Category Archives: rights

Maybe It’s Time

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I’ve written before about the…suboptimality…of the SEC using its own “court” system (in quotes because it’s more of a kangaroo court system, with the SEC serving as accuser, prosecutor, judge (no jury), punisher, and appellate “court”). The SEC has even pretended to be changing its ways.

Now, this.

After five years, four judges, three rulings, two appeals and the loss of their careers, John Flannery and James Hopkins this month won their legal battle against the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The former State Street Corp executives’ long legal fight took place almost entirely in the SEC’s in-house court system, which agency officials have lauded as offering a fast-track alternative to federal court.

Their problem is all too typical of this SEC.

Since Mary Jo White became SEC chairman in April 2013, the median time for the agency to decide appeals of its in-house judges’ decisions has increased to 19 months….

Then there’s the excuse.

A key part of the agency’s argument has been that the internal tribunal is more efficient.

You bet it is. The conviction and upholding rate is through the roof compared with the rates from those cases that make it out of the SEC and into an actual Federal court.

Since the bureaucrats at the SEC place their own imperatives ahead of their job, maybe it’s time to disband the SEC and replace it with a securities industry overseer that will place its job ahead of the imperatives of the new, fresh personnel who will populate it.

Alternatively, maybe it’d be sufficient to replace the head bureaucrat with someone who understands for whom she works.

What’s He Afraid Of?

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Chinese President Xi Jinping called for individual countries to have broad authority to regulate the Internet at home, outlining a digital future in which governments could set online standards and challenge the free flow of information and content across borders.

Why is the leadership of the PRC so terrified of the free flow of information, of free speech?

Oh, wait.

The Coercive Power of the State

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This is the Progressive Democratic Party of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, as articulated by California Governor Jerry Brown (D). At the just concluded Paris “Climate” Summit.

Tom, you used the phrase “policy.” Good policy. But I want to unpack that term a little bit. Inside the policy, you need a law. You need a rule. You need the coercive power of government to say, “Do this.” Now, you have to be wise and don’t say something stupid or order something stupid but the fact is, the regulations supported by the laws drive innovation.

And

You do have to have, at the end of the day, a regulation, a law. Progress comes from well-designed regulatory objectives that business then follows.

You can be sure California is going to keep innovating, keep regulating. And, shall I say, keep taxing.

All for the very best of causes. This complements the Left’s drive to take our weapons.  All for the very best of causes.  All for political power.  And, we mustn’t neglect Mao Tse-tung’s position:

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

An Iron Curtain

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The USSR set up an Iron Curtain around its nation and its “sphere of influence” in Europe that was designed to keep its citizens from leaving for greener pastures. The Curtain became a real, physical barrier in the form of the Berlin Wall. To a large extent, it worked: even though citizens did manage to escape, the outflow was reduced markedly, and far too many citizens died on the Berlin Wall (or under it) attempting to escape.

Now the proud Progressive and Democratic Party Presidential candidate wants to erect an Iron Curtain around the United States designed to keep American businesses from leaving.

Hillary Clinton’s plan to deter companies from leaving the US will include an “exit tax,” her campaign said Monday, making it even more restrictive than President Barack Obama’s proposals.

Never mind that American business owners and managers have a fiduciary duty—embedded in our laws as well as our morality—to maximize profits for the company and its owners—partners, shareholders, Mom and Pop. Never mind that this mandate to maximize profits necessarily includes minimizing costs. Never mind that the US taxes its businesses at the highest rate in the world, and that these tax bills are significant costs.

Never mind that minimizing the tax bill is a necessary part of that fiduciary duty, and it must, then, include consideration of foreign tax environments—and tax inversions, the process of buying, or being bought by, companies in jurisdictions that have lower tax rates and then moving the company into that lower tax jurisdiction.

Mrs Clinton would…require[e] companies to pay US taxes on deferred foreign earnings if they attempt to “game” her new threshold….

The current “threshold” is current law that allows inversions so long as the American company’s shareholders will own less than 80% of the new, merged company. Clinton’s lower threshold is, carefully, not yet specified.

This is the sort of barrier to our economic freedom, the sort of increase in Big Government taxation, the sort of destruction of our individual liberties to which we can look forward if we get this Progressive Democrat for President.

This is only a precursor to additional barriers to free movement we can expect from this Progressive Democrat.

No Fly Lists and Guns

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President Barack Obama said in his Oval Office speech Sunday evening that it’s insane to let people on the DHS No Fly List have access to guns. Obama also said that it’s wrong to operate on the basis of suspicion and hate.

While folks on the No Fly list aren’t necessarily objects of hatred, they are targets of suspicion. But that’s all they are. They’ve done nothing, and they’ve not been convicted for anything—other than of being objects of suspicion. Stephen Hayes was on the No Fly list; he’s a target of suspicion solely because he’s an Evil Conservative and an Evil Journalist. DHS employees are on the No Fly list. They’re targets of suspicion because…? Then-Senator Ted Kennedy (D, MA) was on the No Fly list. Say, what?

What none of these suspicious persons have been through, though, is Due Process. Not being able to fly into the US does not block them from entering the US; it just inconveniences them: they have to travel via other means. Not being able to have access to firearms is more than an inconvenience, regardless of one’s view of gun control. That denial is a blanket denial of one’s access to one’s Constitutional rights, and that requires a due process proceeding first.

What’s insane is denial of due process, of violating the law, whenever that becomes inconvenient. What’s insane is operating on suspicion rather than the law. What’s insane is decrying operating on suspicion while operating on the suspicion of a government List.