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Libertarian
Party Libertarian
Party Libertarian Party South
Bay Libertarian Party Libertarian Party International Foundation
2010 Lieutenant Secretary of State Attorney General Insurance Peter De Baets
Herb Peters Carlos
Rodriguez Ethan Musulin
Check out Depressing Facts
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Dale
Ogden
Individual Freedom Free
Minds & Free Markets Help Pay Off Campaign Debt General Election 150,898 votes (1.5%) Click here to go directly Are
you tired of Democrats and Republicans John and Ken, KFI AM 640
My
Recommendations Cost Of State
Regulations On Highlights:
“The study finds that the total cost of regulation to the State of
California is $493 billion [rounded] which is almost five times the
State’s general fund budget, and… results in an employment loss
of 3.8 million jobs… the regulatory cost is borne almost completely by
small business... the indirect business taxes that would have been generated
due to the output lost arising from the regulatory cost is $16 billion
[rounded]…” “The government is best which “I think we have more machinery of
government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the
industrious.” --Thomas Jefferson “It is by compromise that human
rights have “Small Government is
Beautiful.” “The naked truth is always better
than the best dressed lie.” — Ann Landers, born 1918 “Facts do not cease to exist
because “I would remind you that extremism
in the For more
information, e-mail To contact the
candidate, e-mail Click here for information on
how Interesting
stuff at
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Dale Ogden for Governor
Dale Ogden’s Interview with the |
“Let’s work to make
California the Great State it once was,
where people come to work, take care of their families,
and live the American Dream, not a place that businesses flee,
where deadbeats come for overpaid government jobs and welfare.”
Freedom
Works, Government Doesn’t
John and Ken, KFI AM 640
Endorse Dale Ogden for Governor
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“There is nothing that will help our
children and our children’s children become happy and prosperous than
freedom. Freedom to learn what they want to learn, however they wish to learn
it. Freedom to work or start a business without government interference.
Freedom to live their lives as they choose, not as politicians and
bureaucrats choose. There is nothing I want for my son more than his being a
happy, productive, and self-sufficient adult. “Greed is the result of feeling
‘entitled’ to something. Government social welfare programs
create entitlements. A helping hand is not a hand out. Politicians and
bureaucrats believe they are entitled to their excessive paychecks and
obscene pensions and benefits, and that they are exempt from following the
rules under which they force the rest of us to live. Personal prosperity
comes from earning what you have, such as through physical labor, invention,
and investment, and is good; greed is wanting what someone else has earned,
being a parasite on society, through taxes and transfer payments and is
evil.” — Dale Ogden, October 12, 2010
“Each
State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body,
independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In
this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a FEDERAL,
and not a NATIONAL constitution.” — James Madison, Federalist No.
39 “But as the plan of the convention aims only at a partial union
or consolidation, the State governments would clearly retain all the rights
of sovereignty which they before had, and which were not, by that act,
EXCLUSIVELY delegated to the United States.” — Alexander
Hamilton, Federalist No. 32 “Only
when the state is restricted to the administration of justice, and economic
creativity thus freed from arbitrary restraints, will conditions exist for
making possible a lasting improvement in the welfare of the more miserable
peoples of the world.” — Karen Kwiatkowski, “The Wolf You
Feed” [August 31, 2010] “Always
vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the
sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.” — John Quincy
Adams
Where I Stand and The only way to
create productive jobs is to get the government out of the way and let free
people start businesses and work. The state government cannot create
productive, wealth-enhancing jobs; all they can do is create bureaucratic,
wealth-consuming jobs, by taxing the private, productive sector and giving it
to the public, non-productive sector and the other parasites of society. As Governor, I
pledge to restore fiscal responsibility to the State of California and will
use every tool at my disposal, including the line-item veto, the federal and
state courts, and the Ballot Initiative Process, to restore California to the
great state it once was. The line item veto is a very powerful tool with which
the Governor can stop wasteful spending, eliminate harmful, useless, and
duplicative regulatory agencies, downsize other state agencies, roll back
out-of-control spending, and reduce bloated salaries, benefits and pensions
for state employees. Accomplishing this will require the following and more: |
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1. First
and most importantly, we need to permanently
roll-back spending to or below the level of 1998
(adjusted for inflation and population) and absolutely limit future spending
increases (excess revenue should be used to retire debt or returned to
the people). Does any rational person believe that California did not have
enough government in 1998? or in 1988? I will never sign a budget that does
not reduce spending to those levels. There should be absolutely no borrowing
for the State’s general fund. [see Daily Breeze April 1, 2010, editorial] 2. We
need to roll-back the excessive salaries and bloated pensions for state employees
(see PensionTsunami.com:
“...approaching wave of pension debt is a lot bigger than it
looks...and [is] about to drown America’s taxpayers.”). One estimate
is that government pensions in California are underfunded by $500 billion,
half a trillion dollars. We may need to use the federal courts to accomplish
some of this. We need to eliminate all “double-dipping” and
increase the retirement age for current and future state employees to at
least 65 (from its current 50 or 55), like Social Security and the private
sector. 3. We
need to stop collusion
between politicians, bureaucrats and government employee unions. Far
too often, public employee unions give money and free “volunteer”
labor to politicians for their campaigns. The politicians return the favor by
agreeing to excessive increases in salaries, pensions and other benefits. And
far too often, those who actually negotiate the salaries and pensions also
benefit from them. This must stop immediately. No elected or appointed
official should ever get a pension or any other benefits after they leave
office. [see Public-sector unions Bleed Taxpayers…
by Michael Barone] “Private-sector unionism is adversarial...
