteristic that differentiates centralized from decentralized networks — but in a way that is surprising and counterintuitive.
Some networks are “smart.” They offer sophisticated services that can be delivered to very simple end-user devices on the “edge” of the network. Other networks are “dumb” — they offer only a very basic service and require that the end-user devices are intelligent. What’s smart about dumb networks is that they push innovation to the edge, giving end-users control over the pace and direction of innovation. Simplicity at the center allows for complexity at the edge, which fosters the vast decentralization of services.
Surprisingly, then, “dumb” networks are the smart choice for innovation and freedom.
The telephone network used to be a smart network supporting dumb devices (telephones). All the intelligence in the telephone network and all the services were contained in the phone company’s switching buildings. The telephone on the consumer’s kitchen table was little more than a speaker and a microphone. Even the most advanced touch-tone telephones were still pretty simple devices, depending entirely on the network services they could “request” through beeping the right tones.
In a smart network like that, there is no room for innovation at the edge. Sure, you can make a phone look like a cheeseburger or a banana, but you can’t change the services it offers. The services depend entirely on the central switches owned by the phone company. Centralized innovation means slow innovation. It also means innovation directed by the goals of a single company. As a result, anything that doesn’t seem to fit the vision of the company that owns the network is rejected or even actively fought.
In fact, until 1968, AT&T restricted the devices allowed on the network to a handful of approved devices. In 1968, in a landmark decision, the FCC ruled in favor of the Carterfone, an acoustic coupler device for connecting two-way radios to telephones, opening the door for any consumer device that didn’t “cause harm to the system.”
That ruling paved the way for the answering machine, the fax machine, and the modem. But even with the ability to connect smarter devices to the edge, it wasn’t until the modem that innovation really accelerated. The modem represented a complete inversion of the architecture: all the intelligence was moved to the edge, and the phone network was used only as an underlying “dumb” network to carry the data.
Did the telecommunications companies welcome this development? Of course not! They fought it for nearly a decade, using regulation, lobbying, and legal threats against the new competition. In some countries, modem calls across international lines were automatically disconnected to prevent competition in the lucrative long-distance market. In the end, the Internet won. Now, almost the entire phone network runs as an app on top of the Internet.
The Internet is a dumb network, which is its defining and most valuable feature. The Internet’s protocol (transmission control protocol/Internet protocol, or TCP/IP) doesn’t offer “services.” It doesn’t make decisions about content. It doesn’t distinguish between photos and text, video and audio. It doesn’t have a list of approved applications. It doesn’t even distinguish between client and server, user and host, or individual versus corporation. Every IP address is an equal peer.
TCP/IP acts as an efficient pipeline, moving data from one point to another. Over time, it has had some minor adjustments to offer some differentiated “quality of service” capabilities, but other than that, it remains, for the most part, a dumb data pipeline. Almost all the intelligence is on the edge — all the services, all the applications are created on the edge-devices. Creating a new application does not involve changing the network. The Web, voice, video, and social media were all created as applications on the edge without any need to modify the Internet protocol.
So the dumb network becomes a platform for independent innovation, without permission, at the edge. The result is an incredible range of innovations, carried out at an even more incredible pace. People interested in even the tiniest of niche applications can create them on the edge. Applications that only have two participants only need two devices to support them, and they can run on the Internet. Contrast that to the telephone network where a new “service,” like caller ID, had to be built and deployed on every company switch, incurring maintenance cost for every subscriber. So only the most popular, profitable, and widely used services got deployed.
The financial services industry is built on top of many highly specialized and service-specific networks. Most of these are layered atop the Internet, but they are architected as closed, centralized, and “smart” networks with limited intelligence on the edge.
Take, for example, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), the international wire transfer network. The consortium behind SWIFT has built a closed network of member banks that offers specific services: secure messages, mostly payment orders. Only banks can be members, and the network services are highly centralized.
The SWIFT network is just one of dozens of single-purpose, tightly controlled, and closed networks offered to financial services companies such as banks, brokerage firms, and exchanges. All these networks mediate the services by interposing the service provider between the “users,” and they allow minimal innovation or differentiation at the edge — that is, they are smart networks serving mostly dumb devices.
Bitcoin is the Internet of money. It offers a basic dumb network that connects peers from anywhere in the world. The bitcoin network itself does not define any financial services or applications. It doesn’t require membership registration or identification. It doesn’t control the types of devices or applications that can live on its edge. Bitcoin offers one service: securely time-stamped scripted transactions. Everything else is built on the edge-devices as an application. Bitcoin allows any application to be developed independently, without permission, on the edge of the network. A developer can create a new application using the transactional service as a platform and deploy it on any device. Even niche applications with few users — applications never envisioned by the bitcoin protocol creator — can be built and deployed.
