Mar 14
Government education is a monstrous failure by any measurement. This graph shows that while government spending in education has increased faster than inflation for decades, ALL MEASUREMENTS OF EDUCATION OUTCOMES–whether SAT scores, standardized-test outcomes, or basic reading or math performances–HAVE SHOWN NO IMPROVEMENT.
The graph is from the Cato Institute.
Mar 14
In 2008, federal prosecutors were stymied because Rod Blagojevich, the former governor of Illinois, refused to plead guilty to corruption charges. (In recent years, in most American jurisdictions, roughly 80 to 95 percent of all criminal defendants plead guilty and waive their rights to trials.)
It has now been revealed that federal prosecutors approached ROBERT Blagojevich, the brother of ROD Blagojevich and asked the brother to convince Rod Blagojevich to plead guilty.
According to Michael Tarm of the Associated Press,
“While charges were eventually dropped against him, Robert Blagojevich, a 59-year-old Tennessee businessman, writes that his refusal to turn on his brother made him “collateral damage” of an overzealous prosecution that cost him his reputation, nearly $1 million in legal bills and a still unrepaired split in the Blagojevich family.”
“Before the brothers’ joint 2010 trial, lead prosecutor Reid Schar proposed that if Robert talked Rod into a guilty plea, charges against the elder brother could be reduced or dismissed, the book says.”
After the first trial ended in a mistrial, the feds dropped the charges against Robert and retried Rod by himself.
Mar 13
Most Americans believe–quite correctly–that the U.S. government is spending recklessly and that its central bank, the Federal Reserve, is printing currency recklessly to prop up U.S. government finances. However, almost all of the other governments of the world are doing the same thing–and most of them are printing money even faster than the U.S. Federal Reserve.
Central banking allows governments to conceal their fiscal recklessness by growing the size of government without appearing to directly tax their populations. (The increased taxes will of course be paid by future generations.) Governments love Keynsian economics and central banking because such policies and institutions allow governments to appear more fiscally sound than they are. Astoundingly, the world’s central banks have cut interest rates an unbelievable 558 times since the collapse of 2008, and most of the world’s currencies are in a continuous tailspin, along with the finances of the world’s governments.
Today not a single major world currency is backed with anything other than paper. And the world’s governments are so fiscally irresponsible that the dollar is gaining rapidly against most currencies, such as the Euro. See the Washington Post story here.
Mar 13
The Daily Caller is out with a report on the FCC’s 400-page ‘Net Neutrality’ proposals. It is emerging that the FCC majority was lobbied heavily behind the scenes by overt Marxists and government-supremacist billionaires such as George Soros and the trustees of the Ford Foundation. The ideology behind the FCC’s ‘net neutrality’ takeover is overtly socialist, and net-neutrality’s proponents are also on record supporting the elimination of private advertising, and government-supported “news” reporting.
Mar 13
All trusters of centrally-planned economies dream the same dream: a utopia of enterprises–owned by the collective–which operate according to principles of sharing instead of profits. Socialist takeovers of oil, mining and industrial firms have occurred many times. And each time the results are the same: poverty, corruption and violence.
Socialists worldwide cheered the revolution of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. As Chavez reached out to control the country’s oil interests, the same, tired, worn-out dogma was spread: talk of a new era unbound by the greed and profit-seeking of private industry.
Today, Reuters reports that Venezuela’s red oil firm, PDVSA, is being hard-hit by the lower global prices for oil. Hundreds of PDVSA employees are being released, while numerous others have been arrested for corruption. The Reuters story is here.
Mar 13
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From the book, “Roads in a Market Economy” by Gabriel Roth (1996, page 63):
A more modern example of efficient but’unfair’ pricing . . . was related by P.F. Amos at a conference in 1979:
Having taken a bus to the Nepal-India border from Kathmandu, and being first through customs, Mr. R.G. Bullock . . . was advised that the bus to Gorakhpur would be delayed by at least two hours until all the other passengers had been processed. He was then approached by an Indian who was in a similar predicament, but in a greater hurry, who asked if he would share the one taxi which was available, going halves on the 60 rupee taxi fare to Gorakhpur. Mr. Bullock was willing to pay only 15 rupees. The Indian decided that he himself wasn’t prepared to pay more than 30 rupees so he canvassed other travelers as they came through customs. He found one prepared to pay 10 rupees and another prepared to pay 3 rupees.
