Monthly Archives: August 2013

Economic Disinformation

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President Barack Obama actually said this out loud to The New York Times:

T]hat [Keystone XL pipeline] oil is going to be piped down to the Gulf to be sold on the world oil markets, so it does not bring down gas prices here in the United States.

Because increased supplies don’t actually decrease prices.  Sure.

Actually, that distorting claim is of a piece with Obama’s steady drumbeat of distortions concerning the effects of his economic policy.

Here are the latest employment statistics, which Obama insists demonstrate that effectiveness and why he should be able to spend and tax even more.

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 162,000 in July, and the unemployment rate edged down to 7.4%….

That’s against ADP’s mid-week claim of 200,000 new jobs.  And what’s behind that apparent improvement to “only” 7.4% unemployment?

…long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was little changed at 4.2 million.  These individuals accounted for 37.0% of the unemployed.
…
The number of persons employed part time…was essentially unchanged at 8.2 million in July.

Additionally, the labor force participation rate (the per cent of our adult population actually trying to find work) dropped last month to 63.4%, approaching a 30-year low, as some 240,000 Americans gave up trying to find work in this stagnated-at-lousy economy.  That drop underlies the seeming drop in the headline unemployment rate.

That’s not all.  We see from The Wall Street Journal that actual economic expansion—the GDP growth rate—while still positive, is falling and has done so for some time.

Because Obama’s Keynesian politics have been so effective, and his claims about the wisdom of them have been so accurate.  Never mind that downward trend over the last 7 quarters.

The Dallas branch of the Fed has some interesting charts, also.  This one compares current unemployment duration with the length of unemployment in past recessions.  Careful readers will recognize the recession of ’74-’75 at the end of Jimmy Carter’s term, and the ’81-’82 recession at the start of Ronald Reagan’s terms.

This next graph shows…graphically…the effectiveness of Obama’s economic policy.  No matter who’s estimating, we just don’t catch up.

Last one.  This graph shows how the Obama Recovery compares with our history of economic recoveries.

But Obama says everything is Jake, and those Evil Republicans should get out of his way, so he can do even more of this.

Car Pooling

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…but only the union way.

In the past month, San Francisco International Airport officials have been citing and arresting drivers from mobile-app enabled rideshare companies that pick up and drop off passengers, an airport spokesman said.  Airport spokesman Doug Yakel said there have been seven citizen arrests issued to “various offenders” since July 10.  The airport had issued cease and desist letters to several rideshare companies, including Lyft, Sidecarv and Uber, in April.

Notice that these are not “professional” drivers—not union cabbies—that are being harassed.  CBS San Francisco points out that the harasses are “drivers participating in a mobile app arrangement typified by Sidecar.”

Naturally, a union—a taxi union in this case—objects to rideshare at “their” airport.  The competition might save the customers money (good for them, bad for the protected class), and it might save gas (good for the environment, bad for—well, not much of anyone).

But there’s a solution afoot:

The state Public Utilities Commission, which regulates and licenses passenger carriers, has been looking into how to regulate these new types of companies.

Of course.  Because we Americans are just too stupid to be trusted to do anything on our own, without a Know Better Government’s regulation to tell us what to do, how to do it, and when we should do it.

Big Brother Behavior Mod

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You’ve seen in some of the news media reports on a new Federal government team designed to facilitate the government’s ability to persuade us to do various things it thinks appropriate for us.  The team being formed to spearhead this effort is colloquially called a “Nudge Team” because it’s ostensibly intended only to suggest to us better, more efficient ways to achieve goals.

As you might expect, I have some thoughts on this.

The formative document is called, interestingly enough, “Strengthening Federal Capacity for Behavioral Insights,” and it has this illuminating statement in the opening paragraph:

In 2010, UK Prime Minister David Cameron commissioned the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT), which through a process of rapid, iterative experimentation (“Test, Learn, Adapt”), has successfully identified and tested interventions that will further advance priorities of the British government….