Almost any network architecture can be inverted. You can build a closed network on top of an open network or vice versa, although it is easier to centralize than to decentralize. The modem inverted the phone network, giving us the Internet. The banks have built closed network systems on top of the decentralized Internet. Now bitcoin provides an open network platform for financial services on top of the open and decentralized Internet. The financial services built on top of bitcoin are themselves open because they are not “services” delivered by the network; they are “apps” running on top of the network. This arrangement opens a market for applications, putting the end user in a position of power to choose the right application without restrictions.
What happens when an industry transitions from using one or more “smart” and centralized networks to using a common, decentralized, open, and dumb network? A tsunami of innovation that was pent up for decades is suddenly released. All the applications that could never get permission in the closed network can now be developed and deployed without permission. At first, this change involves reinventing the previously centralized services with new and open decentralized alternatives. We saw that with the Internet, as traditional telecommunications services were reinvented with email, instant messaging, and video calls.
This first wave is also characterized by disintermediation — the removal of entire layers of intermediaries who are no longer necessary. With the Internet, this meant replacing brokers, classified ads publishers, real estate agents, car salespeople, and many others with search engines and online direct markets. In the financial industry, bitcoin will create a similar wave of disintermediation by making clearinghouses, exchanges, and wire transfer services obsolete. The big difference is that some of these disintermediated layers are multibillion dollar industries that are no longer needed.
Beyond the first wave of innovation, which simply replaces existing services, is another wave that begins to build the applications that were impossible with the previous centralized network. The second wave doesn’t just create applications that compare to existing services; it spawns new industries on the basis of applications that were previously too expensive or too difficult to scale. By eliminating friction in payments, bitcoin doesn’t just make better payments; it introduces market mechanisms and price discovery to economic activities that were too small or inefficient under the previous cost structure.
We used to think “smart” networks would deliver the most value, but making the network “dumb” enabled a massive wave of innovation. Intelligence at the edge brings choice, freedom, and experimentation without permission. In networks, “dumb” is better.
Andreas M. Antonopoulos is a technologist and serial entrepreneur who advises companies on the use of technology and decentralized digital currencies such as bitcoin.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/20150303_dumbnetworkdetail.png313631Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFoundation for Economic Education (FEE)2015-03-06 17:26:482015-03-06 17:27:31Decentralization: Why Dumb Networks Are Better
A Huffington Post blogger claims the state’s recovery debunks laissez faire by COREY IACONO, MATT PALUMBO…
“US Uncut” founder Carl Gibson is known for creating shocking, if dubious, viral memes about the economy.
On the progressive group’s Facebook page, he’s claimed that Switzerland is such an equal society because they have a minimum wage of $50,000 a year and strict caps on CEO pay (despite the fact Switzerland has no minimum or maximum wage laws). He’s also attributed Iceland’s success after the financial crisis to their government’s heroic refusal to bail out the banks (as long as we don’t count the $4.6 billion bailout they got from the IMF). His solution to the US national debt is to follow the example of Norway, which taxes oil profits at an astounding 78 percent and has no national debt (we’ll just assume he’s never typed “Norway national debt” into Google).
His heroic battle with facts continued last week in his column at the Huffington Post. This time he’s managed to single-handedly disprove “trickle-down economics,” a school of thought that doesn’t actually exist. In his words, “It’s official — trickle-down economics is bunk. Minnesota has proven it once and for all.”
What has Minnesota done? Hike the top income tax rate to 90 percent? Raise corporate taxes? Increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour? No, but under the governorship of Mark Dayton, who took office in 2011, Minnesota raised the state income tax rate on individuals earning over $150,000 (and households earning over $250,000) by a whopping 2 percentage points.
According to Gibson’s narrative, everything was on the wrong track in the Gopher State under the prior conservative governorship: “Between 2003 and late 2010, when [Governor Tim] Pawlenty was at the head of Minnesota’s state government, he managed to add only 6,200 more jobs.… Between 2011 and 2015, Gov. Dayton added 172,000 new jobs to Minnesota’s economy — that’s 165,800 more jobs in Dayton’s first term than Pawlenty added in both of his terms combined.”
While the global recession did have devastating impacts on the Minnesotan labor market at the end of Pawlenty’s term, it’s true that employment growth has been superior under his successor. In the first four years of Pawlenty’s tenure, employment in the state grew by 99,100 jobs, substantially less than the 182,100 in Dayton’s first four years. But is this really a result of progressive policies, or just the natural result of the economic recovery?
Gibson attributes Minnesota’s recovery to three of Governor Dayton’s policies: raising the minimum wage, raising taxes on the wealthy, and guaranteeing equal pay for women. But these changes were all quite small, and none corresponded with the turnaround in Minnesota’s employment, suggesting that they could not have been the cause.
Consider Governor Dayton’s plan for raising Minnesota’s minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2018. Under Dayton’s plan, the minimum wage is set to rise gradually:
[Prior to August 2014] Minnesota law set the minimum wage at $5.25 for companies with annual revenues up to $625,000 and $6.15 for companies that have revenues of $625,000 or more. The new law will change the threshold for small and large businesses to those making more or less than $500,000 in annual revenues. For those above that line, the wage will go from $6.15 per hour to $8. The small employer wage will go from $5.25 per hour to $6.50.