They all asked the taxi driver if he would take them to Gorakhpur for 58 rupees, and the driver agreed on condition that he could pick up other passengers en route to try to make up the other two rupees. The travelers agreed to this condition provided they all shared any extra rupees made in excess of the two. They drove to Gorakhpur, picking up and dropping off several short-distance passengers, making 6 rupees in total and sharing 4 of them, as agreed.
So all the passengers paid prices that reflected the intensity of demand; the driver received his fee, capital equipment (the taxi) and labour (the driver) were fully utilized, and all received compensation for a somewhat slower and less comfortable journey due to the stops on the way.
A great story which illustrates an important economic point. “Unfair pricing” is not always unfair; it can meet the needs of divergent players quite well. Today in most pockets of the U.S., such negotiated cab fares would be entirely illegal. Taxi companies are heavily regulated and licensed by the state.
This story is also illustrative of the folly of enforcing “fair” pricing (meaning identical pricing for all players in all circumstances). (This idea was recently mentioned as one grounds for the FCC’s takeover of the internet under the auspices of “net neutrality.”) It is far more fair to allow those needing urgent goods and services to negotiate this demand by price adjustments.
Mar 12
Government has been named the most important problem facing the country for four straight months and has widened its lead over other concerns (the economy, jobs, healthcare). The Washington Times story is here.
Mar 12
Two important stories from March 11, both of which are likely related: The Washington Post, dated March 11, 2015: “Americans are moving faster than ever away from traditional TV”:
Between 2012 and 2014, viewers ages 50 through 64 watched one hour and 12 minutes less of traditional TV each week; they increased viewing of videos over the Internet by 22 minutes. Viewers ages 35 through 49 watched two hours and five minutes less of traditional TV each week and increased viewing of online videos by 35 minutes.
The second story, from the Associated Press: “Major survey finds record low confidence in government“:
The 2014 General Social Survey finds only 23 percent of Americans have a great deal of confidence in the Supreme Court, 11 percent in the executive branch and 5 percent in Congress.
Great news!
Mar 10
Australian paleoclimatologist Bob Carter is a highly-regarded and articulate debunker of manmade-global-warming alarmists. During a panel discussion sanctioned by the Ayn Rand Institute last year, Professor Carter stated that there has been “worldwide collusion” among government-sponsored scientists who authored the UN IPCC “climate change” reports. A Youtube video of the discussion is here. Dr. Carter’s relevant comments in this regard begin in response to a question at the 1:03 remark.
Mar 10
We’ve all been told the science is settled; look no further. Surrender even more power, money and freedom to governments, and allow governments to impose drastic restrictions on fossil-fuel consumption to save us all from manmade global warming. In 2001, Canadian reporter Donna Laframboise, a former National Post and Toronto Star columnist, began looking into the recurring claim that 97 percent of climate scientists agree with the hysteria over manmade global warming. She found that those promoting this perspective are overwhelmingly drawn from the ranks of socialist ideologues who have been promoting socialism and expansive government for generations.
Again and again, Laframboise found that the “97 percent” claim rested on reports by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). She expected to find that the IPCC reports were authored by the finest scientific minds in the world. Instead she found that many of the authors are longtime professional socialist activists and even students. For example, Richard Moss, a vice president of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), was in the inner circle who wrote the IPCC chapters on wildlife extinction. Conveniently, the chapter’s conclusions are almost identical to the conclusions of the WWF.
Another IPCC author, Bill Hare, is a longtime employee of Greenpeace. Michael Oppenheimer, a 20-year employee of the Environmental Defense Fund, was among the lead authors of the IPCC reports. Jennifer Morgan, another WWF employee and a chief spokesperson, was also an IPCC author. “Who really writes IPCC reports?” Laframboise asks: “Students, unqualified scientists, activists.”
At least one-third of the references cited in the IPCC reports were not peer reviewed by scientists. Sources Included press releases, student papers presented at conferences, and even Greenpeace Newsletters. In several cases, actual peer-reviewed literature existed which contradicted the nonpeer-reviewed literature that was referenced by the IPCC.