Public-sector unionism... is not adversarial but collusive... The results are
plain to see. States like New York, New Jersey and California, where
public-sector unions are strong, now face enormous budget deficits and
pension liabilities. In such states, the public sector has become a parasite
sucking the life out of the private-sector economy... Americans have been
steadily migrating out of such states and into states like Texas, where
public-sector unions are weak and taxes are much lower... Public-sector
unionism tends to be a self-perpetuating machine that extracts money from
taxpayers and then puts it on a conveyor belt to the Democratic Party...” 4. We
need to (a) abolish
useless and harmful state licensing and regulatory agencies and repeal thousands of
useless and often harmful regulations, creating a rational, business-friendly
state and (b) abolish the state
personal and corporate income taxes and capital gains taxes (they will no
longer be needed). This will create millions of jobs as entrepreneurs,
investors, and businesses (and, did I mention, millions of jobs) are
attracted to California. 5. I
support making the Legislature
part-time, like it was
prior to 1966. Texas has very similar demographics to California, but no
state income tax and a part-time legislature; Texas also has a budget surplus
and one-third lower unemployment: (according to the U. S. Department of Labor
(BLS),
as of February 2010, unemployment was 8.2% in Texas and
12.5% in California). As was stated in an 1866 New York
court case, “No man’s life,
liberty, or property is safe while the Legislature is in session.”
(see Citizens for
California Reform). 6. Repeal the global
warming (i.e., carbon limits) laws
that the idiots in the state legislature have already passed and that our
idiot-in-chief Governor signed. Check out this article (11/20/2009) and this one (12/9/2009)
[Climategate: Gore falsifies the record],
about the “stolen” emails admitting that the climate
“scientists” distort and hide data. The scandal grows each day as
the self-anointed climate “scientists” and others (e.g., Al Gore)
who have perpetrated this fraud try to ignore the evidence and continue their
efforts to scam the citizens of the world. [More on Global Warming] 7.
Education: Many people have asked
me how I plan to “fix” education. One thing is certain; fixing education does not require more
money. In fact, the more money we spend the worse it gets. As Governor,
my first step to improving education would be to get the State out of education and let the cities and counties
deal with it. Let parents have
vouchers to spend at their school of choice. We waste phenomenal amounts
of money at the state and federal levels educating no one, and we have
duplicative agencies. Most government school systems have too many
administrators. The more decentralized education becomes, the better it will
be. Give people choices. 8. My governing philosophy is
to have the government do only those few things that it must do and try to do them well. All else should be left to
private individuals who are in the best position to decide what they need,
what they want, and how to achieve personal fulfillment. 9. Immigration has
become a hot issue, but it is not a simple issue. America is a land of immigrants, e Pluribus Unum (out of many, one). Freedom should
not stop at the border; the Declaration of Independence states that “We
hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty
and the pursuit of Happiness.” It does not limit these unalienable
rights to just those lucky enough to be born in the United States.
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Governor 2010 are not deductible for income tax purposes. Currently, an individual,
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10/18/2010: Check out the latest in Richard Rider’s California Breaking Bad Cost Of State Regulations
On California Small Businesses Study Sanjay B.
Varshney, Ph.D., CFA Professor of
Finance and Dean - College of Business Administration California State
University, Sacramento Dennis H.