Considering that the federal minimum wage (which covers almost all hourly workers) is already at $7.25 per hour, a $0.75 increase in Minnesota’s minimum wage, applicable only to workers earning less than $8 an hour at businesses grossing more than $500,000 a year, isn’t exactly a radical move, nor would its effects be visible in raw employment data. Moreover, the minimum wage increase only went into effect in the summer of 2014, almost four years after Minnesota’s job market began to recover.
Similarly, the Women’s Economic Security Act, which guarantees equal pay for women working for state contractors (not businesses in general) by certifying that they are in compliance with non-discrimination laws that already exist, wasn’t put into effect until May 2014.
And Dayton’s tax hike, which increased the top marginal tax rate by 2 percent? That didn’t occur until 2013, and it only increased state revenues by $1.1 billion (or 0.35% of Minnesota GDP).
In fact, all of the policies Gibson praises were implemented well after Minnesota started experiencing its impressive job growth, and they weren’t especially ambitious in the first place.
As for the supposed benefits of higher taxes, Gibson states that “even though Minnesota’s top income tax rate is the 4th-highest in the country, it has the 5th-lowest unemployment rate in the country at 3.6 percent.” But this is the definition of a cherry-picked statistic. If you want to establish a correlation between top marginal tax rates and unemployment, you really have to use more than one data point and control for more than zero variables. (Speaking of cherry-picked statistics, among Midwestern states ranked by job creation from March 2013–2014, Minnesota ranked dead last).
In addition, an international study found that in industrialized countries, such as the United States, higher top marginal tax rates are associated with higher rates of unemployment. This suggests that higher top marginal tax rates may lead to less job creation than would otherwise occur.
The belief that higher minimum wages and higher taxes lead to better economic outcomes is not well-supported by the empirical evidence. Consider a study that found that reductions in state top marginal tax rates are associated with increases in income growth for all income quintiles (and vice versa). This result is diametrically opposed to Gibson’s depiction of reality.
Regarding the minimum wage, the empirical literature is mixed, but recent research by Jeffrey Clemens of the University of California raises some serious concerns. His analysis involved tracking thousands of real individuals across the country, comparing the experiences of low-skilled workers in states that increased their minimum wages to that of low-skilled workers in states that did not. Clemens and his co-author used a number of controls to ensure that their findings represented the actual effects of the minimum wage increase, rather than the effects of other variables. The results? Minimum wage increases had “significant, negative effects on the employment and income growth of targeted workers.”
Similarly, a study on economic freedom and income inequality in the states found that “reductions in both state minimum wages and tax burdens would be the most helpful in promoting higher levels, growth rates, and shares of income for the lowest quintile [that is, the poorest households].”
Clearly, controlled studies like these provide much more compelling evidence on the effects of minimum wage and tax hikes than a few uncorrelated data points scrounged from one state during a period of general economic recovery. It’s true that Dayton passed a few minor progressive policies during this time, but just because you jump in front of a parade doesn’t mean you’re leading it.
While Gibson and his ilk would like people to believe that interventionist policies are necessary for growth, research from the St. Louis Fed has found that, after controlling for other variables known to correlate with economic growth, states with less government interference in the economy experienced faster rates of employment growth than their interventionist peers. Other research suggests that the states with less economic intervention also tend to have lower unemployment rates and higher labor force participation rates.
Unlike Gibson, we will not be so ambitious as to claim that this evidence definitively debunks the entire progressive agenda. But we will suggest that there is compelling evidence that free markets work, and it can’t be refuted by a handful of cherry-picked data points from a single state.
According to Eckhart Tolle, the popular author of spiritual books including The Power of Now, happiness is only possible in the present, the now. Past and future are beyond reach, and so “the present moment is all you ever have.” He writes:
Nothing ever happened in the past; it happened in the Now. Nothing will ever happen in the future; it will happen in the Now.
His message isn’t that we should forget the past or abandon planning for the future. Rather, he’s expressing a psychological attitude consistent with many spiritual and religious traditions, Eastern and Western.
Economists, Ludwig von Mises and Adam Smith among them, have written in similar terms about the meaning and significance of the Now.
The praxeological Now
It’s true that Mises’s focus on the Now isn’t to explain how to achieve happiness. In fact, in the tradition ofCarl Menger that Mises helped to develop, one of the requirements for human action is that we feel uneasy about our current situation, and uneasiness isn’t consistent with most concepts of happiness. But the relevant point for Mises is that human action only takes place in the present. Specifically, “from the praxeological aspect [that is, the aspect relevant to economics] there is between the past and the future a real extended present. Action is as such in the real present because it utilizes the instant and thus embodies its reality,” he writes.
And he doesn’t quite say, with Tolle, that it’s only in the present that we can tap into reality. But he does say that the only time available to us in which to act — to apply the knowledge gained from the past to change the future in accordance with our expectations — is the “real extended present.” The Now exists between memory and expectation.
