Category Archives: regulation

Anti-Competitive G-20

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And, yes, that includes an anti-competitive Democratic Party administration representing the US in this group of twenty.

G-20 finance officials called on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to report by July countries and jurisdictions that haven’t signed up to new international standards on tax transparency and information sharing.

“Defensive measures will be considered by G-20 members against non-cooperative jurisdictions,” the officials said in their statement after two days of meetings in Washington.

Wrong answer, guys.  Your threats just expose your own dishonesty.

If you really want to rein in the so-called tax havens, out-compete them in a free market: lower your own tax rates to competitive levels, and simplify your tax rules to eliminate your cynically Byzantine structures which serve only to benefit (or, just as bad, to appear to benefit) cronies and other government-favored groups.

The best defense is a good offense, but that offense must be directed at the right target.

“There is one thing which has not gone very global and that is taxation, which is still very much a local affair associated with national sovereignty,” IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said.

Why must taxation be standardized globalized?  What part of national sovereignty is unclear to you, Madam?

And further cynicism:

Revenue lost to tax havens is a sore point for the G-20….

It isn’t lost to you, guys; it isn’t yours to begin with, so it cannot be “lost” to you.  Again, compete: lower tax rates, and reduce the incentives to hide in “tax havens.”

And just to be clear (although, surely I’m preaching to the choir here:

haven 2. A place of refuge or rest; a sanctuary.

Thus, tax haven is a place of refuge from abuse by tax.

The Obama Legacy

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Peabody Energy Corp on Wednesday filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from its creditors just weeks after warning that it could do so, the latest in a string of bankruptcies that have ricocheted through the US coal-mining industry.

The move by St Louis-based Peabody, the largest US coal mining company, follows on the heels of similar moves by Arch Coal Inc, Alpha Natural Resources, Inc, Patriot Coal Corp and Walter Energy, Inc.

Certainly, Peabody’s debt and competing energy sources have weighed, as has reduced steel production along with the Obama Recovery’s drag on our economy.  However, “environmental” regulations, designed by President Barack Obama to destroy the industry have contributed both to the reduction in steel production and to Peabody’s reduced ability to function.

The destruction of an industry.  Something only a Progressive could be proud of.  And something Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has said repeatedly that she will continue—in spades.

Continuing Veterans Administration Failure

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Kyndra Rotunda, ex-Army JAG and currently Professor of Military & International Law and Executive Director of the Military and Veterans Law Institute at Chapman University, had some comments in her Wall Street Journal op-ed [emphasis in original].

When Congress enacted the Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act of 2014 in the wake of revelations about bureaucratic dysfunction at the Veterans Affairs Department, the plan was to reduce wait times at VA hospitals, give veterans access to outside health care and allow the VA to quickly terminate problem employees.

How is the VA doing? For starters, government statistics show that hospital wait times are 50% longer than two years ago.

And

The law allows the firing of top-level VA officials with less notice and fewer appellate rights than government employees enjoy. The fired VA worker must appeal within seven days of the discipline; administrative judges must hear and decide the case within 21 days, or the department’s discipline stands; judges cannot mitigate penalties; and decisions are final.
…
Over the past month alone, judges at the Merit Systems Protection Board, which hears appeals by federal employees, sided with three VA officials who challenged their disciplining. The MSPB reinstated all three.

Time to get out the axe.

But then Rotunda strayed.

[W]hat’s the harm in allowing judges to mitigate penalties?

In response to which, I ask, “What’s the harm in requiring these administrative judges simply to uphold or set aside the penalty?”  Either the person did the deed, or he did not.  The penalty is not for a third party to decide; the employer—even this wholly mendacious VA of an employer—is the one to determine whether the person’s services are needed any further.

Full stop.

Veteranos Administratio delende est.

This Bears Close Watching

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Especially in light of this administration’s—and its hoped-for Progressive successor’s—penchant for surrendering apologetically our sovereignty to extra-national entities like the United Nations.

The United Nations has launched a far-reaching initiative that could give UN-sponsored authorities sway over the biological resources of the high seas—all the waters that lie outside national territories and economic zones.

The potential shift in power involves multi-trillion-dollar issues, such as whether large areas—conceivably, as much as 30%—of the world’s international waters should be designated as no-go areas to protect biological diversity….

Because national sovereignty is so 19th century.  And the UN does such a wonderful job managing its existing tasks.

Good for the Senate

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And too bad for Senator Chuck Schumer (D, NY), who wanted to expand Government yet further and have it dictate business and free market decisions to businesses and customers.

Schumer tried to attach an amendment to a bill renewing a number of the FAA’s programs

would have blocked airlines from further reducing the “size, width, padding, and pitch” of seats, passengers’ legroom and the width of aisles.

Having more room on an airplane is certainly a nice idea, especially on long flights.  However, as with so many things in our lives and our economies, this is a matter for us to determine in a free market, not for Government to dictate in an increasingly government-controlled economy.

Fortunately, the Senate voted down the amendment.  Unfortunately, it was defeated by an essentially party-line vote: this sort of expansion of intrusive Government it all too typical of the Democratic Party.

Elections have consequences.