Daily Archives: 2 April 2021

Costs and Capitalism

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Texas State Representative Matt Shaheen (R, District 66—full disclosure: he represents me among others in the District) put this up on his Twitter feed Tuesday:

(Note: the blue box at around 60% on the y-axis reads “Overall Inflation (59.6%”)

Notice that. All those blue-lined curves running at no or decreasing inflation (some might say, “deflation”) are in competitive industries. There’s nothing wrong with those health care costs—hospital and medical care services—that replacing government with competition, with capitalism, in the market segment wouldn’t cure.

Additional note: see the college-related curves. Those also result from government intrusion into our post-high school education system, here in the form of overt subsidies to the institutions. There’s nothing wrong with these costs, either, that replacing government with competition, with capitalism, in the market segment wouldn’t cure.

Pesky Democracy

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We’ll have none of that here. Much too noisy. Much too disordered. Much to great a risk to our rule.

And so the People’s Republic of China has extended its despotism further into Hong Kong.

China has sharply reduced the number of directly elected seats in Hong Kong’s legislature in a setback for the democracy movement. The changes were announced Tuesday after a two-day meeting of China’s top legislature.
In the new make-up, the legislature will be expanded to 90 seats, and only 20 will be elected by the public. Currently, 35 seats, or half of the 70-seat legislature, are elected.
China’s top legislature approved amendments to Hong Kong’s constitution on Tuesday that will give Beijing more control over the makeup of the city’s legislature.

Those 20 will be carefully selected by the PRC’s Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress:

Local national-security officials will also get effective veto power over election candidates, allowing authorities to bar opposition figures from elected office.

This is not the behavior of a civilized, much less enlightened, nation. It is, though, of a piece with the barbarism of genocide against the Uyghurs, the occupation of Tibet and the South China Sea, and the threats of war against the Republic of China.