Smith also wrote about the power of Now, and in much the same spirit as Tolle.
A Smithian perspective
Smith’s Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, is considered the first extended and systematic treatment of economics. Its lessons are still relevant, and I highly recommend it to anyone who seriously wants to learn about economic theory and economic history. But it’s not my favorite work by Smith.
My favorite, because of its subject matter and especially its beautiful writing, is Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments, published in 1759. I won’t attempt to summarize it except to say that it concerns the nature and origins of sentiments, such as sympathy, and the role they play in our social relations, similar to what today would fall under the heading of “cultural economics.”
The very first chapter, “On Sympathy,” begins:
How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it. Of this kind is pity or compassion, the emotion which we feel for the misery of others, when we either see it, or are made to conceive it in a very lively manner.
If you only know Smith from The Wealth of Nations, with its important lesson that “it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest,” it may surprise you to see this opening observation on compassion. Personally, I was surprised by the level of psychological analysis contained in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, especially the insights into human happiness and unhappiness:
The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life, seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent situation and another. Avarice over-rates the difference between poverty and riches: ambition, that between a private and a public station: vain-glory, that between obscurity and extensive reputation.
So avarice and misplaced pride and ambition are the sources of misery to anyone, regardless of status or station. And the social distinctions we make between people in different professions aren’t due to differences in nature, a point Smith makes in a famous passage in The Wealth of Nations:
The difference between the most dissimilar characters, between a philosopher and a common street porter, for example, seems to arise not so much from nature as from habit, custom, and education. When they came into the world, and for the first six or eight years of their existence, they were, perhaps, very much alike, and neither their parents nor playfellows could perceive any remarkable difference.
This passage reflects Smith’s characteristically liberal (in the original, classical sense of the word) belief that all persons are created equal. And that, in turn, leads me to this wonderful passage in The Theory of Moral Sentiments:
What the favourite of the king of Epirus said to his master, may be applied to men in all the ordinary situations of human life. When the King had recounted to him, in their proper order, all the conquests which he proposed to make, and had come to the last of them; And what does your Majesty propose to do then? said the Favourite. — I propose then, said the King, to enjoy myself with my friends, and endeavour to be good company over a bottle. — And what hinders your Majesty from doing so now? replied the Favourite.
How wise! Smith goes on to explain,
In the most glittering and exalted situation that our idle fancy can hold out to us, the pleasures from which we propose to derive our real happiness, are almost always the same with those which, in our actual, though humble station, we have at all times at hand, and in our power.
This isn’t merely about stopping to smell the roses. Smith is saying that it’s always in our power to be happy, whoever and wherever and whenever we are. Happiness is and can only be here and now, and never “just around the corner.” In this sense, the relentless pursuit of happiness is the very source of our misery.
The inscription upon the tomb-stone of the man who had endeavoured to mend a tolerable constitution by taking physic; “I was well, I wished to be better; here I am”; may generally be applied with great justness to the distress of disappointed avarice and ambition.
Sandy Ikeda is a professor of economics at Purchase College, SUNY, and the author of The Dynamics of the Mixed Economy: Toward a Theory of Interventionism.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/20150304_zenbuddhadetail.png313631Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFoundation for Economic Education (FEE)2015-03-06 09:46:102015-03-06 09:47:22Adam Smith: Zen Master East and West converge on the “power of now” by SANDY IKEDA
You might be downloading tomorrow’s law by MAX BORDERS…
If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth — certainly the machine will wear out… but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.
In the peer-to-peer revolution, the most important elections will happen outside the voting booth. And the most important laws won’t be written by lawmakers.
Consider this: The first time you hopped into a Lyft or an Uber, there was probably, at the very least, a legal gray area associated with that trip. And yet, in your bones, didn’t you think that what you were doing was just, even if it wasn’t yet clearly legal?
If you felt that way, I suspect you weren’t alone.
Today, ridesharing apps are operating in most major cities around the country. And municipalities are having to play catch-up because the people have built massive constituencies around these new services.
This is just one example of what Princeton political scientist James C. Scott calls “Irish democracy,” where people simply stop paying attention to some rule (or ruler) because it has outlived its usefulness.
One need not have an actual conspiracy to achieve the practical effects of a conspiracy. More regimes have been brought, piecemeal, to their knees by what was once called “Irish Democracy,” the silent, dogged resistance, withdrawal, and truculence of millions of ordinary people, than by revolutionary vanguards or rioting mobs.
Now, let’s be clear: the right rules are good things. Laws are like our social operating system, and we need them. But we don’t need all of them, much less all of them to stick around forever. And like our operating systems, our laws need updating. Shouldn’t legal updates happen not by waiting around on politicians but in real time?
“But Max,” you might be thinking. “What about the rule of law? You have to change the law through legitimate processes.”
