Sep 27

Associated Press cites “lack of regulation” as cause of increased prescription drug prices, even as overregulation is the primary cause of high drug prices

images0H8RABJB

A case study in how the government-supporting media report business news through the lens of government. This weekend, dozens of prominent newspapers (including the Bozeman Daily Chronicle) reprinted an Associated Press (AP) story entitled “Side Effects: Lack of regulation, competition, research costs increase prescription drug costs in the U.S.” See the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s republication of this story here.

Note especially the statement in the subtitle that “lack of regulation” has increased drug costs.

Almost no conceivable statement could be more false. The “business news story” goes on to cite the U.S. government’s failure to regulate prices as grounds for this preposterous assertion.

The reality, of course, is that the U.S. government’s vast overregulation of pharmaceutical products is the primary cause of America’s high drug prices. As Professors Tomas J. Philipson and Eric Sun found in an exhaustive 2010 study (see here), the FDA’s regulations produce billions of dollars of extra costs.

Moreover, the FDA’s regulations and delays have led to at least $19 billion of higher costs for marketers of a single AIDS drug, and billions of dollars of higher costs for other drugs. All-told, government regulations have undoubtedly caused hundreds of billions of dollars of higher prices to American patients.

Moreover, the total cost to pharmaceutical companies of such regulations is surpassed by the total costs to patients of such regulations. The FDA’s regulations and delays have cost AIDS patients at least $330 billion, lymphoma patients at least $8 billion, and breast-cancer patients at least $137 billion.

Sep 26

Castro lived like a king among the impoverished subjects of socialist Cuba

katniss

Haters of capitalism routinely invoke the specter of “income inequality” and talk often of the gap between rich and poor.

Yet never is that gap larger than in socialist countries which have driven out capitalism. Witness North Korea, where government leaders reside in palaces surrounded by fearful starving servants.

Or witness socialist Cuba under Fidel Castro. Fidel Castro’s former bodyguard Juan Reinaldo Sánchez says that the communist leader “lived like a king” and “ran the country like a cross between medieval overlord and Louis XV.” While ordinary Cubans stood in breadlines and watched as their society descended into poverty and slavery, Castro owned a luxurious private yacht and had his own private island. The opulent island was complete with dolphins and a turtle farm. When in Havana, Castro lived in a sprawling estate with a rooftop bowling alley, expansive well-groomed lawns, a basketball court and fully equipped medical center.

See the Guardian report here.

Sep 25

Another government college bans free-market student clubs

obey_dees

Another government college has been caught seeking to ban student free-market clubs from campus. Hagerstown Community College (HCC) Student Activities Coordinator Heather B. Barnhart told students they were forbidden from starting a chapter of the free market advocacy student group Turning Point USA (TPUSA) on campus. Barnhart reportedly told a student that she (the student) would be permitted to instead start a Republican Club on campus (but only if a Democrat Club was formed at the same time).

According to the Foundation for Equal Rights in Education, “Dean of Student Affairs Jessica A. Chambers later clarified that DeMartino could not start a TPUSA chapter, or even a Republican or Democrat Club, and stated that DeMartino [the student] should instead join HCC’s already-existing Political Science Club, which Chambers judged to be sufficient for all politically oriented students.”

See the report here. America’s government colleges have become dens of pro-government extremism, where a doctrinaire message of socialism displaces all discourse on markets, freedom and libertarianism. Although public universities are government institutions which are presumably subject to the free-speech, free-press and equal-protection provisions of the Constitution, many engage in overt discrimination and repression of anti-government thought.

Sep 25

NASA satellites document that polar ice has grown, not declined

imagesJL5PANW0

James Taylor of Forbes Magazine:

Updated data from NASA satellite instruments reveal the Earth’s polar ice caps have not receded at all since the satellite instruments began measuring the ice caps in 1979. Since the end of 2012, moreover, total polar ice extent has largely remained above the post-1979 average. The updated data contradict one of the most frequently asserted global warming claims – that global warming is causing the polar ice caps to recede.

See the article here.

