Tag Archives: regulation

Wrong Answer

Posted on by
1

Fox News‘ Megyn Kelly asked Senator and Presidential candidate Ted Cruz (R, TX) whether he would deport children born in the US of parents who are illegal aliens.

Cruz refused to answer the question, instead saying in non-answer that the question is

a distraction and a question that every mainstream, liberal journalist wants to ask.

Cruz said he’s focusing on areas where there is bipartisan agreement, and that’s why he’s laying out his plan for securing the border.

It’s an entirely rational question that every mainstream, conservative wants to ask, too.

What Cruz could have said, what he should have said, if he were being honest about his immigration plans is this:

Under current Supreme Court interpretations of the 14th Amendment, those children are US citizens, and regardless of their parents’ status, they’re here legally and properly. Of course they cannot be deported, and I will not try. What I will do is work toward removing [birthright] citizenship so that in the future such children do not become citizens automatically, and that magnet is removed. OR: …I will not work toward removing [birthright] citizenship, but I will do [this other thing instead] in order to secure our borders and enable our nation to regain control over who may become a US citizen.

That’s a simple, brief soundbite suitable for a short TV interview segment, it’s a more honest answer, and it’s a more accurate answer concerning current such children.

Of course Cruz knows this; draw your conclusions from the answer he actually gave compared with the answer he could have given.

Much Ado about Nothing

Posted on by
Reply

Many traders reported difficulty buying and selling exchange-traded funds, a popular investment in which baskets of stocks and other assets are packaged to facilitate easy trading. Dozens of ETFs traded at sharp discounts to their net asset value—or their components’ worth—leading to outsize losses for investors who entered sell orders at the depth of the panic.

Products built to provide insurance for investors came up short. As a result of trading halts in futures tied to the S&P 500 index, it was difficult for investors to get consistent prices on contracts linked to them that offer insurance against S&P 500 declines.

That’s how Bradley Hope, Saumya Vaishampayan, and Corrie Driebusch opened their Wall Street Journal piece about Monday’s stock market performance, a piece interestingly titled Stock-Market Tumult Exposes Flaws in Modern Markets.

They also had this:

The giant swings in the market and problems with ETFs pointed to a need to rethink rules governing stock trading, analysts said.

“There needs to be a deeper examination of how the stock-market circuit breakers behaved on Monday,” said Joel Dickson, a senior investment strategist at Vanguard Group of Valley Forge, PA. “There was a major market-structure component to what happened.”

Illustrative of the bleating is this, too:

“Pricing options is almost impossible on the kind of move you had that day,” said Wayne Wu, who trades SPDR S&P 500 ETF options on the NYSE floor for Integral Derivatives.

Yeah, and? If an investor can’t get/doesn’t like the data related to an investment plan, it’s on him to take the risk, or not. It’s not on government to protect him from the outcomes of his decisions.

More government rules, or more layers on existing ones? No. Fewer government rules, and simpler. Tumult is the necessary noise of a free market. The PRC’s failure is illustrative of the outcomes of government “management” of markets and of underlying economies. We’re not where the PRC is, yet, and we don’t need to approach that, either.

But, but–what about guys who already had staked out positions when this happened, when the information breakdown occurred?  Second Rule of Investing (the First Rule is “Never invest anything you can’t afford to lose all of”): “Know where the back door is before you go in through the front door.”

Personal responsibility. Government needs to butt out. Caveat emptor.

EPA’s Orwellian Transparency

Posted on by
Reply

Congressman Lamar Smith (R, TX), Chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, is unhappy with the EPA’s decision to be unresponsive to Committee requests for information regarding the EPA-caused disaster in and downriver from a Colorado mine.

It is disappointing, but not surprising, that the EPA failed to meet the House Science Committee’s reasonable deadline in turning over documents pertaining to the Gold King Mine spill. These documents are essential to the Committee’s ongoing investigation and our upcoming hearing on Sept 9. But more importantly, this information matters to the many Americans directly affected in western states, who are still waiting for answers from the EPA.

