Advocates of big government think it is appropriate for the state to redistribute wealth out of a sense of fairness. They usually claim to want some form of taking from the wealthy to give to the poor. But the practice of redistribution is actually quite different. In reality, redistributive states take from those without political influence and give to the politically powerful. This results in situations like this one in Montgomery Alabama, where the city is destroying the homes of the poor and giving their land to rich developers.
Leave a comment…[H]ere is how it works: The city decides it doesn’t like your property for one reason or another, so it declares it a “public nuisance.” It mails you a notice that you have 45 days to demolish your property, at your expense, or the city will do it for you (and, of course, bill you).
Your tab with the city will constitute a lien on your property, and if you don’t pay it within 30 days (or pay your installments on time; if you owe over $10,000, you can work out a deal to pay back the city for destroying your home over a period of time, with interest), the city can sell your now-vacant land to the highest bidder.
Alabama law empowers municipalities to do just this. Officials can demolish structures that they determine, “due to poor design, obsolescence, or neglect, have become unsafe to the extent of becoming public nuisances…and [are] causing or may cause a blight or blighting influence on the city and the neighborhoods in which [they are] located.” Keep in mind, so-called standards like “obsolescence” are so vague they can mean anything, so even a well-maintained home that government officials don’t like the look of can be fed to the bulldozers.
While this may sound like eminent domain for private gain, it’s not. This is a completely different section of Alabama’s code that the city of Montgomery is now abusing habitually to tear down homes it does not like in a predominantly African American community — once home to Rosa Parks.
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Thanks to laws enacted by the government on behalf of the funeral lobby, Monks can’t sell simple caskets:
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Last time I was in Time Square, I passed a couple people selling humorous Barack Obama condoms on a street corner. I was amused and proud of everything represented by this simple act of commerce: freedom, expression, and capitalism. I am sad to learn now that those same individuals might be the ones in this case, who have just been harassed by the government because they don’t have proper vendor licenses.
The defendants argued that their product was a form of speech, and therefore should be protected by the first amendment. This should have been a compelling argument, as I find it doubtful that most of their tourist customers purchased the condoms for actual use. The judge felt differently, “holding that the novelty prophylactics constituted commercial speech, not constitutionally protected persuasive speech.”
While hardly the most outrageous instance of license enforcement, this case is just another in a long line of examples showing how such laws are antithetical to a free society. They prevent people the right to pursue the occupation of their choice, place undue burdens on many entrepreneurs, and even serve as a basis to limit free speech.
Licensing laws are one of the many ways in which the nanny state purports to protect us from ourselves. What usually happens, however, is that such laws are used as a means to protect a cartel and drive up the price of labor (doctors, lawyers, etc.), or as an abusive revenue source for the government, like in the case of little Julie Murphy, the 7-year-old girl who was recently harassed because she didn’t have a license for her lemonade stand.
What’s worse is the number of completely harmless occupations which the government licenses, removing any doubt that their aim is not really to protect. The Institute for Justice, for instance, recently forced the Louisiana government to reconsider it’s outrageously arbitrary licensing regime for florists.
One man was thrown in jail simply for helping someone draft a letter in response to being fined. The cartel of lawyers doesn’t want people moving in on their turf who don’t charge $500 an hour.
Fully 30% of occupations require government licenses. Most of these professions provide no real risk to the consumer that due diligence could not protect them from. The U.S. Constitution protects the right of all to earn an honest living in the occupation of their choice, but these laws stand in the way of that fundamental right. It’s time for the government to get out of the business of licensing business.
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Florida Senator Bill Nelson is seizing on the BP oil spill as an excuse to pass federal “price-gouging” legislation. It’s certainly nothing new to see anti-market politicians stirring up populist rage with these so-called “price gouging” laws. Many states already have them on the books, and politicians are quick to warn greedy capitalists against “exploiting” disasters by raising prices. But these laws are really nothing more than price controls and, like all price controls, they distort markets and harm consumers.
“Price-gouging” laws generally prohibit “excessive” or “unconscionable” prices – both unconstitutionally vague concepts – immediately following disaster declarations. Prosecutions typically follow hurricanes, floods or other major events that knock out power and stress the availability of goods like ice and power generators.
Under normal circumstances, sudden increases in demand result in similarly sudden spikes in prices. As prices go up, entrepreneurs in nearby areas are motivated to buy goods at their cheaper local prices, transport them into the disaster area, and then sell them for a handsome profit. This is how price signals work to indicate where goods are most needed. The entrepreneurs make enough money to justify their efforts, and people in the disaster area are able to get the extra supplies they need. Yet despite the fact that everyone wins, many politicians have criminalized this behavior. Rather than cheering the entrepreneurs for bringing relief supplies that would not otherwise arrive to post-disaster areas, state government officials often prosecute, fine and even jail them.
Not satisfied with the fact that a majority of states already have these misguided price controls on the books, federal politicians have repeatedly tried to have them enacted nationally. A bill that would have criminalized charging market prices for needed goods passed the House in 2007, but failed to get the 2/3rd votes necessary to override President Bush’s threatened veto. Now, with a more sympathetic President Obama in office, such legislation could potentially return, and pass.
Bill Nelson’s state of Florida already unnecessarily perpetuates shortages after hurricanes and other disasters with misguided price controls. He shouldn’t force similar pain on the 20 or so states without price gouging laws.