Notice that: advance government priorities, not those of a Sovereign citizen.  The next paragraph fleshes this out:

The federal government is currently creating a new team that will help…scale behavioral interventions that have been rigorously evaluated, using, where possible, randomized controlled trials.

The government intends to engage in “behavioral interventions” to “persuade” us to their (more efficiently achieved) goals.

But wait—isn’t that just ordinary advertising, something every business man, from a one-man home office business to the GEs and Bank of Americas, does to get us to buy their products?

Investor’s Business Daily talks about the government not having a clear idea of what is “good for us” (never minding the primacy of the government’s goals for us), that the government can’t be trusted to stop at any particular point—the slippery slope concern—and the (subtle at first) loss of our individual liberties as the government gets this sort of program rolling along.

IBD is right on all counts, but it’s that last that’s most important of the three.  And that leads me to my concerns.

There’s nothing wrong with advertising when businesses or individuals do this.  It is, after all, limited to more or less friendly persuasion.  We’re also free to walk away from it at any time, whether by changing the channel, hitting the mute button, turning the page in our magazine or newspaper, or closing the door on the salesman.

Not so much when it’s the government doing the “advertising.”  Government has too many ways to suggest that we heed its blandishments, from the way it “guides” potential contractors in its project notices, or “encourages” folks to get onto its food stamp program, all the way up to, and including, enemies lists and open assaults by Federal agencies on organizations that disagree with the government.

Along with that is a concept that’s being lost in modern America (and which loss facilitates government dominance of our activities): not everything done in the private sector is appropriate for the government to do also.  More strongly than that, most things done in the private sector are wholly inappropriate for government to do.  When the government does engage in what is for the private sector, freedom is put in peril.

One source of the risk is that government tends, in the end, not to do alongside private individuals or enterprises the things that we do, but to do those things instead.  This isn’t because government can do these things more efficiently.  Rather, it’s because government can do them more cheaply than the private sector: government can—must—do this with OPM, with taxpayer money.  From the beginnings of this crowding out, government winds up saying to us, “No need for you to do these things; we’ve got this.”  From there it’s a short step to, “Butt out.  This is government business.”  It’s a (subtle, but the more insidious for that) threat to our liberty.

Nudge team “persuasion” is on that latter list; it’s wholly inappropriate for our government to involve itself in such a thing.  Especially given the avowed behavior modification aspect of it.

The government’s central…Nudge Team…document can be seen here and here.

Our Offensive Constitution

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So says the city of Seattle.

An internal memo at Seattle City Hall is causing quite a stir.  It suggests government workers no longer use the terms “citizen[….]”  According to the Office for Civil Rights, the terms are potentially offensive….

Our Constitution has this, though:

Article I, Sect 2: No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

And

Article I, Sect 3: No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.

And

Article II, Sect 1: No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President….

And

Article IV, Sect 2: The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.

And

11th Amendment: The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.

And

14th Amendment: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States….

But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

And

15th Amendment: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

And

19th Amendment: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

And

24th Amendment: The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

And

26th Amendment: The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

This evil document is filled with that hateful word.  There ought to be a law.

These…officials…also say “brown bag” lunches are offensive, too, but that’s a separate bit of idiocy.

Another Reason to Shoot Down Drones

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Deer Trail, CO, is looking at passing an ordinance allowing its residents to shoot down drones.  It seems those good folks have a proper disdain for government fishing expeditions masquerading as “surveillance.”

But it’s not just the government that’s intruding objectionably.

When Tina Turner got married at her estate in Switzerland over the weekend, she wanted to keep paparazzi away.  But photographers used drones and other aircraft to get the exclusives they [wanted].

And [emphasis added]

Drones are gradually becoming established in Germany as a tool of photographers and television crews….  Drones are cheaper and quieter than helicopters and can be navigated unnoticed over gardens or in front of windows.

And

“They can be very helpful—it works well in the US,” says Heiko Schoenborn of the photo agency WENN.

Maybe Deer Trail should expand its target list.