Tag Archives: regulation

Caveat Emptor

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In a Wall Street Journal editorial centered on the rule-making moves by the Biden administration’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Federal Trade Commission to cap or to outright ban so-called junk fees, there’s this tidbit offered in all seriousness by the FTC’s Lina Khan (the WSJ didn’t directly attribute this to her, but she’s the FTC’s Chair, so the tidbit wasn’t offered without her prior permission):

Consumers who select and travel to dealerships based on an advertised offer, only to learn late in the process (if at all) that the advertised offer does not apply, have often spent hours trying to purchase a car[.]

This, of course, is nonsense. Every car maker in the US, from “ordinary” car makers and dealers to luxury car makers and dealers, offer on their Web sites options to “build your car” for every model on offer, and the build options present every option available to the model along with the effect of option’s inclusion or removal on the car’s final price. Consumers who select and travel to dealerships, even if the selection is originally based on an advertised offer, will have already built their going-in preferred model and have their eyes wide-open to counteroffers and to other options offered or no longer available—together with their costs and savings identified during those discussions.

These proposed rules are nothing more than Government attempting to dictate to businesses how they must operate and to us average Americans what we will be permitted to buy. And that’s not just the exampled car-buying, it’s how this government wants to control how we do our banking, our investing, how we and our businesses in general operate in an economy.

Maybe it’s not caveat emptor. Maybe it’s cave imperium that we should operate under.

Lies of a Progressive-Democrat President

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President Joe Biden (D) has long claimed that his tax-raising plan and his IRS would not target anyone making less than $400,000 per year. He repeated that claim in his State of the Union speech last Tuesday.

Under my plan, nobody earning less than $400,000 a year will pay an additional penny in taxes.

Never mind. His IRS’ latest proposed rule:

The proposed SITCA [Service Industry Tip Compliance Agreement] program is designed to take advantage of advancements in point-of-sale, time and attendance systems, and electronic payment settlement methods to improve tip reporting compliance.

Not even that vaunted and highly successful barkeep, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, pulled down 400 stacks in a year when she was working saloons in New York City.

The IRS claims the program is “voluntary,” but watch what happens to the hapless waitress or waiter, or any other low-wage person for whom tips are a significant fraction of his income, who doesn’t report his tips in a manner that suits the revenooers.

Biden has lied again.

Separately, I’ll no longer include my tip on the charge card receipt that’s increasingly often offered to patrons as a “convenient” way to tip wait staff on their presentment of my bill. Instead, I’ll return to an earlier practice of leaving my tip on the table as cash. The busboy is more trustworthy than this President and his IRS. That’s an appallingly low bar for the busboy, but I do not mean the comparison as faint praise for him. Far from it. I may go a step farther, and pay the whole bill with cash.

Consensus

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US District Judge William Shubb blocked California’s Progressive-Democratic Party-dominated State house and Governor’s mansion law that sought to punish doctors accused of promulgating Covid “misinformation.” By “misinformation, those worthies meant anything that didn’t comport with California’s “medical consensus.” The block is, on the whole, good, but Shubb unfotunately centered his ruling on the difficulty in correctly defining “consensus” in this or that endeavor, or in correctly identifying the sources qualified to define the relevant consensus.

That’s merely a subset of the larger problem with consensus, though.

That larger problem is the idea that any consensus should govern. Consensus isn’t science, which changes over time and among…scientists…it’s only the majority vote of what that majority thinks—rightly or wrongly—is correct today. Adhering to even a correctly identified consensus inhibits, if it doesn’t prevent altogether, innovation and science evolution.

“Historical Tradition”

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US District Court Judge Renee Marie Bumb extended her injunction against New Jersey’s Progressive-Democrat Governor Phil Murphy-led law attempting to block New Jersey citizens from carrying firearms virtually anywhere within the State. Her extension blocks

restriction[s] on permitted gun owners from carrying concealed weapons in public parks, on beaches, and in casinos.

Her prior injunction already blocks enforcement of those parts of the law that banned

guns from being carried in “sensitive locations,” including public libraries; museums; entertainment venues like stadiums, arenas, and amusement parks; bars; restaurants where alcohol is served; public parks; beaches; playgrounds; and airports and public transportation hubs.

That’s all to the good. However, I disagree with the rationale for her lately extension of her injunction.

“Bumb cited [New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v] Bruen and said that New Jersey had failed to supply sufficient evidence that some of the “sensitive places” where firearms are banned are rooted in “a historical tradition of firearm regulation,” which is the legal standard established by the Supreme Court.

I think the Supreme Court is wrong on this. Historical tradition as a legal standard gives already extant tradition the force of law instead of leaving it an informed input into court understandings of what the actual law is and means. Further, using historical tradition as the standard prevents the establishment of new traditions as informed input into court understandings of what the actual law is and means.

Keep it simple: …the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

From Johnson’s Dictionary, 10th ed, pub 1792, Infringe: 1: To violate; to break laws or contracts.

From The American Heritage Dictionary, current: Infringe: 1. To transgress or exceed the limits of; violate

Nothing material has changed in the meaning of the term. There’s no need to read anything else into it.

Proud Censorship, and Keeping and Bearing

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Illinois’ law banning even the possession of semiautomatic weapons took effect last Tuesday, when the Progressive-Democrat governor, JB Pritzker, signed the bill after the Illinois House passed what the State’s Senate had handed over.

Aside from the plain unconstitutionality of the law, though, what especially drew my attention is this statement from Pritzker:

We will keep fighting—bill by bill, vote by vote, and protest by protest—to ensure that future generations only hear about massacres like Highland Park, Sandy Hook, and Uvalde in their textbooks[.]

No one is to be allowed access to, Illinois’ children are to be denied, information regarding firearms other than what the Progressive-Democratic Party that rules Illinois approves.

Pritzker openly brags about that denial of speech.

Related is this position by Edwards County, IL, Sheriff Darby Boewe:

Part of my duties that I accepted upon being sworn into office was to protect the rights provided to all of us, in the Constitution. One of those rights enumerated is the right of the people to KEEP and BEAR ARMS provided under the 2nd Amendment. The right to keep and bear arms for defense of life, liberty and property is regarded as an inalienable right by the people.

Boewe is absolutely correct on the matter except for the narrowness of his interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. What that Amendment says, in full, is this:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

In order to be able to mount an effective Militia, each of us American citizens must be able to be individually armed and facile with our individually owned weapons. Government is not permitted to limit the weapons any of us can possess and keep with us wherever we might go (especially if we’re needed for a Militia and its suite of weapons), nor is Government permitted to dictate to any of us our purpose in the possessing and carrying—that Militia is only one such purpose. Defense of life, liberty and property is only one such purpose. Shall not be infringed is much broader.