Tag Archives: markets

Charging Assange

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Julian Assange, of Manning and Wikileaks infamy, has been indicted on violations of the Espionage Act in addition to the existing charges pending against him.

Naturally, the NLMSM is in an uproar over this putative attack on a free press.

…reignited debate over whether pursuing Mr. Assange for publishing classified information could lead to other cases against journalists who receive government secrets.

There are a couple of things on the NLMSM’s artificial dudgeon, though.  One is that a free press also has to be a responsible press—which includes respect for the law and acceptance of the consequences where the press engages in civil disobedience.  We’re all big boys and girls, though, the press’ and the Left’s contempt for us notwithstanding.  We’re fully capable of recognizing irresponsibility when we see it and disdaining pseudo-journalism when it’s presented.

The larger thing, though, is the role of law in our nation.  We’re either a nation of laws, or we are not.  We’re all equal under law, or some of us get special treatment—descending us into rule by law instead of rule of law.

The laws regarding receiving stolen goods are quite clear: that’s a crime, and the recipient(s) on conviction go to jail.  Except when it’s a journalist who receives the stolen property.  See, for instance, the news outlet that received and published the stolen Ellsberg papers, along with the hue and cry over holding Julian Assange—who’s not even a journalist, for all that he pretends to be—to the consequences from his having received the documents Manning had stolen and sent to him.

A free press requires journalists be allowed to break the same laws the rest of us must obey?  What’s the value of a press that cannot be trusted, that demonstrates its lawlessness by freely receiving stolen goods and profiting from the receipt by publishing the stolen material?

Here’s an alternative—a bare minimum of movement of the NLMSM back within the reach of the same laws the rest of us must obey.

Upon receipt of the stolen material, the news outlet and the receiving journalist must immediately return the originals of the material to the robbed entity and identify to law enforcement the person(s) and/or entity from which the material was received.  Upon return, the news outlet would be free to publish based on its copies of the stolen material.

Should the journalist or news outlet refuse, the journalist (or the news outlet’s chief editor, if the receiving journalist cannot be clearly identified) should be jailed until the originals are returned and the delivering person/entity identified.

Of course, overriding the above is whether the stolen material is classified (the Manning theft, for instance).  In this instance, the material and the receiving news outlet and its personnel would be subject to laws pertaining to (mis)handling classified material.

Trade Deals

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The Progressive-Democratic Party has once again shown us its meld.

“It used to be Congress versus the administration; now it feels like the administration is at least coming around to the Republican point of view” on trade, a Democratic congressional aide said, adding that “it’s going to be hard for them to work with Democrats in a productive way.”

Never mind the Progressive-Democrats’ refusal to work with the White House or Republicans in a productive way.  “A productive way” means, as it always has, doing it the Progressive-Democrats’ way.

Take the present case.  The US, Mexico, and Canada have agreed to lift the metals and other tariffs the three had imposed on each other—per Progressive-Democrat demands.

It’s not enough.  Progressive-Democrats want to renegotiate the deal altogether because the labor parts of the agreement don’t suit them.  Never mind, here, that the agreement effectively mandates significant pay raises for Mexican workers.  Never mind, either, that the rules are supported by American unions.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) and her cronies want to scuttle the Trumpian deal altogether.

It’ll never be enough.  It’s not just hard, it’s nearly impossible, to work with Progressive-Democrats in any productive way.

Medicare for All

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Senator and Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (I [sic], VT) has the canonical version of Medicare for All; the other Progressive-Democrat candidates have only slightly varied versions of it.  Here’s Sanders on his Next Big Idea for health care provision and health care coverage:

You will have a card which has Medicare on it, you’ll go to any doctor that you want, you’ll go to any hospital that you want.

Right.  Been there, done that.  Both claims were straight up lies then, too.  There is a major difference, though, between Sanders’ two lies and ex-President Barack Obama’s (D) two lies: Sanders would make private insurance illegal—both the selling and the possessing.  That, though, only potentiates the power of Sanders’ lies.

As The Wall Street Journal mentioned on the other side of the link,

The point of Medicare for All is to cut reimbursement rates to Medicare levels, which government can now set so low only because private commercial reimbursement rates are so much higher. Cutting reimbursement rates would “probably reduce the amount of care supplied and could also reduce the quality of care,” CBO says.