And that’s not unreasonable. After all, we don’t want mob rule, and we don’t want just anyone to be able to change the law willy-nilly — especially those laws that cover our basic rights and freedoms. There is an important distinction, however, between justice and law, one that’s never easy to unpack. But Henry David Thoreau said it well, when he wrote,
Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its wise minority? Why does it cry and resist before it is hurt? Why does it not encourage its citizens to be on the alert to point out its faults, and do better than it would have them?
Today’s peer-to-peer civil disobedience is tomorrow’s emergent law.
In other words, the way the best law has always come about is not through a few wise rulers getting together and writing up statutes; rather, it emerges among people interacting with each other and wanting to avoid conflict. When peaceful people are engaging in peaceful activity, they want to keep it that way. And when people find new and creative ways to interact peacefully, old laws can be obstructions.
So as we engage in peer-to-peer civil disobedience, we are making choices that are leading to the emergence of new law, however slowly and clumsily it follows on. This is a beautiful process, because it requires not the permission of rulers, but rather the assent of peer communities. It is rather like democracy on steroids, except we don’t have to send our prayers up through the voting booth in November.
Legal theorist Bruce Benson calls this future law the “Law Merchant.” He describes matters thus:
A Law Merchant evolves whenever commerce emerges. Practices that facilitated emergence of commerce in medieval Europe were replayed in colonial America, and they are being replayed in Eastern Europe, Eastern Asia, Latin America, and cyberspace. Law Merchant arrangements also support “underground” economic activity when states constrain above-ground market development.
It might be a while before we evolve away from our outmoded system of sending politicians to capitals to make statutes. And the issue of lawmakers playing catch-up with emergent systems may be awkward and kludgy for a while. But when we think that the purpose of law is to help people interact peacefully, peer-to-peer civil disobedience might be a necessary ingredient in reweaving the law for the sake of human flourishing.
Max Borders is the editor of The Freeman and director of content for FEE. He is also cofounder of the event experience Voice & Exitand author of Superwealth: Why we should stop worrying about the gap between rich and poor.
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Rubio: “Unlike the roads we drive on, the Internet is not a place where we need to start posting new speed limits and setting up new speed traps, but that’s essentially what this federal action threatens to do to the Internet.”
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) issued the following statement regarding today’s vote by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to increase government regulation of the Internet by reclassifying broadband as a telecommunications utility under Title II of the Communications Act:
“Over the past two decades, access to high speed Internet and the freedom to use it have transformed our economy and created infinite new ways for people to achieve the American Dream. Millions of people have thrived in the Internet era in no small part because overreaching government regulations and devious international schemes to seize control of it away from the U.S. have been rejected – until now.
“A federal government board in Washington today took action that threatens to overregulate the Internet to the point of making it more expensive for consumers, less innovative and less competitive. The Internet has thrived on innovation, speed and healthy competition to become faster and faster. Unlike the roads we drive on, the Internet is not a place where we need to start posting new speed limits and setting up new speed traps, but that’s essentially what this federal action threatens to do to the Internet.
“The Internet doesn’t need more rules and mandates that take power away from consumers and hand it to a federal government board that every lobbyist, lawyer and crony capitalist with a vested interest in the Internet will now seek to manipulate to their advantage. The Internet has worked so well so far precisely because it’s been as level a playing field as we have in any industry today, but now this decision threatens to give government regulators the power to pick winners and losers.
“I’m also concerned that this needless government intrusion into the Internet distracts from what we should be doing to reach the next frontier in the Internet’s history: to bring it within reach of the almost 100 million Americans who remain offline. Closing the digital divide is a goal we can achieve in the coming years, but only if we pursue policies like the Wi-Fi Innovation Act and the Wireless Innovation Act that I’ve introduced to increase the availability of spectrum in order to connect more people and increase capacity for growing amounts of data being exchanged via broadband.
“Instead of allowing a Washington bureaucratic board to have the final say, an action of this magnitude should be debated openly in Congress, where I’m confident it would be defeated. Consequential decisions like this about the Internet’s future should be made by Congress, not a federal board of unelected commissioners who are not accountable to a single American citizen. Congress should act immediately to begin updating outdated telecommunications laws.”
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/Internet-1.jpeg398640Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2015-03-03 08:20:402015-03-03 09:10:59Senator Rubio: FCC over-Regulation threatens the Internet with ‘speed limits’ and ‘speed traps’
Just when Americans are reeling from ObamaCare and a plethora of government regulations at work and at home, the Obama Administration has come up with a plan to ‘make us all healthier.’ The U.S. Health and Human Services Dept. recently released a report from ‘The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee,’ (DGAC), which didn’t receive much attention from the press, but should have every American fuming and wondering when the line will be drawn for government encroachment into our lives. In this panel’s 571 page report are recommendations to tax sodas, desserts, (or anything sweet for that matter), promoting a plant-based diet, because meat consumption causes too many ‘greenhouse gas emissions.’ The DGAC has given the American public 45 days to offer their comments on this draconian, far-fetched ‘Big Brother’ plan. Here is my response.