Tootelian, Ph.D. Professor of
Marketing – College of Business Administration California State
University, Sacramento …CONCLUSIONS This study
measures and reports the cost of regulation to small business in the State of
California. It employs an original and unique approach using a general
equilibrium framework to identify and measure the cost of regulation as
measured by the loss of economic output to the State’s gross product,
after controlling for variables known to influence output. It also measures
second order costs resulting from regulatory activity by studying the total
impact – direct, indirect, and induced. The study finds that the total
cost of regulation to the State of California is $492.994 billion which is
almost five times the State’s general fund budget, and almost a third
of the State’s gross product. The total cost of regulation results in
an employment loss of 3.8 million jobs which is a tenth of the State’s
population. Since small business constitute 99.2% of all employer businesses
in California, and all of non-employer business, the regulatory cost is borne
almost completely by small business. The general equilibrium framework yields
the following results: • The total
loss of gross state output for California each year due to direct, indirect,
and induced impact of the regulatory cost is $492.994 billion. • In terms
of employment this total output loss is equivalent to the loss of 3.8 million
jobs for the state each year. A loss of 3.8 million jobs represents 10% of
the total population of California. In terms of labor income, the total loss
to the state from the regulatory cost is $210.471 billion. Finally the
indirect business taxes that would have been generated due to the output lost
arising from the regulatory cost is $16.024 billion. • The total
regulatory cost of $492.994 billion is four to four and a half times the
total budget for the state of California, and almost five to six times the
general fund alone. Further, given the total gross state output of $1.6
trillion for California in 2007, the lost output from regulatory costs is
almost a third of the gross state output. • The
indirect business taxes lost could have helped fund many of the state’s
departmental budgets. As an example, the indirect business taxes lost are 60
times the budget of the Office of Emergency Services, and would have paid for
almost half the budget of the Department of Education. • The total
cost of regulation was $134,122.48 per small business in California in 2007,
labor income not created or lost was $57,260.15 per small business, indirect
business taxes not generated or lost were $4,359.55 per small business, and
finally roughly one job lost per small business. • The total
regulatory cost of $492.994 billion translates into a total cost per
household of $38,446.76 per household, or $13,052.05 per resident. The total
cost per household comes close to the median household income for California.
This study
provides the most comprehensive and complete analysis of the total regulatory
burden in California. The study and findings have implications for policymakers
and those in charge of the regulatory environment. The results also suggest
that future research should attempt to understand how to minimize the
intended and unintended costs of regulation. Since small businesses are the
lifeblood of California’s economy constituting 99.2% of all employer
businesses, efforts to make the regulatory environment more attractive will
make California a more attractive state for doing business. This in turn will
improve the state’s output, employment, labor income, indirect business
taxes, economic climate, quality of life, living standards, and growth
prospects… [Download the
entire article (PDF)] The Trouble with
Public Sector Unions by Daniel Disalvo When Chris Christie became New Jersey's governor in January, he wasted
no time in identifying the chief perpetrators of his state's fiscal
catastrophe. Facing a nearly $11 billion budget gap — as well as voters
fed up with the sky-high taxes imposed on them to finance the state
government's profligacy — Christie moved swiftly to take on the unions
representing New Jersey's roughly 400,000 public employees. On his first day in office, the governor signed an executive order
preventing state-workers' unions from making political contributions —
subjecting them to the same limits that had long applied to corporations.
More recently, he has waged a protracted battle against state teachers'
unions, which are seeking pay increases and free lifetime health care for
their members. Recognizing the burden that such benefits would place on New
Jersey's long-term finances, Christie has sought instead to impose a one-year
wage freeze, to change pension rules to limit future benefits, and to require
that teachers contribute a tiny fraction of their salaries to cover the costs
of their health insurance — measures that, for private-sector workers,
would be mostly uncontroversial. The firestorm that these proposals have sparked demonstrates the
political clout of state-workers' unions. Christie's executive order met with
vicious condemnation from union leaders and the politicians aligned with
them; his fight with the public-school teachers prompted the New Jersey
Education Association to spend $6 million (drawn from members' dues) on
anti-Christie attack ads over a two-month period. Clearly, the lesson for
reform-minded politicians has been: Confront public-sector unions at your
peril. Yet confront them policymakers must. As Christie said about the duel
with the NJEA, "If we don't win this fight, there's no other fight
left." Melodramatic as this may sound, for many states, it is simply
reality. The cost of public-sector pay and benefits (which in many cases far
exceed what comparable workers earn in the private sector), combined with
hundreds of billions of dollars in unfunded pension liabilities for retired
government workers, are weighing down state and city budgets. And staggering
as these burdens seem now, they are actually poised to grow exponentially in
the years ahead. If policymakers fail to rein in this growth, a fiscal
crack-up will be the inevitable result. New Jersey has drawn national attention as a case study, but the same
scenario is playing out in state capitals from coast to coast. New York,
Michigan, California, Washington, and many other states also find themselves
heavily indebted, with public-sector unions at the root of their problems. In
exchange, taxpayers in these states are rewarded with larger and more
expensive, yet less effective, government, and with elected officials who are
afraid to cross the politically powerful unions. As the Wall Street Journal
put it recently, public-sector unions "may be the single biggest
problem...for the U.S. economy and small-d democratic governance." They
may also be the biggest challenge facing state and local officials — a
challenge that, unless economic conditions dramatically improve, will
dominate the politics of the decade to come... In 1943, a New York Supreme Court judge held: "To tolerate or recognize any combination of civil service
employees of the government as a labor organization or union is not only
incompatible with the spirit of democracy, but inconsistent with every
principle upon which our government is founded. Nothing is more dangerous to
public welfare than to admit that hired servants of the State can dictate to
the government the hours, the wages and conditions under which they will
carry on essential services vital to the welfare, safety, and security of the
citizen. To admit as true that government employees have power to halt or
check the functions of government unless their demands are satisfied, is to
transfer to them all legislative, executive and judicial power. Nothing would
be more ridiculous." ...When it comes to advancing their interests, public-sector unions
have significant advantages over traditional unions. For one thing, using the
political process, they can exert far greater influence over their members'
employers — that is, government — than private-sector unions can.