Sep 25

Utah Public College Banned Criticism of Government Officials, Established “Free Speech Zone” Comprising 0.1 Percent of Campus

images30VS3J8C

Publicly Owned universities are premised on two arguments: (1) that such schools meet the needs of the poor in ways that private schools do not, and (2) that such schools allow more free exchange of ideas in ways that private (often religious) schools do not.

Both claims have been shattered by known data. Government colleges (and government funding of colleges, through programs such as the Student Loan Program) have DECREASED THE PROPORTION OF POOR PEOPLE IN HIGHER EDUCATION. See here, here and here. In fact, the true poor must labor in fast-food restaurants and on construction sites to pay for college life for the children of the middle class.

And government (and government-funded) colleges now engage in wide-scale discrimination and repression of anti-government thought.

Dixie State College (a public college in St. George, Utah) banned students from distributing flyers which criticized former President George W. Bush, President Barack Obama, and Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara—because they “disparage[d]” and “mock[ed]” individuals.

On another occasion, a Dixie State administrator decided that the Young Americans for Liberty club’s “free speech wall” event would have to take place in the university’s unconstitutional “free speech zone,” comprising roughly 0.1 percent of campus. Neither the student-plaintiffs nor other administrators knew the free speech zone’s location, and it was not specified in any published university policy.

After a lawsuit, the University has backed down. See here.

Sep 25

Montana Health Insurance Rates to Increase 22 to 34 Percent

slavery

Government’s slave-plantation-healthcare agenda continues. The Affordable Care Act has now triggered insurance rate hikes of between 22 and 34 percent in a single year for Montanans. See here.

Sep 24

EPA spends millions on high-end luxury office furnishings

images1OZP8WZG

by Roger Roots

All of us know that government officials love to pad their government temples of power with gleaming marble, oak and precious metals. I remember the first time I ever argued a case at the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis. Upon first seeing the government building, I almost vomited on the sidewalk. The audacity and arrogance on display turned my stomach.

Now we learn that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has (again) spent extravagantly on “office” furniture. Over 90 million dollars; roughly $6,000 per EPA employee. See here.

The EPA doesn’t buy office furniture at Office Depot or Staples. They buy the very highest-end furniture available from the catalog at Herman Miller, Inc. Here is the link to that furniture supplier for those interested in seeing what a thousand-dollar office chair looks like.

Sep 24

31 percent of Americans say the government’s climate change claims are a “total hoax”

holocaust 4

A new Bloomberg News Service poll finds that 31 percent of Americans view the government’s climate-change claims as a “total hoax.” See here.

These figures suggest that the government will have an uphill battle rounding up, arresting or otherwise punishing such vast numbers. The government would need to build concentration camps for 100 million Americans.

Sep 22

The Government One-Percenters: Average New York School Custodian is Paid More than $100,000 Annually

imagesYPVTPP91

Government trusters seeking to further socialize America, to raise taxes even further, to abolish (private-sector) money in politics, and further empower government must conceal certain discomforting facts. Government workers are paid at least one-and-one-half-times what private workers are paid for the same work. (In fact, careful analysis which factors in vacation time and benefits shows that figure is much higher than two times as much.)

Now a report about New York City’s school custodians shows “Custodians took home an average pay of $109,467 in the 2013-14 school year — and 634 of the city’s 799 custodians earned more than $100,000 in salary and overtime during that time. See the NY Post report here.

Sep 21

More polling shows Americans distrustful of government

tyranny4

The average person in the world is at least 4 times more likely to be killed by his own government than by any foreign government, any criminal, or any terrorist.

Statistically, one’s own government is always the greatest source of potential danger to one’s life. For years, Gallup has been asking the question: “Do you think the federal government poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens?” For almost 10 years, 40 percent or more of Americans have responded “yes.” Now, in 2015, 49 percent, ALMOST A MAJORITY, wisely state that the U.S. government is an immediate threat. See here.

Gallup polling from the past month has also shown that 75 percent of Americans view their government as corrupt, see here, and half of Americans say the government regulates business too much, see here.

(Interestingly, only 21 percent say government regulates business too little. Claims by pro-government “campaign-finance reform” advocates that “the rich” are promoting deregulation against the wishes and sensibilities of the public are demonstrably untrue. The public WANT MORE DEREGULATION, as shown by consistent polling.)