Unemployment is 10%, we’re at war, and every day sees a new 4-digit page health care bill. Sounds like the perfect time to worry about the playoff system, or lack thereof, for college football.
Dismissing complaints from some members that Congress had more pressing matters, a House subcommittee approved legislation Wednesday aimed at forcing college football to switch to a playoff system to determine its national champion.
“We can walk across the street and chew gum at the same time,” said the subcommittee chairman, Illinois Democrat Bobby Rush, one of the bill’s co-sponsors. “We can do a number of things at the same time.”
That’s precisely what we’re afraid of.
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This won’t be the first time the subject has been discussed on this blog, but the determination of many to paint last year’s financial implosion as a failure of capitalism requires diligence and constant restatement of the truth. The truth is exactly what Steven Horwitz and Peter Boettke bring in their new report, “The House that Uncle Same Built: The Untold Story of the Great Recession of 2008,” published by the Foundation for Economic Education.
From the introduction:
The theme of “The House that Uncle Sam Built: The Untold Story of the Great Recession of 2008” is that government policy, not a failure of free markets, caused the economic trauma we have been experiencing. We do not live in a free market. We live in a mixed economy. The mixture varies by industry. Technology is primarily free. Financial Services is primarily government. It is not surprising that the most government regulated and controlled segment of the economy, financial services, experienced the biggest problems. These problems were created by actions by the Federal Reserve combined with government housing policy (especially the government-sponsored enterprises – Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae). Misguided government interference in the market is the real culprit in laying the foundation for the Great Recession.
The entire essay is available as a pdf here.
Hat-tip: The Locker Room
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Government regulators often work at the behest of business cartels that desire to limit competition. The result is silly rules like this:
Joe Grondin has been a barber for more than 30 years. But there are some questions that, until very recently, he had never really pondered.
For example: “At what point on a man’s sideburn does hair end and the beard begin?”
Or: “When does a trim become a shave?”
“It’s crazy to be thinking about this,” he admitted.
It might even be splitting hairs. But to Texas’ 13,000 or so barbers, matters of shaving are worth fighting over. While state law permits both cosmetologists and barbers to groom hair, state regulators have consistently ruled that only barbers may scrape a man’s cheeks.
Read the rest of the article to get a clear picture of how ridiculous things get when government busybodies think they are needed to “license” this or that profession.
Government licenses everything these days. Yet it is poorly situated to accomplish the goal it claims in so doing: protecting consumers. What it really does is protect established industry from upstart competition. The result from this protectionism is always a net harm to consumers. So much for the pursuit of happiness.
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Because government doesn’t have its nose in enough places it doesn’t belong already:
Senator Charles E. Grassley wrote to 10 top medical schools Tuesday to ask what they are doing about professors who put their names on ghostwritten articles in medical journals — and why that practice was any different from plagiarism by students.
Never you mind all that ghostwriting in the Congressional Record.
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At first it looked like one of the typical throwaway resolutions that come out of Congress everyday praising everything from the flowers to puppies, but then I realized that this particular resolution is an excellent illustration of the fundamental flaw of the state-centered conception of society. Here’s what H. Res. 558 does:
Supports the designation of the week of December 7 as National Computer Science Education Week. Encourages: (1) identification by schools, teachers, researchers, universities, and policymakers of mechanisms for teachers to receive cutting edge professional development so that they can provide sustainable learning experiences in computer science; (2) exposure of students to computer science concepts; and (3) opportunities for females and underrepresented minorities in computer science. Supports research in computer science to address what would motivate increased participation in such field.
The resolution also notes that “computer science is transforming industry, creating new fields of commerce, driving innovation in all fields of science, and bolstering productivity in established economic sectors.”
Wow, good thing Congress is on the ball! What if they hadn’t acted and we never gave computer science the attention it deserved? Oh wait, I almost forgot, the transformation of industry by computer science began over 30 years ago.
Where was the congressional resolution that motivated Bill Gates? Or the one that encouraged businesses to embrace information technology? Or that brought personal computers into almost every home in America? There were none!
I did my undergraduate studies in Computer Science at a university that ended in the words “Institute of Technology.” No congressional resolution pointed me toward that field. Society itself directed me there as people already saw how important it was.
Political bodies are incapable of being at the forefront of these kinds of changes, which occur organically in competitive markets. Central planners are rarely even aware of them until after the fact. Yet not a single member of congress voted against this silly endeavor, in part because they know how unserious these resolutions typically are, and no one wants to be “against technology.” Still, it betrays an attitude toward social advancement – that important innovations come from the top-down – which is fundamentally flawed.
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One of the many arguments against big, activist government is that government programs will crowd out normal neighborly compassion. There are different ways it does this. For instance, when people know that government welfare programs are available, they don’t feel as personally responsible to help others in need. Even worse, those who try to offer even the simplest help or kindness run in to onerous government barriers and regulations, as happened here:
A Michigan woman who lives in front of a school bus stop says the state is threatening her with fines and possibly jail time for babysitting her neighbors’ kids until the bus comes, WZZM reports.
Lisa Snyder of Middleville, Mich., says she takes no money for watching the three children for 15-40 minutes each day so that the neighbors can get to work on time.
