According to a new poll, “Congressmen were rated as having a “low/very low” ethical standards by 55 percent of 1,017 adults across the nation.”
The same poll found that 45% of 1,017 adults across the nation had either never heard of Congress, or are big believers in grade inflation.
The shocking part is that used car salesmen only out-performed Congress by four points.
Comments Off on Poll: Used Car Salesmen More Ethical than Congress
Posted in Political Animals
Tagged approval rating, congress, congressional ethics ethical standards, congressional ethics standards, ethics, politico, poll, used car salesman, used car salesmen
Wayne Crews and I have an article in today’s American Spectator about the antitrust crusade against Intel. Our key points:
-An FTC picking winners and losers is not capitalism. It is crony capitalism.
-Chips in “Wintel” desktop computers increasingly constitute just one subset of a vast semiconductor market. Only a small fraction of the chips in non-PC devices are Intel’s — and these devices are where the future lies.
-Regulators’ charges against Intel have changed over the years, but their verdict always remains the same: guilty. Suspicious.
-We’d be better off prosecuting the DOJ and the FTC for colluding against free enterprise.
Comments Off on Antitrust as Corporate Welfare for Aggrieved Competitors
Posted in Antitrust, Economics, Publications, regulation, Technology, The Market Process
Tagged amd, Antitrust, antitrust crusade, capitalism, competition, computer chips, computers, corporate welfare, crony capitalism, doj, ftc, intel, nvidia, Public Choice, rent seeking
Marginal Revolution’s Alex Tabarrok points to a proposed rule in California that would reclassify adult film actors as being subject to certain employment regulations. The unintended consequences are potentially fatal:
California’s anti-discrimination laws prohibit requiring an HIV test as a condition of employment; therefore the adult film industry’s current testing process, in which every performer is tested for HIV monthly, would be illegal. Nor would adult film producers be allowed to “discriminate” by refusing employment to HIV-positive performers. As a result, untested and HIV-positive performers would be able to work in the industry, raising the risks of HIV outbreaks–particularly since condom breakage or slippage can occur.
Sounds like regulators and activists need to think that one through a little more carefully.
Comments Off on Regulation of the Day 81: Porn
Posted in Regulation of the Day
Tagged adult film industry, aids, anti-discrimination, anti-discrimination laws, california, discrimination, hiv, hiv/aids, OSHA, porn, pornography, regulation, Regulation of the Day, unintended consequences
An article in this month’s Info Tech & Telecom News quotes me about proposed stimulus funding for an in-flight broadband provider.
My take: it’s corporate welfare.
Comments Off on In-Flight Rent-Seeking
Posted in Economics, Media Appearances, Public Choice, Stimulus, Technology
Tagged aircell, broadband, in-flight broadband, inflight broadband, infotech & telecom news, rent seeking
Gene Healy’s latest column begins: “This Thursday, Barack Obama will swing by Oslo to pick up the Nobel Peace Prize — just over a week after he announced that he’d escalate the war in Afghanistan. Awkward.”
Comments Off on The Lede Says it All
Posted in Immigration
Tagged afghanistan, barack obama, nobel peace prize, obama, oslo, peace prize, president barack obama, president obama
The Code of Federal Regulations contains 12,834 words worth of rules concerning falconry, of all things. Pasted into a Microsoft Word document with 11 point font size, that’s 24 pages. On falconry.
Some of the rules are surprisingly permissive: “Your falconry facilities may be on property owned by another person where you reside, or at a different location.”
Other rules, less so: “(D) Regardless of the number of State, tribal, or territorial falconry permits you have, you may possess no more than 5 wild raptors, including golden eagles.”
Because clearly, owning six birds instead of five is a threat to public health and safety.
Comments Off on Regulation of the Day 80: Falconry
Posted in Nanny State, Regulation of the Day
Tagged eagles, falconry, falconry regulations, overregulation, raptors, regulation, Regulation of the Day
Over at RealClearMarkets, I explain why the answer is a resounding no:
Rep. Phil Hare argues that “reckless deregulation” is one of the causes of the current economic crisis. That isn’t actually true. This year’s edition of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Ten Thousand Commandments report found that 3,830 new regulations came into effect in 2008 alone.
Over 30,000 total new rules passed during the Bush years. Hardly any were repealed. Businesses currently dole out the equivalent of Canada’s entire 2006 GDP – about $1.2 trillion – just to comply with federal regulations.
Where is the deregulation?
263,989 people make their living working for federal regulatory agencies, according to research from the Mercatus Center. That’s an all-time high.
12,190 of them regulate financial markets from Washington. More are based in New York and other financial centers. None of these figures include state and local rules and regulators. Those cost extra.
Comments Off on Did Deregulation Cause the Great Recession?
Posted in Business Cycles, Economics, Political Animals, regulation
Tagged bush, business cycle theory, Business Cycles, canada gdp, deregulate to stimulate, deregulation, obama, opportunity costs, phil hare, realclearmarkets, recession, regulatory agencies, rep. phil hare, ten thousand commandments, the great recession
It is illegal to conduct an auction without a license in Alabama. Unlicensed auctioneers can be punished with fines of up to $500.
Applicants must pay nearly a thousand dollars for 85 hours of coursework. 8 additional hours are required every two years to keep the license.
It’s worth asking: Does this benefit anyone besides the people teaching the courses and the auctioneers who get to limit the amount of competition they have to face?
Here’s a letter I sent recently to the New York Daily News:
December 3, 2009
Editor, New York Daily News
450 W. 33rd Street
New York, NY 10001Washington, D.C.: In his December 3 column, “On jobs front, President Obama needs to show a little audacity,” Errol Louis worries about America’s trade deficit. He shouldn’t.
I run an ongoing trade deficit with my local grocery store. I import food from them every week. They have never purchased a thing from me in return. Even so, we both benefit. I’d rather have their food than my money, and they’d rather have my money than the food on their shelves. This is true even if an international border separates us.
If Mr. Louis is as worried about trade deficits as he says he is, he would never again set foot in a grocery store, start growing his own food, and engage only in barter transactions. If he doesn’t, he is either misinformed, or else he doesn’t really believe what he writes.
Ryan Young
Warren T. Brookes Journalism Fellow
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Washington, D.C.
Comments Off on Don’t Worry about Trade Deficits
Posted in Correspondence, Economics, Trade
Tagged errol louis, fair trade, free trade, nafta, new york daily news, north american free trade agreement, Trade, trade deficits
Today’s New York Times has a classic dog-bites-man story. The green energy sector is shedding jobs, despite being given billions of taxpayers’ dollars by Presidents Bush and Obama.
As so often happens, regulators’ efforts to change people’s behaviors aren’t working as hoped.
To paraphrase Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren’s work on ethanol subsidies: if it’s commercially viable, then it doesn’t need any subsidies. If it isn’t, no amount of subsidy will make it so.
Comments Off on Regulation of the Day 78: Green Energy Subsidies
Posted in Economics, Regulation of the Day, The New Religion
Tagged bush, bush and obama are the same, energy subsidies, green energy, green energy subsidies, green jobs, new york times, obama
Inertia Wins! 