Tag Archives: regulation

Government Industrial Policy

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This one EU-style. Which fits, since Europe has such long experience with the failure of economies, especially industry-driven, when dictated from the top. See, for instance, France, Germany, Italy of the last century, and France and Germany today.

One company’s (Apple, but the principle is much broader) phone charger, and the cell phones dependent on it, would become illegal throughout the EU if proposed legislation goes through. The legislation is

aiming to set a common charging standard for mobile phones and other portable electronic devices….

And

The planned legislation…is aimed at reducing electronic waste and improving consumer convenience.

Government is dictating to consumers how they will achieve the convenience Government says they want.

Never mind that if consumers want only a single charger across all battery-operated electronics (for instance), if they want a form of convenience (and not the form dictated to them by their Betters), a free market will let them drive their economies in that direction.

Sadly, the EU elitists in charge Know Better, and European citizens do not operate in a truly free market.

More Government Overreach

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And by the SEC, yet, which already has its extra-judicial structure of accuser, judge, punisher administrative law judge system in the Federal courts over the legitimacy of such an arrangement.

Now it’s the SEC-proposed rule that would require private enterprises—which by definition are outside the purview of the Securities and Exchange Commission—to open their books to public scrutiny and SEC approval.

Worse, a broad range of elites are supporting this naked overreach:

University endowments, insurance funds, and retirement funds serving teachers and firefighters are urging the Securities and Exchange Commission to move forward with a proposed rule that would ensure private-fund investors receive annual audits and quarterly statements.

Such a move would destroy the private nature and purpose of private enterprises—i.e., enterprises that are wholly owned by a small group of entity operators and which do not sell ownership shares on the open market or permit the owners’ own equity portions to be traded about on open markets.

But the rule-supporting elites give their game away:

Many pension plans are having a hard time meeting their payout obligations to members, the result of decades of underfunding, benefit overpromises, and unrealistic demands from unions.

So they want to get into private entities, even though those entities do not want the elites’ involvement—it’s part of why they’re, you know, private. But in order to do so, those private companies must open their books to the SEC—and the public.

It’s a bad rule, and it should be withdrawn by a serious SEC or blocked outright by Congress. This is a free market matter: if an investor doesn’t like the information he gets—doesn’t get—when he looks into a company with a view to investing, he’s free to not invest.

Full stop.

I Disagree

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(Surprise.)

Oklahoma’s Attorney General John O’Connor (R) thinks banning “assault weapons” (whatever those are in the real world) looks like a big action, but it really isn’t.

Banning assault weapons looks like it’s a big action, but it really isn’t a big impact. We’re going to dance around all this, Neil, for a long time, but the fact is it’s criminals and people with some type of either long-term or temporary mental illness or depression. That’s the culprit. Only those people shoot people outside of our military.

He’s wrong. While such a ban would have little impact on availability to criminals and the insane, it would have a very large impact on us average Americans‘ ability to see to our own needs and purposes.

But the truly large impact would be on our Constitution and so on our individual rights (and duties). If allowed to stand, such a ban would degrade our 2nd Amendment, weakening it against additional and steadily broadening bans until our 2nd Amendment no longer exists in any material form.

Red Flag Laws

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Some thoughts on necessary criteria for them, particularly as they’re intended to apply to the mentally unstable.

  1. Define “mentally unstable”
  2. Identify which “mentally unstable” are dangerous and which are not
  3. Identify how the “dangerous mentally unstable” are to be disarmed without disarming—leaving defenseless—those around him
  4. Specify how quickly—including appeals—a court case must be finally decided and the “dangerous mentally unstable” gets his weapons back after successfully defending himself
  5. Specify how the “dangerous mentally unstable” will be made financially whole after winning his court case
  6. Specify how an accusation will be separated into a frivolous one and one made in good faith
  7. Specify the sanctions to be brought against the accuser if the “dangerous mentally unstable” wins his court case
  8. Identify how the “dangerous mentally unstable” gets his reputation and his life back after winning his court case, whether it was brought in good faith or bad

That’s just a start on the idiocy and intrinsically virtue-signaling nature of red flag laws.

“Refuse to Enforce”

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That’s the position of a large number of leftist District Attorneys regarding State abortion-related laws that are likely to take effect or get enacted if the Supreme Court, in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, significantly restricts or overrules Roe v Wade. The DAs are going on record as saying they won’t enforce anti-abortion laws that might take effect.

District attorneys in metropolitan areas including Atlanta, New Orleans, Dallas, and San Antonio have said they won’t prosecute abortion providers or others, including those who assist a woman in obtaining the procedure.

Those aren’t the only regions, either. An Arizonan is running for District Attorney on her promise to refuse to enforce any Arizona anti-abortion law. A sitting DeKalb County, GA, District Attorney says she won’t prosecute abortion providers—Georgia law be damned, apparently, when it doesn’t suit her personal whim.

Object to anti-abortion laws if they disagree with them, certainly. DAs also should work to change those laws, if they disagree with them. But blithely disregard or disobey them?

Only the Left views laws as suggestions to be heeded or ignored at convenience.

DAs—officers of our governments—who ignore these laws or any others they find inconvenient are breaking those laws, and they’re violating their oaths of office.

Those are offenses worthy of prompt removal from office.