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Allan Meltzer has an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal explaining the failures of Obamanomics. One of the causes he identifies is the high level of uncertainty surrounding tax rates and regulatory policy under this administration. Such uncertainty is the enemy of growth. Robert Higgs first introduced “regime uncertainty” in his 1997 article explaining how government policy extended the Great Depression. According to Meltzer, the Obama administration has so far proven oblivious to this lesson.
Leave a commentTwo overarching reasons explain the failure of Obamanomics. First, administration economists and their outside supporters neglected the longer-term costs and consequences of their actions. Second, the administration and Congress have through their deeds and words heightened uncertainty about the economic future. High uncertainty is the enemy of investment and growth.
…Mr. Obama has denied the cost burden on business from his health-care program, but business is aware that it is likely to be large. How large? That’s part of the uncertainty that employers face if they hire additional labor.
The president asks for cap and trade. That’s more cost and more uncertainty. Who will be forced to pay? What will it do to costs here compared to foreign producers? We should not expect businesses to invest in new, export-led growth when uncertainty about future costs is so large.
…Other aspects of the Obama economic program are equally problematic. The auto bailouts ran roughshod over the rule of law. Chrysler bondholders were given short shrift in order to benefit the auto workers union. By weakening the rule of law, the president opened the way to great mischief and increased investors’ and producers’ uncertainty. That’s not the way to get more investment and employment.
Almost daily, Mr. Obama uses his rhetorical skill to castigate businessmen who have the audacity to hope for profitable opportunities. No president since Franklin Roosevelt has taken that route. President Roosevelt slowed recovery in 1938-40 until the war by creating uncertainty about his objectives. It was harmful then, and it’s harmful now.
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I’ve lamented before the ridiculous overreactions of many adults when 21st Century kids act like kids have always acted since the beginning of time, only using 21st century technology. Hysterical school administrations, prosecutors and parents have literally ruined the lives of young people because they sent to their peers, or received from them, racy photographs. Now, New York city schools think they have the authority to punish students for such activities, even when they occur completely outside of school.
Schools now want to punish students caught “sexting” — no matter where they do it.
The Department of Education wants to ban both cyber bullying and sexting in New York City’s public schools at all times, even outside of school hours.
…Not only does the Department of Education want to ban sexually explicit text messaging that students may do off hours on nights, weekends and summer vacation, but they also want to punish them for it, handing out up to a 90-day suspension.
Keep in mind that these are public schools, which makes them agents of the US government. Essentially, the US government is preparing to reach into the digital interactions of children, judge the content of their behavior with other children, and then punish when the government has decided they have transgressed. Gee, I wonder what could go wrong?
Children are easy targets for government control
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Britain’s Conservative MP Daniel Hannan, made famous in America for the viral YouTube video of his fiscal takedown of Gordon Brown, recently wrote of his regret for supporting Barack Obama in the general election of the 2008 presidential campaign. A European politician’s opinion of America’s president really isn’t of any importance, but his chillingly accurate description of our path toward Europeanization ought to be of concern for all who believe in promoting freedom, limited government, and economic prosperity:
Leave a commentNone of these advantages, however, can make up for the single most important fact of Obama’s presidency, namely that the federal government is 30 per cent larger than it was two years ago
This is not entirely Obama’s fault, of course. The credit crunch occurred during the dying days of the Bush administration, and it was the 43rd president who began the baleful policy of bail-outs and pork-barrel stimulus packages. But it was Obama who massively extended that policy against united Republican opposition. It was he who chose, in defiance of public opinion, to establish a state-run healthcare system. It was he who presumed to tell private sector employees what they could earn, he who adopted the asinine cap-and-trade rules, and he who re-federalised social security, thereby reversing the single most beneficial reform of the Clinton years.
These errors are not random. They amount to a comprehensive strategy of Europeanisation: Euro-carbon taxes, Euro-disarmament, Euro-healthcare, Euro-welfare, Euro-spending levels, Euro-tax levels and, inevitably, Euro-unemployment levels. Any American reader who wants to know where Obamification will lead should spend a week with me in the European Parliament. I’m working in your future and, believe me, you won’t like it.
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Anyone who understands economics knew this would be the result of “Cash for Clunkers:”
Thanks to Coyote Blog for the analysis.
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What do tax and spend liberals do when the destruction wrought by their policies is exposed? Attack the messenger, of course. Or one of them, anyway. In this case that messenger is Goldline, which sells gold to weary investors who understand that liberal policies are destroying the dollar. According to the aptly named, New York Democrat Rep. Anthony Weiner, that just can’t be allowed.
What’s worse, Goldline is an advertiser for the dastardly Glenn Beck, which automatically makes them criminal and open to leftwing attacks. And what’s the crime? Why, they charge too much!
The congressman’s report based its findings on a study of 18 gold coins offered for sale on Goldline’s website. When it compared the sale price with the value of the gold if it were melted, it found an average markup of 90 percent.
Whoopy-freaking-doo. Since when is Congress in the business of deciding what the appropriate price for a good ought to be? Oh yea, whenever we let big government liberals who like to abuse their power take over, that’s when.
I could have told you Goldline was overpriced just from their commercial. That isn’t a crime. What Rep. Weiner is doing is abusing his position to attack an advertiser of a critical conservative personality. If anyone should be brought on charges, it should be him. And if he is really concerned about why people go for safety “investments” like gold, maybe he should look at the legitimate concerns his party’s reckless policies are creating.
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I am a libertarian-conservative blogger living in the DC area. I have a Master's degree in Political Science and work in public policy, but please don't hold that against me.
