Monthly Archives: October 2019

A City’s Attack on Privacy

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You’re aware of the Chicago Teachers Union strike against the city, demanding a ton more money—a 15% pay raise over the next three years (against Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s meek counteroffer of 16% over five years).  Here is another part of Lightfoot’s offer to the union [emphasis added].

1-5.8 Bargaining Unit Employee Information. The BOARD shall provide the UNION on at least a monthly basis, and on a weekly basis for the months of August, September, and October, a list of all current employees in the bargaining unit, which shall include each employee’s first and last name, shift, job title, department, work location, home address, all telephone numbers (including cell phone number if available), personal and work email addresses, date of birth, seniority date, base hourly pay rate (if available), language preference (if available), identification number/payroll code/job number, salary, status as a member or non-member, UNION dues, and COPE payment.

Nor can any school district employee, whether union member or not, opt out of this information grab.

Chicago is no place to live with a city administration that has no respect for its citizens’ personal information, their privacy, a city administration that considers such bits of information to be nothing more than bargaining chips.

Obamacare Premiums

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Stephanie Armour noted that Obamacare premiums are expected to be lower in 2020 than they are this year, and she wondered whether that means Obamacare is working, or if there remain problems to be fixed.

The drop doesn’t address the core problem with Obamacare: it’s a government welfare program that mandates coverages at prices independent of the risk being transferred.

Falling premiums? They’re still much too high, as are deductibles (which Armour completely omitted from her article), especially when compared to what would be the case in a free market, and they’re for coverages that aren’t, generally, needed, to boot.

To the extent subsidies are legitimate and truly needed to help offset [excessively high] premium costs, those just as easily can be paid in conjunction with policies bought through employers or privately in a free market.

Leverage

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Since so many American businesses—Apple, Alphabet, the NBA, to name a few—put their individual fiscal game ahead of American values, especially regarding Hong Kong and its citizens ongoing struggle for their own liberties (which just happen to lie at the core of our values), here are some thoughts on the fiscal value of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China.

Since 1997, mainland Chinese companies have raised $335 billion by floating in Hong Kong, tapping a broader range of shareholders than they could onshore.
…since the Hong Kong dollar is pegged to its US equivalent, and the city has no capital controls, a listing there can generate hard currency for foreign takeovers and investments. It would be harder to use a Shanghai stock sale for the same goal.

And [emphasis added]

For global investors, Shanghai and Shenzhen have become more accessible. But investors typically prefer Hong Kong’s legal protections, and they have other concerns about mainland markets, including the difficulties of moving money out.

And

Hong Kong is by far the largest offshore center for bond sales by Chinese firms. Companies can borrow for longer than they can onshore and, crucially, can raise funds in hard currency….

And

Hong Kong serves as the main offshore hub for yuan loans, bonds, and trading.

Interestingly [emphasis added],

When it comes to dollar bonds, big state-backed banks and industrial companies even prefer to sell these in Hong Kong…. US deals would be overseen by American regulators and would require greater disclosure.

And

Hong Kong is a preferred location for Chinese and international financiers or business people to conduct transactions because it has a Western-style legal and regulatory system that is seen as fair and nonpolitical.

In sum,

…Hong Kong stands out from its mainland rivals for its rule of law, competent regulators, low taxes, free movement of capital, and use of English.
Neither Shanghai nor [the People’s Republic of] China’s free-trade zones “can really compete with what Hong Kong is and does….”
…
Hong Kong is still [the People’s Republic of] China’s financial window on the world, and the rest of the world’s financial window on [the PRC].

RTWT; there’s more.

Sadly, too many of our major corporations don’t have the moral underpinnings to exercise that leverage.  Apple’s Tim Cook would rather the prestige of sitting as Chairman of a major university in Beijing.  Alphabet would rather work on censorable search engines for the PRC and help develop AI tools for the PRC’s government and People’s Liberation Army than it would work with our own defense establishment on such tools or refuse to support PRC censorship.  And we’ve seen, just in last couple of weeks, how the NBA as a whole, and its individual team staffs and players think their pocket books are more important than the rights of others.

Secular Authority and Morals

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A letter writer in a recent Wall Street Journal‘s Letters to the Editor section, demurred from Attorney General William Barr’s remarks on secularism and religion at the University of Notre Dame’s Law School and de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. The letter’s author wrote,

Our society can teach morality, ethics, civility, self-reliance, and humility without reference to religion or any particular faith. Children can be taught….

Certainly, such principles can be taught.  But how to enforce them? Relying on Government for enforcement means relying on the men who are in Government from time to time, men with views on the legitimacy of those principles and the means of their enforcement that are as variable as those men. And each man’s views will vary over time.

No, moral and ethical principles are universal and timeless, and the only even moderately sure way of enforcing them is through appeal to a higher power—in fine, to religion, which is what our republic’s founding documents do, and our Founders did.

Warren’s Assault on Hydrocarbons

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Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D, MA) want so ban new leases for oil and gas drilling offshore and on Federal lands, and she wants to ban fracking altogether. This assault on our national energy underpinnings would have far-reaching negative outcomes.

  • domestic natural-gas prices would jump to somewhere between $9 and $15 per million BTUs from last Friday’s $2.32
  • oil would rise to the $80-to-$85 range and could run to $150 during market shocks from last Friday’s $53.78
  • entire oil-field service companies would become obsolete
  • pipeline owners would suffer without replenishment, as existing wells peter out

Think how such price increases for basic transportation and such job losses would hammer “the little guy” that Warren pretends to so want to protect from Evil Big Business.

And some far-reaching positive outcomes: for Canada, Russia, and OPEC.

  • Canadian shale drillers
  • big global operators for which higher energy prices would offset losses on US assets.
  • Russia: our ability to free our friends and allies from dependence on Russian oil and gas
  • Russia and OPEC: the potential for political and economic dominance by these two from their enhanced ability to commit energy blackmail (both of which have demonstrated histories of engaging in such blackmail)—sources of market shocks

Here is a core part of Warren’s foreign policy.