Through their extensive political activity, these government-workers' unions
help elect the very politicians who will act as "management" in
their contract negotiations — in effect handpicking those who will sit
across the bargaining table from them, in a way that workers in a private
corporation (like, say, American Airlines or the Washington Post Company)
cannot. Such power led Victor Gotbaum, the leader of District Council 37 of
the AFSCME in New York City, to brag in 1975: "We have the ability, in a
sense, to elect our own boss." …Public-sector
unions thus distort the labor market, weaken public finances, and diminish
the responsiveness of government and the quality of public services. Many of
the concerns that initially led policymakers to oppose collective bargaining
by government employees have, over the years, been vindicated… [Read the entire
article and become more depressed] 8/21/2010: Check out the latest in Richard Rider’s California Breaking Bad
More
about Anthropogenic Global Warming Even if one believes there has been Global Warming,
consider the common sense that comes from Vaclav
Klaus, who introduces Four Questions for the thinking person (not
to be confused with Barack Obama, Al Gore or George W. Bush). He states:
“Let us focus on science and cost-benefit rather than silly emotional
appeal. I ask myself several questions. Let’s put them in the proper
sequence: “Is global warming a reality? “If it is a reality, is it man-made? “If it is a reality, is it a problem? Will the
people in the world, and now I have to say ‘globally’ be
better-off or worse-off due to small increases of global temperature? “If it is a reality, and if it is a problem, can men
prevent it or stop it? Can any reasonable cost-benefit analysis justify
anything within the range of current proposals to be done just now? “Surprisingly, we can say yes, with some degree of
probability, only to the first question. To the remaining three, my answer is
no. And I am not alone in saying that. We are, however, still more or less
the silent or silenced majority.” Czech President Calls Man-Made
Global Warming a Myth, Questions Al Gore’s Sanity Environmentalists
Pick Up Where Communists Left Off 8/16/2010: about the War on Drugs from
DownsizeDC.org
The Mexican government
reports that its War on Drugs has killed 28,000 people over the past four
years. This ongoing tragedy is undermining Mexico’s stability, which is
bad news for the United States.
But that’s not the
only way drug prohibition is hurting us. I urge you to watch this interview
with Neill Franklin, the Executive Director of Law Enforcement Against
Prohibition (under 9 minutes) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzOHQdKRANA
The video reveals that
the Mexican drug cartels have expanded into 230 U.S. cities. Unsurprisingly,
the overwhelming majority of police 911 calls are related to this illegal
drug trade. And yet, as our police go from one drug-related 911 call to the
next, most violent crimes go unsolved, including . . .
* 60% of rapes,
* 73% of robberies,
* 88% of auto thefts, and
* 37% of murders
Whereas, in 1963, before
the War on Drugs, only 9% of murders went unsolved!
Repealing drug
prohibition would put an end to narcotics units and place more cops on the
street to “do the work that is supposed to be done.”
But unsolved crime is not
the only danger caused by the Drug War. Our children are particularly at risk...
* Criminals don’t
ask for ID’s to verify the age of their customers.
* This means that
powerful drugs are more available to kids than cigarettes and alcohol.
* Criminals don’t
care about quality control, so the black market substances that lure our kids
are more dangerous than they would be if prohibition didn’t exist
* And urban,
African-American children are at special risk. They are heavily recruited to
the drug trade because juvenile offenders get lesser sentences.
Whereas
in Portugal, which legalized personal drug possession ten years ago...
*
There was a double-digit drop in drug use by school-age children
*
As well as a double-digit drop in AIDS cases
*
The stigma has been removed for people seeking treatment
*
And there is MORE MONEY for treatment
Even so, President Obama
still wants to increase funding for the War on Drugs!
But the facts are clear.
Drug prohibition doesn’t work. Repeal the federal drug laws. Our
communities will be safer and our children will be better off.
8/2/2010:
Fun
with Numbers: Has eMeg Got Her $$’s Worth?
Three months before the
November election, there appear to be three major beneficiaries of Meg
Whitman’s over-the-top spending in her campaign for governor.