The DGAG has suggested having ‘trained obesity interventionists’ at worksites and ‘electronic monitoring’ of our teenagers to determine how sedentary our population is because there could be a problem with too much TV viewing or computer overload. Can you imagine these ACORN type personas coming to your workplace, measuring your body fat and instructing your employer to get you off your swivel chair or he’ll be fined? What parent in his right mind would allow a government-type electronic monitoring of children in the home while they watch TV? Are they serious? Let’s not forget that electronic monitoring of our children has been tested in the school system and has received mass resistance.
Now many of us remember the Bureau of Land Management’s dislike for ranchers when the showdown occurred on the Bundy Ranch, and now we are witnessing another government agency advising us that we must cut back on meat because of ‘greenhouse gases’ and ‘carbon footprints.’ Perhaps these out-of-touch bureaucrats don’t even know that the struggling American Middle Class has already cut back on meat consumption because of high unemployment and rising food prices. Does anyone believe that the same government bureaucrats will stop eating their steaks or fillet mignons? Haven’t we learned from ObamaCare that regulations for the masses don’t necessarily apply to the bureaucrats who pass the laws?
Now concerning American’s love affair with sweets…how will the USG tax desserts and micro-manage our sweet tooth? Could first on the list to tax be Apple Pie, because…well…it’s too…. American? (Now if the government begins to tax tiramisu or baklava it could be considered very discriminatory; we don’t want to insult the Italians or Greeks!) Will restaurants be forced double tax for the apple pie a la mode; and what about the extremely decadent, caloric chocolate flourless cake? (Shouldn’t the bureaucrats reduce this tax because, after all, the flour has been taken out?)
Obama supporter, billionaire Warren Buffet, recently confessed that he ‘eats like a six year old’ and has a big bowl of chocolate chip ice cream for breakfast, and drinks at least five coca colas a day with canned potato stix. He has just broken the government narrative. Does anyone believe that the USG ‘interventionists’ will march into HIS executive suite and measure his body fat or monitor him at home while he salivates on his ice cream while HE’S watching TV?
The American public needs to stop this maniacal behavior of overreaching government bureaucrats who have nothing better to do that to sit around and plan ways to tax the Middle Class and micro-manage our eating habits. Do we really want the government in our workplace, in our kitchen and living room monitoring our behavior because it’s for our own good and wants us to be healthy, so that we can live longer and not die?
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/american-apple-pie.jpg452633Ruth Romanhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngRuth Roman2015-03-03 05:22:582015-03-03 05:22:58Take Away My Steak, Tax My Apple Pie Because DHHS Panel Thinks I Might Die?
“Light yourself on fire with passion and people will come from miles to watch you burn.” – John Wesley
In my prior professional career, one of the jobs I enjoyed the most was serving the company’s executive leadership as a 360°, leadership feedback coach. 360° feedback is a human resources tool in which employees and leaders receive confidential, anonymous performance feedback from direct reports, peers and management via a competency management tool incorporating the company’s preferred management competencies and leadership behaviors.
The feedback is then shared with the employee during a two and a half to three hour confidential coaching session. Coaching preparation is intense and includes analyzing and aligning both numerical and graphical data with unvarnished, sometimes brutal, written commentary.
Occasionally, I would prepare a report that portrayed an extraordinary leader. The more I analyzed the person the more excited I became to meet them. And when I finally came face-to-face with the individual behind the numbers and graphs, it didn’t take long to understand why the executive was revered as a powerhouse leader.
Time after time, what separated the truly superb leader from the good or even great leader was passion and purpose.
Powerhouse leaders have a passion for what they do, a passion for leading people and a clearly defined sense of purpose for who they are and where they are going. These are truly remarkable people. I saw that kind of passion and purpose this week in a young man who came to my home to prepare his company’s moving estimate. In the course of gathering information he shared that he was of Cuban descent and spoke about the loss of freedom he experienced in his early years while living in his native country. I wish you could have seen the intensity of expression when he described the freedom he gained when coming to America. He then asked me what I did. I told him about the FairTax®. He immediately got it, and quickly commented on how important it is that America understands the lost freedom inherent in taxing income. He then began to tell me about a book – and he insisted I read it. He also told me about the author’s freedom project and why it had ignited in him such an extraordinary passion; so much so that he committed to donating $100 per paycheck to buy more and more books so he could give them to people that he meets through his work.
Folks, that’s the power of passion! It’s a power so strong that it drove this young man to make a huge financial commitment for an advocacy project that he uniquely understands – individual freedom.
Imagine what could happen to the FairTax campaign if this movement experienced an explosion of passion and purpose – passion for accelerating the pace of the campaign’s progress, passion for driving a new awakening about what it means to have freedom from the tyranny of income taxation and the IRS, and passion for being a nation that has the courage to enact a tax plan that is fair and simple for all taxpayers – regardless of income, family size, marital status or political persuasion.