The Department of Human Services, acting on a complaint that Snyder was operating an illegal child care home, demanded she either get a license, stop watching the kids or face the consequences, WZZM says.
Not that it should matter if she was taking money, the government has no business inserting itself into private contracts. A contract is nothing more than a compact for two or more free people to help each other. In this case, one party was kind enough to be the only one offering benefits (though likely the parents would similarly help their baby-sitting neighbor if she needed it). After all, that’s what good citizens do in a free society.
But when the government steps in and decides that some contracts are too risky for us to be trusted with (and so people need a “license” before they can offer certain benefits), we’re no longer in a free society. We’re in a welfare state where big brother knows best. And when big brother knows best and will likely throw up barriers of licenses, fines, red tape and maybe even jail for offering the simplest of neighborly help, many predictably throw up their hands say, “why bother?”
Hat-tip: Cato@Liberty
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Mitch McConnell is firing back after the bullying of Humana for daring to inform their clients about what health care legislation meant to them. Needless to say, he’s not happy:
Leave a commentRepublican House Minority leader Mitch McConnell blasted the investigation of Humana on Wednesday, calling it a “federal gag order” that seeks to silence a health provider that disagrees with the administration. McConnell said he’s called for a complete legal justification of the probe.
“This is so clearly an outrage,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “For explaining to seniors how legislation might affect them, the federal government has now issued a gag order on that company, and any other company that communicates with clients on the issue, telling them to shut up — or else.
“This is precisely the kind of thing Americans are worried about with the administration’s health care plan. They’re worried that government agencies which were created to enforce violations even-handedly will instead be used against those who voice a different point of view,” he said.
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Some people wonder what the big deal is about letting government run a little insurance agency, or help people out by spreading some of other people’s money around. Out of compassion, of course. Well, here’s your answer:
Political intimidation has always been part of the current Congress’s health-care strategy: “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu” is tattooed on every lobbyist and industry rep in Washington. But Max Baucus’s latest bullying tactics are hard to believe by even these standards, as the Senate Finance Chairman has sicced federal regulators on the insurer Humana Inc. for daring to criticize one part of his health bill.
Earlier this month, Humana sent a one-page letter to its customers enrolled in its Medicare Advantage plans, which offer private options to Medicare beneficiaries. Humana noted that, because of spending cuts proposed by Democrats, “millions of seniors and disabled individuals could lose many of the important benefits and services that make Medicare Advantage health plans so valuable.” The Kentucky-based company also urged its customers to contact their Representatives. Pretty tame stuff, as these things go.
Mr. Baucus took it as a declaration of war. He complained to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal health-care agency, which on Friday duly ordered Humana to cease and desist. CMS claimed the mailer was “misleading and confusing” and told the company it has opened an official probe as to whether the mailer violated laws about how the insurers that manage Advantage plans are allowed to communicate with their customers, as well as other federal statutes.
And here’s the actual letter.
Once government involves itself in any way, it will justify all manner unconstitutional restrictions on liberty in the name of protecting the political class in charge. Private companies beware: you work with these thugs at your peril.
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The President’s address to the schoochildren (sp), and future Obama voters, has been heavily criticized for the creepy, cult-like overtones accompanied it by the White House recommended lesson plans. I’m more concerned with the fact that there are any such lesson plans at all than I am the speech itself.
The real threat is not that Dear Leader will start saturating the schools with his ugly mug. What ought to concern us all, however, is the prospect of centralizing classroom planning and content creation in Washington.
America has a long tradition of decentralized schooling, where local school boards determine the content and lesson plans of schools in their district. This insulates lesson plans from easy manipulation by political forces.
The fact that the lesson plans accompanying Obama’s speech are merely “recommended” is little comfort. The Department of Education is already doling out billions of dollars to local school districts. It would be quite easy for them to require, as the govenrment has done in the past, the adoption of certain “recommended” changes as a necessary criteria for receiving such funds. Washington simply has no business coming up with lesson plans for America’s schools.
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Looking to expand the incredibly wasteful, bureaucratic failure known as Cash for Clunkers, the brilliant Barack Hussein Obama brings you Cash for Refrigerators (and other working appliances you don’t need to replace)!
How long must this economic myth – that we can grow the economy by destroying things – persist? Encouraging people to spend money replacing appliances that still work means they will have less money to spend on new purchases.
The point of concerning ourselves with the economy in the first place is to maximize growth and raise everyones standard of living. This can only be done by producing, not destroying. It’s not enough simply to create work for some people. If that was all we wanted the government could pay them to dig holes and then fill them up. The point is to have productive jobs. Replacing working appliances is wasteful, not productive.
If your goal is to get from point A to point B, the first thing you have to do is get off the treadmill.
With his every scheme, this President shows that he expects us to trade in our economy for a shiny new government handout. It’s guaranteed he won’t be paying out full value, though, since the government has to get its cut. After all, destroying cars, refrigerators and appliances is hard work, and all these bureaucrats won’t do it for free.
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I am a libertarian-conservative blogger living in the DC area. I have a Master's degree in Political Science, but please don't hold that against me.