Unfortunately for the Republican nominee, none of them is her.
With new campaign finance
statements scheduled to be filed this week, eMeg is expected to report
somewhere north of $100 million in boodle disbursed to date, as the big
winners in her extravagant spree are:
1-The
vast legions of consultants, strategists, pollsters, flacks, purse carriers and other geniuses who have raked
in tens of millions in fees, commissions, salaries and investments, in the
greatest political bonanza since Bill Clinton auctioned off one-night stands
in the Lincoln Bedroom..
2-The
TV stations of California, which have
been on the receiving end of Whitman’s own special economic stimulus
program for nearly a year now. How’s this for a stat: Dan Morain noted
in his Sunday SacBee column that she’s run 25,727 broadcast and cable
ads since the primary alone. That’s not to mention Google and other
online ad venues, where it’s all but impossible to miss that ubiquitous
picture of Young Meg looking oddly forlorn for someone with that much loot in
her future.
3-Carlos
Alvarez and Dale Ogden, the Peace and Freedom and Libertarian candidates for
governor, respectively, who each soared into the low single digits in the
most recent PPIC poll, as Whitman drooped to her lowest level of support
among likely voters in 2010.
In an interview the other
day, her Democratic rival Jerry Brown said that eMeg has “wasted most
of her money on unwise and ‘lavish’ spending,” according to
our old friend Jim Boren at the Fresno Bee.
That’s easy for
Krusty to say, even though his own poll numbers haven’t exactly taken
flight; given that he’s spent a total of about 12 cents, it’s
hard to argue with his point, if you overlay Whitman’s spending with
some of her trend lines in the PPIC survey.
1-Among likely voters
back in January, eMeg was backed by 36%, to Brown’s 41%; after
inundating the airwaves for six months with the equivalent of the Duchy of
Grand Fenwick’s GDP, the bottom line is that she lost two points of
support, and now trails Brown 34-37%.
2-Among independent
voters, Whitman’s investment has netted little. In January, she trailed
Brown among the crucial group of decline-to-state voters, who hold the
balance of power in a statewide race, 28-36%; two months later, she’d
surged, largely on the strength of a 14-point swing among independents, who
then favored her over Brown, 43-37%. But after dominating the airwaves in the
months since, she again trails among independents, 28-30%, according to the
PPIC survey released last week.
3-Among female voters,
who should represent a big opportunity for Whitman, the first Republican
woman ever nominated for governor, there’s a stubborn gender gap. In January,
she trailed Brown, 30-44%, among women; today, after going to the purse for
$2 million a week, week after week, she’s behind 28-40%.
By far, Whitman’s
strongest showing came in PPIC’s poll in March – before she
unleashed the bulk of her advertising in her successful primary race against
Steve Poizner. At that point, she led Brown 44-39% overall and, as noted
above, ran ahead among independents; among women, she was within the margin
of error.
But after that, all that
bashing Poizner on the airwaves through the primary (while getting bashed by
him to the tune of about $20 million) yielded was a 10-point shift in
Brown’s favor; she trailed the AG shortly before the June 8 election by
37-42%. Now, after six weeks of incessant attacks against Brown, her level of
support has eroded by another three points, though she’s also knocked
him down by five.
As
a practical matter, the Whitman campaign has yet to give voters a strong,
positive reason to be for her, or even told them much about her, except a)
she used to be the CEO of eBay; b) she’s not Steve Poizner or Jerry
Brown; c) she thinks jobs and schools are really important; d) she believes
illegal immigration is a terrible thing, except when she doesn’t; e)
did we mention she used to be the CEO of eBay? [emphasis added]
The Field Poll shows a
trend line in the Whitman-Brown head-to-head matchup that’s more
favorable to eMeg than the PPIC survey, but it nevertheless also suggests
that the more people hear about her, the less they like her.
Back in January – when
her image was still a relatively clean slate for voters – less than
half of those surveyed had an opinion of her, but among those who did, it was
positive 25-20%. Today, more than 80 percent have an opinion about her, but
it’s negative – 42% unfavorable and 40% favorable.
Calbuzzards ain’t
exactly masters of the universe when it comes to matters of high finance, but
for such a smart businesswoman, that $100 million out the door seems to us,
all in all, like kind of a mediocre investment.
Of course, the funds
spent by Brown’s labor pals — especially California Working
Families — may not have done much to boost Krusty’s favorables,
but they seem to have helped prevent Meg from developing much of a favorable
image among swing voters, either.
All this helps explain
why Team Meg recently launched a new charm offensive, trying to cozy up to
Latinos (a strategy undercut by widespread reporting about her prevarication
on the issue, not to mention her own conflicting statements to news outlets)
and with a new, positive 60-second radio ad (which once again focuses almost
exclusively on her eBay experience).