But that’s just transparency in the manner of this administration.

Panicky Central Planners

Posted on by
2

…and maybe pundits, too.

For the Federal Reserve, the aftershocks threaten to set back its path to interest-rate normality yet again….

That’s how Alex Frangos and Justin Lahart opened their Wall Street Journal piece Monday, writing of the People’s Republic of China’s (second in a month) “market” meltdown last week and with it the demonstration by the PRC’s economic central planners and their panicky twitchings with interest rates, bank reserve requirements, market interventions, and the like that, once again, central planning cannot seriously impact economies for longer than the moment.

Never mind that the PRC has little impact on the global economy—as Frangos and Lahart themselves note, PRC imports from the US run to 1% of our GDP and all of 2% of the S&P500 companies’ revenue are PRC-related. The situation is little different for Europe: most of those nations’ economic interactions with the PRC represent roughly 1% of their GDPs as well.

They added this to their fandango:

September is still on the table for the Fed, but markets will need to calm before then.

No, they don’t. The markets aren’t the underlying economy. The markets are tied to the economy by a stout rope, but that rope has large and nearly randomly variable slack. The underlying economy, slow as the Obama recovery has been, nevertheless is in solid territory, and as Frangos and Lahart themselves concede, “a US recession led by China doesn’t look to be in the cards.”

The Fed needs to move on the longer-term state of the economy, not on the short-term, animal spirit vagaries of the markets. The Fed needs to stick to a plan—any plan—and move interest rates up on schedule, which means in September. Or better, loosen and then release controls, letting interest rates float in those same markets—which for all their animal spirits influence still are better at “managing” a free market economy than any central planners, including those at the Fed—determine the appropriate interest rate levels.

And this:

[T]he Fed’s problem with China is what it will do to a pace of US inflation that already isn’t anywhere close to its 2% target.

No, again. The Fed’s problem has nothing to do with the PRC. The Fed’s problem is that US inflation isn’t anywhere close to its 2% target, and it’s not going to get there anytime soon. Interest rates are intrinsically inflationary; the only way to move our present inflation rate to 2% is to raise/let rise interest rates to levels consistent with 2% inflation rather than continuing to suppress the one (and so the other) to artificially low levels.

PC Foolishnesses

Posted on by
Reply

The Agricultural Marketing Service of the USDA has proposed removing the term “midget” from its raisin standards in response to a petition from the Little People of America.

The AMS wants to eliminate five references to the term “midget” in the United States Standards for Grades of Processed Raisins, opting to replace the term with the word “small” instead.

Because some folks might get their precious feeling hurted. Never mind that the LPA admits

[T]he use of the word midget by the USDA when classifying certain food products is benign…

they still want the adjective referring to dinky raisins removed from the descriptions—by government fiat, no less.

What will the FDA propose to do when the LPA or some other sensitive group decides “small” is a terrifying affront? Maybe the FDA should skip that step and go right to labeling the raisins “little.”

And this, which is dangerous, and cynically so.

Santa Clara University says a bias incident is “a speech, act, or harassing action that targets, threatens, or attacks an individual or group because of their actual or perceived race, color, national origin, ethnicity, religious affiliation, sex, gender identity, disability, or sexual orientation.”

Students who experience such incidents should call 911, contact the Office of Student Life, alert Campus Safety Services, and file an anonymous report[.]

“Always call,” SCU insists with their new policy. Because hurt feelings are so vastly important they demand an emergency response by police, who have nothing else to do, anyway, there being no actual risks to life or limb in Santa Clara.

No, SCU knows better, hence the cynicism of their…advice.

SCU’s “policy” can be seen here. There’s an EthicsPoint link to an online incident reporting tool at the policy link. Perhaps the policy is itself a suitable subject for addressing via EthicsPoint.