Have you found your FairTax purpose – your FairTax passion? As Bishop T.D. Jakes said, “If you can’t figure out your purpose, figure out your passion. For your passion will lead you right into your purpose.” Is your purpose in serving as a grassroots volunteer – maybe telling people you meet about the FairTax, sharing Facebook posts, supporting local education efforts or joining Glen Terrell’s letters to the editor team? Is your passion seeing the FairTax campaign gain new cosponsors in Congress or in recruiting new AFFT 1040 Club members? Whatever your FairTax passion, whatever your FairTax purpose, bring it on! If you don’t know, I challenge you to jump in with both feet and begin exploring different opportunities.
This year’s Valentine’s Day was disastrous — not just for me, but for many ex-couples. But as I sat there on Sunday nursing my broken heart, I realized what’s wrong with romance today: not enough regulation.
The United States government has wisely chosen to regulate most other aspects of life, from what wage you are allowed to work for to what medicines a patient is allowed to buy over the counter. Voluntary interactions are all well and good, but the bottom line is that people have to be protected from themselves. The trade-off between liberty and security exists not only in privacy and foreign policy: we must strike a similar balance in the arena of love.
I propose the creation of a new government organization, the Committee to Assure Romantic Equity (CARE), to bring an end to the current Wild West of romance. Three powerful sets of regulations would bring much-needed stability to the chaos of dating.
1.Who’s allowed to date?
Just as professionals — from hair-braiders to interior decorators — must be licensed, so too the government must step in to license daters.
Right now, the dating market is overrun with shoddy specimens. Sleazy men buy women drinks and sleep with them on the first date. Immoral women cheat on their loving boyfriends. Many people lack the discretion to choose good partners for themselves, and their poor decisions can bring out the worst in people. Never mind that they sometimes have children.
To remedy this situation, any dating hopeful should have to submit an application to CARE. A licensing system should be set up whereby applicants pay for classes in order to certify both their good-heartedness and their ability to treat a partner well. In order to enforce this system, CARE agents would inspect couples, fining or jailing any individual engaged in dating without a CARE permit.
This wise step will remove the riff-raff from the dating market and ensure that good, kind individuals are never lured into romances they’ll regret. And if a few people find themselves forcibly removed from the dating pool, so what? They probably weren’t great partners to begin with.
2. Dating tickets
It is self-evident by now that free markets aren’t qualified to distribute scarce natural resources. Unregulated capitalism causes intense inequality.
Today, some men and women have four or five dates per week. Others may suffer dry spells lasting months. Further, those individuals who go on many dates have an opportunity to hone their skills, making them more attractive and ensuring even more dates in the future, while those who haven’t had a date in months simply languish. Their skills deteriorate, making them less and less attractive.
Such a situation is unequal and unfair. It highlights how unfettered markets create a rich-get-richer environment in which a lucky few rise to the top while the majority suffers. It proves that returns to love capital happen only at the top of the distribution, or as Thomas Piketty might summarize this theory: “r > l” where “r” is the rate of return on love capital and “l” is the rate of love growth for the rest of us.
To remedy this situation, every man and woman should be forced to submit to CARE the number of dates he or she has planned each week. If someone has more than four, one of those dates should be randomly reassigned to a person who hasn’t been on a date in a month or more. This system will ensure a more even distribution of dates, in which each man and woman gets a fair share. (Apps like Tinder and OKCupid will have to be replaced by a single-payer CARE app.)
3. Breakups
Some people — not to name names — plan a beautiful weekend getaway for Valentine’s Day, only to be dumped without warning because we’re “too political.” This situation isn’t just immoral; it ought to be illegal!
The government already regulates who can be fired from a job and under what circumstances. We realize, for example, the tragic consequences of a woman losing her sole means of income, so we take steps to protect employees.
But is losing love any less traumatic? Heartbreak can lead to pain, misery, and even death. With this fact in mind, I propose a few common-sense restrictions on breaking up with a significant other.
Each man or woman preparing to let a partner go should have to fill out several forms showing due cause. No one should have to fear being dumped for trifling reasons such as “too much” political activism. With the guidance of CARE, relationships will be sustained that should be sustained — even as those that have a justifiable reason to end will be allowed to do so.
Similarly, we as a society should no longer tolerate breakups that give no warning. A person seeking to break up with a significant other should have to fill out a written complaint, notify his or her partner, and wait two weeks before the breakup. This notice will give the injured party time to adjust to the new status quo.
What about freedom?
Some naysayers complain that this new CARE will limit our freedom. But freedom is not the only value. We have to consider the greater good.
Freedom is tolerable when exercised in ways that serve society, but its excesses must be curbed to prevent its exercise in antisocial ways. Good, decent people need some security in the romance market. If that means a little less independence for everyone else, so be it. Those who demand unfettered freedom are simply apologists for the heartbreak status quo.
