Quotulatiousness

April 15, 2012

Is crony capitalism the way of the American future?

Filed under: Economics, Liberty, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:15

Sheldon Richman on the distressing similarities shared by the Republican and Democratic parties:

So the presidential campaign is shaping up as a contest between a Democrat who says we had a free market from 2001 through 2008 and a Republican who . . . agrees — he says “[w]e are only inches away from ceasing to be a free market economy.” You can’t cease to be something you never were.

Thus Barack Obama claims and Mitt Romney implicitly concedes that the free market 1) has existed and 2) therefore presumably created the housing and financial debacle. This bodes ill for advocates of liberty and voluntary exchange.

Notice what will happen if this framing is widely accepted: Genuinely freed markets won’t make the list of feasible options. That will leave us with mere variations on a statist theme, namely, corporatism. How will voters choose among them? Most of those who abhor “socialism” (however they define it) will rally round Republican corporatism because of the pro-market rhetoric, while most who abhor the cruel “free market” (“Look at the hardship it created!”) will rush to Democratic corporatism because of its anti-market rhetoric.

And the winner will be: Corporatism. (That is, the use of government force primarily to benefit the well-connected business elite.) The loser? The people, who would benefit from freedom and freed markets — markets void of privileges and arbitrary decrees. That’s what maximizes consumer and worker bargaining power and enhances general living standards.

Implying a link between Walmart stores and hate groups

Filed under: Business, Politics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:53

This is custom-made for drawing lazy conclusions:

Study Says The More Walmarts In The Area, The More Hate Groups There Are

This one’s sure to boil some blood over at Walmart headquarters: A new study says there’s a significant correlation between the amount of Walmart stores in an area and the number of hate groups existing in that same area. As the big-box stores proliferate, so do the groups.

LiveScience.com cites the study by professors at Penn State University, New Mexico State University and Michigan State University, which says that the amount of Wal-Mart stores in a county was more statistically significant than other factors usually associated with hate group participation. For example, the unemployment rate, high crime rates and low education.

As I’m just as lazy as the others who’ll jump on that eye-catching headline, here’s another lazy conclusion: because Walmart locates their stores in areas with growing population, so Walmart stores will also correlate with any number of other phenomena that require a minimum (but increasing) population.

Sarkozy reaps media benefit from video conference with Obama

Filed under: Europe, France, Government, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:24

It’s often said that there’s no such thing as bad media exposure during an election campaign, and Nicolas Sarkozy is trying to take advantage of this in the run-up to the first round of voting:

Nicolas Sarkozy has been accused of using a video conference with Barack Obama to boost his election campaign. In an unprecedented move in French diplomacy, newscasts on several TV channels showed the first few minutes of a video link-up between the French president and his Washington counterpart.

Days before the 22 April first-round vote in the French presidential election, the rare glimpse of banter between world leaders shows Obama saying of the campaign, “It must be a busy time.” He adds: “I admire the tough battle you are waging.” Sarkozy replies, grinning and with arms folded: “We will win, Mr Obama. You and me, together.” The cameras leave before the presidents talk about Syria, Iran and oil.

The benefits to Sarkozy are quite clear: it allows him to appear presidential (always a trick the incumbent can use and the ambitious opponent is denied) and gives a subtle boost to French pride — their president is clearly on good personal terms with the American president. France’s representative is seen as being the equal of the superpower’s representative (it doesn’t have to be stated, but it’s a useful subliminal message in an election).

It’s not quite as beneficial to Obama, although this may be a marker put down to be redeemed later in the US presidential cycle. The same trick can be played for the benefit of Obama’s east coast voting base: look how well he deals with foreign dignitaries.

Increasing taxes on the “1%” won’t close the gap — and might make it worse

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Government — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:13

Joseph Brean in the National Post:

That the rich should contribute more than their current share to the common good is a proposal with popularity. From Paris and London to Nova Scotia and Alberta, “tax the rich” has become a dominant theme in budget debates and elections around the world.

In Ontario, for example, NDP leader Andrea Horwath’s proposal to create a new tax bracket for people who make more than half-a-million dollars a year, illustrates the persistent attraction of such schemes for governments in deficit.

“The issue really is one of perceived fairness,” said Robin Boadway, a taxation expert and professor of economics at Queen’s University, who notes that the income of the highest earners has been increasing much faster than the middle and lower ranks. Taxation, to a great degree, relies on the goodwill and trust of citizens, he said, and inequality in tax codes can violate that trust.

Governments acting like Robin Hood, however, have tended to provoke unforeseen problems, most recently in Britain, where an effort to tax the rich ended up — quite literally — costing the government deeply.

It always seems to be a surprise when people respond to incentives in creative ways … and this applies especially to creative ways to avoid paying higher taxes. People will adjust their behaviour to minimize their tax burden — both legally and not-as-legally. This is after all one of the reasons that there are so many tax provisions: the government wants to encourage certain kinds of behaviour (and so gives a tax credit) and discourage other kinds of behaviour (and so levies a specific tax on it). Flexibility occurs on both the tax-levying and tax-paying sides of the fence.

One of the complaints of middle-class taxpayers is that there are few mechanisms they can use to legally reduce their tax burden, while the wealthy have lots of ways to do this. This isn’t going to change if the government increases the top rate of tax — in fact it will encourage more creative use of the tax-lowering provisions of the law (and lawyers and accountants will benefit by helping their wealthy clients ot take advantage of those provisions).

Virginia county considering creating first virtual public high school

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Education, Media, Technology, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:50

In many ways, it’s a tribute to the resilience and determination of the educational establishment that it’s taken this long for a school district to even consider offering completely online classes:

Fairfax County schools could become the first in the Washington region to create a virtual public high school that would allow students to take all their classes from a computer at home.

No sports teams. No pep rallies. No lockers, no hall passes. Instead, assignments delivered on-screen and after-school clubs that meet online.

It’s a reimagination of the American high school experience. And it’s a nod to the power of the school choice movement, which has given rise to the widespread expectation that parents should have a menu of options to customize their children’s education.

Of course, it might not just be simple willingness to allow more choice on the part of the school district … there might be other pressures being applied:

Dozens of younger students have left Fairfax schools for the public Virginia Virtual Academy, the first statewide full-time virtual program. Open to any Virginia student in kindergarten through eighth grade, it is run by a Herndon firm — K12 Inc., the nation’s largest operator of public virtual schools — and enrolls nearly 500 students.

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