Gail Marksjarvis of the Chicago Tribune reports that only 46 percent of banks are still offering free checking accounts to customers. “That’s a major change from 2009, when more than 78 percent of banks offered the freebie.” The reason: banks are facing higher costs due to the Dodd-Frank Act, passed in 2009. (Ironically, the Act …
Category: Unintended Consequences
Jan 07
Unintended Consequences: Government passes Rule to punish airlines that keep passengers too long on tarmacs; produces a sharp increase in flight cancelations
In the summer of 2007, there were news reports that commercial jets were occasionally stuck for hours waiting to depart. Government responded heroically. The Obama Administration decreed that if passengers on a plane are stuck on the tarmac for more than three hours, the carrier is liable for a fine of $27,500 per passenger. Now, …
Jan 05
In Effort to Strip Private Citizens of Guns, “Liberal” President Moves to Strip Mental Health System of Confidentiality
Every government ultimately comes for all freedom, all property, and to kill all who resist. For centuries, the law has recognized physician-patient confidentiality. Doctors who snitch on their clients or who disseminate private, confidential information regarding their patients have faced professional penalties. Now, in the never-ending quest of government to strip the private sector of …
Dec 30
Post-recession banking regulations have made things worse
It is a myth that “deregulation” caused the housing bubble (and later, the crash) of 2008. And a bigger myth that post-recession laws have improved banking. As John C. Goodman writes, almost everything said by government and pro-government economists about the 2008 recession is a myth. See here. And the “cure” hatched by Congress in …
Dec 21
America’s millions have produced blowback against gay rights in Africa
A lesson in unintended consequences. The New York Times has a detailed expose’ on the blowback caused by U.S. government efforts to promote tolerance for gay rights in Africa. See here (republished by MSN news). According to the report, U.S. taxpayers have been forced to spend $700 million dollars for a government program promoting gay …
Dec 10
Lone profitable Obamacare insurance co-op losing millions
Every government policy that subsidizes health care increases demand without increasing supply, causing prices to rise. Thus, Medicare, Medicaid, the VA program and the ACA (“Obamacare”) have all made health care more expensive. In turn, the poor (who are sometimes mentioned as the supposed beneficiaries of such government programs) find medical care more and more …
Dec 03
Bankrupt Greek Government Demands that Citizens Report all Jewelry, Coins, Private Cash
Are mass confiscation raids about to be unleashed in Greece? The Greek newspaper Enikonomia reported days ago that Greek taxpayers will be forced to declare all private cash held outside the banks, and all jewelry boxes containing more than 15,000 euros or gold or other metals worth over 30,000 euros. See here. The Greek government …
Nov 21
Is the War on Terror the Biggest Racket Yet?
Pater Tenebrarum provides a brilliant essay on Lewrockwell.com today. Tennebrarum writes that the “War on Terror” is the greatest scam of all time. Tenebrarum provides the above graph showing that the “War on Terror” actually appears to have created MORE rather than less terror. Just as the “War on Poverty” stopped the rapid decline in …
Nov 12
TSA Security Fails 95 Percent of the Time
After 9/11/2001, Congress deprivatized airport screening and created the Transportation Security Administration. The TSA is 10 times more expensive than the private-contract screening in place before. Yet it provides no greater level of security. Recent undercover attempts to smuggle weapons or breach TSA security checkpoints found that undercover agents were able to get weapons past …
Oct 31
Government Solar Power Plant Actually Emits MORE CO2 Than a Fossil-Fuel Plant (Per Unit of Energy Produced)
The Ivanpah Solar Power Plant in the desert of Southern California cost U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars. Yet “it is producing carbon emissions at nearly twice the amount that subjects fossil-fuel power plants to California’s “cap-and-trade” program. See here. The plant uses large amounts of natural gas to substitute for times of low solar output. …
