Category Archives: markets

Because There Isn’t Enough Regulation

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Nature abhors a vacuum, and so do Democrats. The vacuum Democrats abhor, though, isn’t a natural one, it’s manmade—gaps in regulation. Americans are just too stupid to manage our own lives, on our own, insist Democrats, and so Democrats demand to regulate our lives for us. For our own good, you see. And for the good of Democrats’ political power. Here are two examples.

In Houston, the Liberal city government didn’t think bathroom accommodations for those who can’t accept who they are should be a matter of negotiation between employer and employee or prospective employee.

More importantly, the Liberal city government thought religious beliefs should be a matter appropriate only to Sundays in churches and not available in the workaday world or to the men and women who operate businesses in the city.

The Liberal city government didn’t think such perks or rights should be competitive offers in free market competition among employers for labor—the way “full dental” was exactly such a competition offer in the last century. So, after having an outright city ordinance struck in court, they put the regulation to the city’s voters in full expectation of being able to ram it through, with the help of millions of dollars from outside Liberals and Democrats.

Houston’s mayor, Annise Parker, even sought to justify this regulatory overreach:

No one’s rights should be subject to a popular vote[.]

No, they shouldn’t. But the Liberal, looking to fill a regulatory vacuum, did exactly that; she put Christians’ and employees’ in general rights to a popular vote.

In San Francisco, the regulatory vacuum involved what private property owners should be allowed to do with their private property when the Liberal city government and its special interest supporters object to those uses.

In another referendum, San Frisco voters rejected the city’s efforts to limit short-term housing rental, a move made by a number of house owners to earn a few extra bucks letting a room to freely agreeing renters needing a place to stay.

[T]enants-rights organizations, a group representing landlords, a hotel workers’ union and hotel associations

all supported the limiting measure because it might compete with their interests. Freedom to compete—or even just to earn some money in an enormously expensive city—should be limited because, well, because competition must be regulated. The argument they put forward wasn’t even intended to be a serious one. Such room-letting would drive up housing costs. By reducing demand for housing, I suppose.

Both of these moves were demonstrations of how much the Left—the Progressives in government and the Democratic Party at large—abhor American citizens’ behavior being unregulated. Americans are just too dumb to handle our own affairs; every action we take has to be regulated to the last detail.

Remember these Democratic Party attempts next year.

Obamacare Revisited

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I’ve written a bit about Obamacare and its front end, ObamaMart. I thought I’d revisit this with the new enrollment period just getting under way.

My test case was a 62-yr-old husband and his 61-yr-old wife in a Dallas suburb with a combined income of $83,000, not previously enrolled in an ObamaMart plan but now looking for a PPO because they like their doctor and don’t want to risk losing access to her. I just looked at the health plans; I eschewed dental. In looking at plans, ObamaMart offered to estimate my medical costs; I accepted the offer and took the middle road of a Medium (out of Low, Medium, High) level of medical expenses for both the husband and the wife.

There were only Bronze, Silver, and Gold plans available.

There were only two Bronze plans, and they were available only through a single health plan provider—so much for increased competition. These two plans had monthly premiums of $1,500 and $1,570 and deductibles of $10,000 and $13,200—that is, our nearing retirement couple had to pay all those premiums and those deductibles before either of these plans began paying even a fraction of the couple’s medical costs. For all that, ObamaMart estimated annual medical costs above $23,000.

There were only three Silver plans, again only offered by a single provider—the same one as providing those two Bronze plans. Again, so much for increased competition. These plans had premiums ranging from $1,500-$1,800 with the lower premium associated with a $10,000 deductible, the higher two with a $5,000 deductible. Those combinations, though, work out to roughly the same annual premium plus deductible cost. ObamaMart estimated total annual medical costs under these plans ranging between $21,000 and $27,000.

Gold plans, all four of them, also were offered by the same provider, and it was the same provider that offered the Silver and Bronze plans. Competition? Perish the thought. The premiums were $2,000 or more in all cases, with deductibles ranging from $3,000 with the lowest premium to $1,000 with the highest premium. Again, the annual total from premium and deductible payments were essentially identical across the plans. ObamaMart estimated annual total medical costs between $26,000 and $28,000.

There are three takeaways I see here. One is that health plan costs have not at all gone down over the three years we’ve been afflicted with Obamacare (although ObamaMart has gotten considerably better and easier to use, as far as I went. I did not explore the ease of ordering up a plan). Another is that there is none of the promised competition. Not even a Progressive would attempt to masquerade a single provider as competition. This is, though, a step toward the Progressives’ goal of single provider nation-wide. The third takeaway is the biggie: it doesn’t matter much what plan a (two-person) family might buy, their annual total medical costs with all this health plan protection doesn’t vary much. And neither do the totals of premium and deductible.

There’s Sovereignty

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…and there’s sovereignty.

The European Union said it will require Starbucks Corp and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles to pay tens of millions of euros in back taxes after ruling that tax deals they negotiated with two European governments were illegal….

Notice that. Supposedly sovereign governments negotiated contracts with businesses, and the European Union has said that those governments don’t have the authority—the national capacity—to make their own arrangements. In the particular case, tax contracts solemnly negotiated by Luxembourg and those two corporations are illegal because they don’t comport with the supra-national EU’s desire.

This is the Europe that the Progressive Democratic Party, the party of President Barack Obama; of Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton; of Democratic Party, and self-identified Democrat Socialist, Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders want us to be like.

Mixed View

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European oil companies are engaged in a fierce competition for the best oil and gas fields in Iran when Western sanctions are lifted, while American energy firms watch from the sidelines.

Much of what’s holding American energy firms back are the still in place American sanctions that block US companies from such business. Nevertheless, American firms of any industry shouldn’t be doing business with Iran, even if it might become strictly legal. We shouldn’t be helping a terrorist nation-state that has as its sworn goal the extermination of Israel. Neither should anybody in the West, including those European oil companies.

On the other hand, such business by the Europeans can go a long way, if done right, toward reducing or eliminating European dependency on Russian oil and gas—and so to eliminating Russia’s ability to extort Europe.

That’s not all bad.

A Bipartisan Misunderstanding

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Congressmen Kyrsten Sinema (D, AZ) and Randy Neugebauer (R, TX) rightly decry the partisan nature of the Elizabeth Warren/Dodd-Frank Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, but their solution is wholly wrong. They want the existing single-director power structure replaced by a multi-person bipartisan commission, one that wouldn’t be so prone to the party in White House…influence.

As an example of how well a bipartisan commission would work, the Congressmen cite the SEC, the fair and balanced commission that uses in house judges to act on and punish those the SEC accuses of illegal investing practices.

It’s interesting that they didn’t cite the FCC, of Internet interference notoriety, or the NLRB, the commission that’s an arm of Big Union.

No, the proper correction to the partisan nature of the CFPB is to get rid of this wholly unaccountable even to Congress, with budgeting on demand from the Federal Reserve Bank, monstrosity altogether.

Replace with what, then? Nothing. The function is not needed. American citizens aren’t as slack-jawed, droolingly stupid as the Know Betters in government—of either party—make us out to be.