Not could—would.  Reducing availability cannot help but reduce quality, if only from denying it altogether to many who need it or would merely benefit from it.  But that’s not the only pathway: that reduction in availability will flow, at least in large part, from that reduction in reimbursement rates.  As a result of that, those doctors and hospitals whose talents and skills warrant higher pay will limit their practices to the bare minimum.

That’s not out of personal greed, either: costs of care delivery go up markedly as the number of patients go up.  Absent meeting costs with fees charged, these providers would have no choice but to limit their costs by limiting their services and the numbers of potential patients served.

There’s another cost path, too: the more complex or difficult, or even merely rare, a medical problem, the more expensive it is to provide services for dealing with it.  Capped reimbursements will limit the availability of that care. And—lower reimbursement rates again—lower the quality of those providers willing to provide the care.

Socialism and Good Intentions

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Carol Roth, in her op-ed for FOXBusiness, said that Socialism begins with good intentions.

No, socialism does not.  Perhaps the first attempts did, but with its unbroken history of wealth concentration, power concentration, and utter failure—even for those in the concentrated top—before us and well known, that much is clear.  On the contrary, those proselytizing for and instigating socialist regimes have as their sole goal the accretion of wealth and power to themselves—and this time it’ll be different, this time they’ll pull it off.

Roth’s piece had a number of internal contradictions that illustrate the origins of socialist regimes, even though she seems to have missed them.

The first is her quote from Margaret Thatcher:

The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.

Those pushing socialism know this a priori, though.  They have no concern for the future, just the current seizure of all that OPM.  They’ll get theirs, and to hell with anyone else.

Then she wrote,

Socialism is quite like robbing Peter to pay Paul….

That’s not starting out with good intentions.  Unless it’s a Good Thing to rob someone, especially if it’s someone you don’t like.

And this bit:

Socialism starts out with noble intentions, preying on the envy of the population….

It’s noble to “prey on” the base instincts of the poor?  It’s noble to take advantage of others’ envy, to encourage the weak immorally to act out that envy?  How does that “logic” work, exactly?

Socialism, in each of its iterations over the last 100 years has not started with good intentions.  It has started with the greed of the few with the skill to peddle snake oil.  Socialism accelerates downhill from there.

The EU Blows Things out of Proportion

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…again.  This time it’s over the US’ decision to implement all of the Helms-Burton Act, to stop waiving Title III of the Act.  Helms-Burton, you’ll recall, is a law passed in 1996 that pressured Cuba and its trading partners to not traffic in Cuban government-appropriated -stolen private property, property that was seized by that government over the course its power-grabbing in the days following Fidel Castro’s successful rebellion.

Title III created a private cause of action, allowing private citizens whose property had been confiscated by the Cuban government to sue those trafficking in that property for monetary compensation for the loss, plus court and attorney costs associated with the suit.  The Title also contained within it authority for the President to waive the Title for six-month periods.

The EU is up in arms over this.

The EU considers the US move to be “contrary to international law” and “will draw on all appropriate measures to address the effects of the Helms-Burton Act, including in relation to its WTO rights,” according to a statement from the EU’s top diplomat, Federica Mogherini.

Because it’s contrary to international law and a violation of WTO rights for persons whose property has been stolen to go into court in order to be compensated for the loss ensuing from the theft.  No, the EU and a few member nations simply are worried about the inconvenience of protecting justice:

[A]ctivation of the Title III provision could bring about dozens, if not hundreds, of lawsuits and also generate trade conflicts between the US and European countries such as Spain, France and Britain. It is also likely to negatively affect the already lagging levels of foreign investment in Cuba.

That last is especially risible.  The point of Helms-Burton is to pressure the Cuban government to cut it out and make its victims whole.  Negatively pressuring Cuba’s reception of foreign investment is a valuable tool in gaining the compensation.  Beyond that, if European companies lose money as a result of the suits, that’s on them for trafficking in stolen goods in the first place, and their beef is between them and the Cuban government, not between them and the victims of the crimes.

And there’s the matter of perspective.

The US State Department has certified some 6,000 claims worth some $8 billion (€7.14 billion) in current values. Another 200,000 claims have yet to be certified, but could have a value amounting to tens of billions of dollars.

Tens of billions.  The level of trade between the US and the EU (because Spain and France, and Great Britain so far, cannot conclude trade agreements apart from the EU), even in the present parlous trade environment, is $1.1 trillion (€1.23 trillion).  The Europeans are raising their misguided tempest deep inside a teacup.

The Helms-Burton Act is summarized here, and the Act itself can be read by following the first link in that cite.