Obviously, with three
months to go, and uncounted millions to spend, there’s plenty of time
and resources for Team eMeg to make some adjustments that offer a more
effective criteria for her candidacy than they have to date.
But the closer it gets to
Labor Day, when Brown intends to start putting his own ads on the air, the
more difficult it becomes for her to exploit her greatest asset, the
unprecedented edge she enjoys in money and, by likely extension, in campaign
mechanics and organization as well.
The big piece
that’s still missing from eMeg’s big-spending campaign is a
compelling positive message, along with the answers to two, lingering key
questions: Why, exactly, does she want to be elected governor so badly that
she’s willing to spend $100 million+ to do it? And why, exactly, is
that a good deal for voters?
Inquiring minds want to
know.
Bob Mulholland:
“Whitman is a scared billionaire candidate who has no business sense.
Most of her consultants see her no different than a New York cab driver
picking up a first time tourist at the Kennedy Airport with cash in their
hands. They’re taking her to the cleaners.”
8/2/2010:
Jerry
Brown’s Pension Punt
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Why does California have It’s time to admit that public
education operates like a planned economy, a bureaucratic system in which
everybody’s role is spelled out in advance and there are few incentives
for innovation and productivity. It’s no surprise that our school
system doesn’t improve: It more resembles the communist economy than
our own market economy. — Albert Shanker, President of the American
Federation of Teachers “Do not consider Collectivists
as sincere but deluded idealists. The proposal to enslave some men for the
sake of others is not an ideal; brutality is not idealistic, no matter what
its purpose. Do not ever say that the desire to do good by force is a good
motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives.” — Ayn Rand, The Vigil “Let each
citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making
a present or a compliment to please an individual — or at least that he
ought not so to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in
human society for which he is accountable to God and his country.”
— Samuel Adams “History affords us many instances of the ruin of states,
by the prosecution of measures ill suited to the temper and genius of their
people. The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the
prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and
mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and
advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy.”
— Benjamin Franklin The State can protect and promote the interests of its sick, or
potentially sick, citizens in one of two ways only: either by coercing
physicians, and other medical and paramedical personnel, to serve patients
— as State-owned slaves in the last analysis, or by creating economic,
moral, and political circumstances favorable to a plentiful supply of
competent physicians and effective drugs. — Thomas Szasz, “The
Right to Health” [1969] |
About Dale F. Ogden
Business Owner/Management Consultant/Actuary
Are you a libertarian?
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Who are some famous
libertarians? “A man must be big enough to admit
his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct
them.” A Simple Governing
Philosophy: Policies are many, The
Philosophy of Liberty in less than 10 minutes Who Killed California? The story of California has always been a great American tale of
triumph over long odds. Since its entry into the Union, in the aftermath of
war and the midst of gold fever, the state has seemed an improbable colossus.
But again and again, California has made its way through hours of challenge
– not only surviving intact, but emerging as a model for the rest of
the nation. ...And through a series of social, political, and economic experiments,
California has acted as America’s foremost laboratory of innovation,
trying out ideas the country as a whole would go on to adopt. In the 1960s
under Governor Pat Brown, the state offered a model of modernization,
building the most advanced education and transportation infrastructures in
the nation. Under Brown’s successor, Ronald Reagan, it offered a model
of conservative governance that would go on to transform American politics.
Hollywood has made California a crucial part of America’s cultural
identity, and Silicon Valley has put it at the heart of our vision of the
future. For many decades now, Americans have seen California as a harbinger
of promising things to come. Today, however, California has become a warning sign. Beset by economic
disaster and political paralysis, the state is in the midst of a systemic
crisis. And while the meltdown has certainly been accelerated by the
recession of the past two years, its causes involve two decades of poor
judgment, reckless mismanagement, and irresponsibility. How California got
into this mess has a lot to teach the rest of the country; how it gets out
will say a great deal about America’s prospects. ...Unemployment is over 11%, and a recent survey of corporate CEOs
ranked California the worst state in the country in which to do business. It
is losing native-born citizens faster than any other state. To put the effects of these trends in perspective, from 2004 to 2007
more people left California for Texas and Oklahoma than came west from those
states to escape the Dust Bowl in the 1930s. California is in the midst of a
man-made disaster. How could things get so bad? The story of California’s decline is
a tragedy of political dysfunction, misguided ideology, interest-group politics,
and willful blindness. ...As Californians contemplate next year’s gubernatorial race, it
is increasingly clear that the state is at a crossroads. One path before it,
essentially an extension of the status quo, would mean continued decline in
the fashion of states like New Jersey or Michigan. The other path would be to
pursue a bold reformist agenda, along the lines of what Rudy Giuliani
accomplished during his time as mayor of New York City. Without a sharp turn
toward freer markets, a smaller public sector, and more responsive and
responsible government, California may not be able to save itself from
catastrophe. But whether that charge will be led — and by whom —
remains an open question. 10/19/2009: Rules
Made to Be Broken ECONOMISTS AND
POLITICAL scientists identify a big problem with government regulation of
