White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus on Federal funds—your tax money—for “sanctuary” cities:
[I]f you defy the laws of this country, you shouldn’t receive federal tax payer dollars from the people of this country…in some cases, you have folks that have committed crimes…and in every other jurisdiction, they say “OK, you’ve committed a crime. You now have to leave the country.”
What the man said.
The British Supreme Court has thrown a monkey wrench into Great Britain’s going out from the European Union, but in the process, it has thrown a double handful of sand into the gears of liberty in the birthplace of John Locke.
The Court has ruled (by an 8-3 margin; it certainly wasn’t wishy-washy in its attitude) that Parliament must agree to invoke Article 50 and trigger negotiation over terms of separation from the EU. David Neuberger, President of the Supreme Court, reading the judgment:
The referendum is of great political significance, but the act of Parliament which established it did not say what should happen as a result, so any change in the law to give effect to the referendum must be made in the only way permitted by the UK Constitution, namely by an act of Parliament[.]
So much for consensual government, government by the people, the sovereignty of the people over their government. The citizens of Great Britain cannot be permitted to change their own law, and never mind that no change was required in the present case, anyway, since the outcome of their referendum, saying as it did, “We want to leave the EU,” was quite clear as to what should happen from their vote. The Court claimed this was not instructive. The people did not say to Government, “Mother, may I?”
Naturally, Gina Miller, who’d brought the suit with intent to force Parliament into the decision, agreed, insisting (as paraphrased by the AP) that
[l]eaving the EU will change the fundamental rights of citizens and this can’t be done without a vote of lawmakers[.]
Nor can the people be permitted to define their rights for themselves and instruct their government as to those rights. That’s for their rulers to do for them.
The people of Great Britain are not sovereign in their nation. Government is sovereign, and the people are subordinate.
The Owners of Strata Plan LMS 4025* owns a building in City of Vancouver, British Columbia, that houses among other businesses a restaurant that went out of business. Mengfa International, which owns a small restaurant chain known as Moby Dick’s, wants to open a Moby Dick’s restaurant in that space, but the strata won’t allow it.
It insisted “that the word ‘Dick’ in Moby Dick was an offensive term[.]”
Mengfa demurred (and is suing the strata):
It says that the Moby Dick name and logo are “not offensive to the public, given its literary significance and fame.”
Which would be obvious to anyone with an actual education. It’s just as obvious to anyone outside a particular building in the City that Dick is a common nickname for those named Richard. As it is, the strata’s claim, aside from interfering with legitimate business, is a deep insult to the intelligence of anyone with any sort of education. Or possessed of actual experience of the world, even just that part of it immediately outside the bubble formed from a shell of brick and mortar.
Illiterati like the members of the building council that runs this strata illustrate the bigotry that flows from the ignorance that too many modern education systems create when they put feel-good esteem froo-froo ahead of actual education and performance accountability for students.
Call me Ishmael, indeed.
*A strata, according to the Courthouse News Service site is a Canadian legal entity that
may be created to divide a building or buildings or land into “separate components that are individually owned and common components owned by all of the owners.”
The building of LMS 4025 is run by a building council.
Don Boudreaux, at Cafe Hayek, recently took issue with President-Elect Donald Trump on the question of trade. While there’s much about which to argue with Trump about his potential trade policies, here I must take issue with Boudreaux. Boudreaux argued that a Trump remark in a PBS interview about the EU beating [his emphasis] the US in trade demonstrates Trump’s ignorance of trade matters.
I suggest that Boudreaux has demonstrated his lack of understanding of what Trump believes it means to be beaten in trade. Boudreaux based his argument on a free market environment in which I have bags of peanuts, you have pears, the two of us agree on an exchange, and thus
If I accept, then we trade. You gain; I gain. We both gain. No one “beat” the other.
Of course. There’s no reason to believe Trump doesn’t understand that; he’s too successful a businessman.
Boudreaux then threw in a complication: Jones, who’s now nearby with his own supply of bags of peanuts. You are then able to do a better (in some sense) deal with me to get more of my peanuts for the same number of your pears or to get the same number of my peanuts for fewer of your pears.
[B]oth you and I gain. No one gets “beat.” Each of us, to use Trumpian language, is “a winner.”
Again, of course. We’re both still better off than had we not done the deal; competition just changed the degree of “better off.” Again, there’s no reason to believe Trump doesn’t understand that; he’s too successful a businessman.
But this isn’t the sort of thing Trump is talking about when he decries existing trade deals (not trade, and not multi-party trade).
Here’s another scenario that Boudreaux omitted from his vignettes. You and I have our supplies of peanuts and pears for trade, and Jones has his peanut supply to trade, just as before. This time, though, Jones offers his peanuts below his cost of getting them. Further, he does this, not because he’s offering a temporary loss leader to introduce himself to a new customer or to a new market, but because he has a Sugar Momma who’ll make good his losses for as long as it suits her and for her own reasons. Now you do your deal with Jones, or you divide your custom between Jones and me, for many fewer pears or for many more peanuts than would be the case without this nonmarket intervention. Instead, the terms are driven by Jones’ artificially low, subsidized price.
You and I both are beaten in this arrangement. I lose immediately because I don’t get the price for my peanuts I might have gotten in a fair negotiation; the price I am able to get—if I can trade at all—is governed by Jones’ subsidized price. You lose later because after you’ve become accustomed to those low prices, something changes in Jones’ environment (perhaps his Sugar Momma no longer can afford her subsidizing Jones), his price suddenly rises, and you must deal with that price shock to your trading.
Given Trump’s repeated (if under-reported) emphasis on fair trade deals, good trade deals, this would seem to be what Trump means by being beaten by the EU, by China, etc.
It’s puzzling that Boudreaux doesn’t understand that. He’s too good an economist.
Ryan Tracy, writing in The Wall Street Journal, thought Republicans should love this Council and be at pains to keep it, even as they look to “quickly scal[e] back Obama-era policies.”
I demur.
Tracy suggested
Consider the powers [FSOC] grants the Treasury secretary: As chair of FSOC—whose members include the chairs of the Federal Reserve and Securities and Exchange Commission—[Treasury Secretary nominee Steven] Mr Mnuchin can convene a meeting of the top financial regulators at any time, and set the agenda.
SecTreas already can do this. While he can’t compel attendance, the regulators would have hard time declining to attend or explaining to the rest of us their decision to stay away.
FSOC can make public statements or recommendations that have a name-and-shame effect.
SecTreas already can do this, too, as can any Cabinet Secretary and Agency head, did any of these have the courage to speak without hiding behind the comfortable numbers of a council.
FSOC’s greatest power is to designate “systemically important” financial firms outside the banking system for stricter federal oversight.
Mere existence of this authority is abusive overreach by Government. The Feds have no business in this business at all.
If Mr Mnuchin sympathizes with FSOC detractors, he could call fewer meetings with lighter agendas.
SecTreas doesn’t need the existence of a Council to decline to call meetings of regulators.
It’s past time for this abusive Council, and Dodd-Frank, to be done away with.
Full stop.