Julian Adorney is Director of Marketing at Peacekeeper, a free app that offers an alternative to 911. He’s also an economic historian, focusing on Austrian economics. He has written for the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Townhall, and The Hill.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/20150220_govromancedetail.png313631Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFoundation for Economic Education (FEE)2015-02-28 10:45:182015-02-28 10:45:18Regulate the Dating Market: A modest proposal for romantic justice by JULIAN ADORNEY
Deborah Vailes has been teaching junior high in Louisiana’s Rapides Parish School District for the past twelve years. She is passionate about helping special needs children become better readers. Little did she know that an early morning post critical of the Common Core Curriculum on her personal Facebook page would lead to disciplinary action, suppression of her right to free speech, retaliation from school officials, and possible loss of her job.
As a result, the Thomas More Law Center (TMLC), a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan has filed a lawsuit in the Federal District Court for the Western District of Louisiana on behalf of Deborah Vailes against the Rapides Parish School District and the principal of Pineville Junior High School, Dr. Dana Nolan.
Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, commenting on the reason for the lawsuit, stated: “Public school students have become ‘guinea pigs’ in a vast untested educational experiment dictated by the Federal Government. Our Constitution never envisioned federal control over education. But sadly, most states have voluntarily abdicated their responsibilities over education for federal dollars. Their decision will prove disastrous, not only for public education, but also for the freedom guaranteed by our Constitution. Debbie Vailes’ uncompromising love for her students prompted her to speak out. And her voice should not be silenced by a tyrannical principal.”
Facts
On September 23, 2014, at approximately by 5:58 AM, Debora Vailes re-posted on her personal Facebook page a photograph of a little girl crying because of the shortcomings of Common Core. Later that day, her school principal, Dr. Dana Nolan, after discovering the post, gave Deborah Vailes her first written reprimand and ordered her to refrain from expressing any opinion about public education on social media and to remove her anti-Common Core post from the social media site – ASAP. (The school district refers to written reprimands as a “documented conferences.”) Dr. Nolan further informed Deborah that she could not to discuss her opinion in public – on any social media or any public forum.
Two days later, Dr. Nolan held a mandatory faculty meeting of the Pineville Junior high school. She informed the faculty at the meeting that Deborah Vailes was reprimanded due to posting a negative opinion about Common Core on Facebook. Dr. Nolan warned the faculty not to share their personal opinions or speak-out in any way. After hearing about the Principal’s gag order, Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana, issued an executive order that teachers were to be afforded the same constitutional guarantees afforded to all citizens. However, his executive order did not deter the Defendant, Dr. Nolan, from continuing her vendetta against Deborah Vailes.
Before Vailes posted her Facebook criticism of Common Core, she had a stellar personnel record; she had never received a reprimand. Since her public criticism, she has received three additional written reprimands. School administrators are now constantly visiting her class, when before her criticism of Common Core, such visits were rare. Dr. Nolan has stripped Debbie Vailes of her responsibilities, and placed her in a job category which, according to Vailes’ colleagues, will be eliminated at the end of the school year resulting in her termination.
TMLC Senior Trial Counsel Erin Mersino and Alexandria, Louisiana attorney, Theodore D. Vicknair are representing Deborah Vailes. Mersino stated “Accepting employment in the public sector does not mean a total loss of First Amendment freedom. Public employees may readily comment on matters of public concern, such as the Common Core Curriculum, and do so free from any retaliation from their employer. What the School District and Principal are doing to Debbie Vailes is blatantly wrong.”
Common Core State Standards (“Common Core”) are national standards in education promoted and funded by the U.S. Department of Education. The National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers together established Common Core as a set of academic standards to be used in common across all states. These standards replace the existing state standards in the applicable academic areas.
Although Common Core has been adopted by 43 states (including Louisiana), its implementation has caused an uproar from caring parents, grandparents and educators alike. According to an October 2014 Gallup poll, 62% of teachers are frustrated with the Common Core State Standards.
Adding to the frustration is the fact that the Common Core Standards were untested prior to their implementation. They were implemented without any prior research being conducted on their efficacy, resulting in standards that at best reflect guesswork. Many child development experts have decried even the creation of the standards without input from classroom teachers or early childhood professionals.
Compounding the anger over the standards themselves was the overwhelming emphasis on standardized testing. The Common Core State Standards require so much testing, that teachers can only teach to the test.
Moreover, Common Core’s method for teaching math over-complicates and adds numerous seemingly illogical steps to solving math problems.
Many parents and teachers have also expressed concern over the English Standards set by the Common Core. The reading selections considered to be representative examples of what students should be reading, feature incest, rape and drug use, as well as far left political viewpoints.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/School-Retaliates-Against-Teacher-for-Facebook-Post-Opposing-Common-Core-Curriculum-Thomas-More-Law-Center-Files-Federal-Lawsuit-e1424878322115.png400640Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2015-02-25 10:34:222015-02-26 04:12:36School Retaliates Against Teacher for anti-Common Core Facebook Post — Federal Lawsuit Filed