business. They call it “regulatory capture,” meaning that
regulators often do not enforce their own rules because they have close
relationships with those they regulate. It’s often
told as the economic version of the Patty Hearst syndrome, in which a weak
victim is overwhelmed by powerful captors and comes to cooperate with the
oppressors. In regulatory economics, weak public servants are said to be
overwhelmed by the rich and powerful economic interests they are supposed to
control. The doctrine of
regulatory capture covers behavior as simple as bribing the tax collector or
the customs agent and as complex as a national political campaign. It applies
to city councils issuing streetcar franchises, to state public utilities
commissioners, to tax-writing committees of Congress and to the myriad
federal agencies regulating every aspect of commerce. Anyone who spends
a few months in Washington, D.C. — or even a few months reading about
politics — will see many inadvertent references to the theory of
regulatory capture. If, for current example, the Senate Finance Committee
puts forth a health-care reform bill without a public option, many say
it’s the result of the health-insurance industry’s campaign contributions. In such common
use, however, the doctrine leaves out the possibility of effective
persuasion. A lobbyist visits a congressman or a commissioner, then the
commissioner adopts a policy supporting the lobbyists’ clients. This is
not proof. Indeed, with a government of, by and for the people, it is hardly
improper to petition the government for a redress of grievances. It is a
right guaranteed by that pesky old First Amendment, even if it is regulatory
capture. Where’s the Public Interest? George Stigler of
the University of Chicago was one of the first to coin the idea of regulatory
capture. In his speech on winning the 1982 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic
Sciences he recalled his earlier work and asked, “Why does the state
engage in its regulatory activities? The answer, he
said, “seemed to lie much less in the theorems of welfare economics or
the prescriptions of traditional political science, than in the systematic
examination of the self-interest of the various participants.” Another Chicagoan,
Richard Posner, summed up the theory more bluntly: “Regulation is not
about the public interest at all, but is a process, by which interest groups
seek to promote their private interest....Over time, regulatory agencies come
to be dominated by the industries regulated.” And regulated
industries come to be more reliably profitable than those in which marginal
cost and marginal price are driven together by market forces. Regulation
raises profits by raising barriers to competition, especially barriers to new
competitors. With supply thus made scarce, the regulators then ignore
consumers, raising prices beyond what the market would dictate. Railroads used the
Interstate Commerce Commission to organize and prevent rate wars; airlines
did the same with the Civil Aeronautics Board. Abolishing those agencies did
more for consumers’ interests than creating them ever could. You Break It, You Buy It In practice,
regulatory capture works all too well. A government that takes responsibility
for the operation of an industry must sustain the industry. Ordinary
monopolies achieved the old-fashioned competitive way, with high quality or
low prices, remain vulnerable to new technology or better marketing.
Government price controls and service limits go hand in hand forever —
or at least until the revolution comes. Consider the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration. Although it does not (yet) directly administer
prices of pharmaceuticals, medical devices and food additives, it does
subject them to a long process of testing for safety and efficacy, and it
regulates manufacturing in the industries under it. Done in the name of
public safety, the testing regime also raises a formidable barrier to new
entrants. The FDA finances its activities with fees on those it regulates.
The benefits and costs are clearer if we note that the drug industry begged
for higher fees to finance faster review of new drugs and devices. Interesting
charges about the review process emerged from the FDA recently. The former
administrator allegedly knuckled under to congressional pressure last year
and approved a medical device despite serious reservations among the
agency’s scientific staff. The congressmen, all from New Jersey, had
received campaign contributions from the device manufacturer, based in
Hackensack, N.J. Making fun of New
Jersey corruption is a national pastime, but its ways are not so mysterious
or unusual. A form of regulatory capture may have been at work. The congressmen
were doing what too many of our elected tribunes think is their main job
— cutting paths through red tape on behalf of their constituents.
Anyone who would call a congressman for help with a missing Social Security
check should not be dismayed if Hackensack entrepreneurs call on their
senators and representatives for help with a missing license to make profits. Administrative Capture One of this
year’s winners of the Nobel Prize in economics has also contributed to
our uncomfortable understanding of government power and the rule of
regulation. Reacting to the
economic notion of state and market as alternatives, Elinor Ostrom observed
that people often provide a third way. She is a political scientist at
Indiana University, and she observed the general success of such voluntary
associations as churches and charities in performing welfare functions,
parent associations governing schools behind the scenes and trade
associations imposing professional standards. In a variant of
regulatory capture, such groups produce public goods without government
management, despite a presumption among many economists that markets fail to
produce public goods. A lesson from the
new laureate is that it’s usually not necessary or desirable to have
governments substitute for markets. The spontaneous order of markets reflects
people acting rationally; government regulators add nothing to the process. 10/14/2009: Do
States Need to Act More Like Brands? Do you appreciate
your state? Feel like you get a decent return on your tax dollar? Would you
recommend your state to friends as a place to live or, conversely, as a place
to avoid? Is your state ascending or descending as a brand? States are already
“branded” by their histories, economies and populations.
California has great weather, beautiful scenery and tons of diversity.
It’s the land of the Gold Rush, Silicon Valley and Hollywood. Minnesota
has icy winters, beautiful lakes and an educated work force. Florida and
Arizona are havens for retirees, vacationers and snowbirds. You can look at a
map and fill out the brands. Several states are
now at a crossroads because their historic positions no longer ring true and
their futures are cloudy. If we think of citizens as consumers, the
“benefits” provided by the brands may look quite different than
they have in the past. “Acquiring” and “retaining”
the folks who generate sales (i.e., taxes) may take major change. Growing a
healthy customer base will require state governments to think more about what
their customers need than about administering policy and adding or
maintaining services. Like any brands facing a budget shortfall, states will
need to make tradeoffs. Let’s take
my state, California. “The Golden State” is a hotbed for
technology, entertainment and innovation. California attracts people from
around the world, even though it may have put “the fun in dysfunction”
(according to Sports Illustrated, writing about the Oakland Raiders, but if
the shoe fits ... ). With a high rate of foreclosures, a large and
inefficient bureaucracy, high and inequitable taxes, a broken education
system and a monstrous budget shortfall, the California brand is in trouble.
Fixing it is hard work, since good weather can only take you so far. If brand
basics like reliable public education, the ability to attract and retain
businesses, and some semblance of government efficiency don’t take
hold, the tax base will continue to decrease, the budget will get worse and
the problems will become more intractable. The beacon of opportunity will
morph into a declining brand, coasting on former glories. Like any brand, a
state that can’t retain its most valuable customers will inevitably
decline. Lose your business base, job generation engines and revenue growth,
and you don’t have a good long-term outlook. For California, even the
presence of Stanford University, Hollywood, Google (GOOG - news - people) and
Sand Hill Road can’t stop that decline. Fifty years ago, Michigan was a
hot brand. Look where it is now. Unlike brands, which can decline over a
matter of years, states that don’t meet their citizens’ needs
will decline over decades. If a state’s
brand promise becomes too overpriced and loses its competitive edge,
consumers and businesses will inevitably move to states that have better
offers. Once citizens start moving elsewhere, states — like brand
managers — can either change and fight for customers, or dig in their
heels and hold the line. Don’t get me
wrong, my family and I enjoy California and appreciate everything that it has
to offer. But of all of the states we’ve lived in, California has the
worst “consumer acquisition pain” of any of them. The forms,
regulations, city, county and government bureaucracies and general lack of
helpfulness combined with the high cost of living made the move more painful
than earlier moves to Minnesota, Ohio and Connecticut. I can only imagine
what it would be like to move a business. States like
California, which have been on top for a long time, need to go back to the
basics of what made them great. They will need to innovate in order to
acquire and retain customers like Michigan did in the 1950s and California
and other Western states did in the 1990s. If they don’t, they run the
risk of facing the problems that now plague Michigan. Leaders need to think
about their states’ long-term brand health and hopefully, stay focused
on the benefits that matter (such as job creation and education) rather than
short-term fixes (like using across-the-board cuts to help balance the
budget). States can either
acknowledge that the marketplace has changed and evolve accordingly, or keep
on trucking with the old model and wonder why they are losing customers to
other, more nimble states. Even those that have worse weather. Mike Linton was
most recently the chief marketing officer at eBay. Previously, he was the
first CMO at Best Buy. He joined the electronics retailer in 1999 from James
River, where he worked as a vice president and general manager. Linton
started his career in brand management at Procter & Gamble. Deregulate Labor Markets On the economic
front, the good news is that the Dow Jones industrial average is inching back
toward 10,000 — only 30% off its all-time high. The bad news is that
the unemployment rates are inching past 10% with no improvement in sight
— unless, we are assured, government intervention can halt the downward
spiral. This point has not
been lost on the Obama administration, whose de facto chief economic guru
David Axelrod, assures us that “all additional potential strategies for
accelerating job creation” are on the table. Axelrod may heed the
advice of New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, who invokes Bill
Clinton’s Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich’s fresh ideas for
“igniting” job growth. The centerpiece of their program is the
labor-market version of Cash for Clunkers: a $3,000 credit to small
businesses to create jobs. This Utopian
proposal only makes matters worse. Everything turns on what kinds of jobs are
created. Unfortunately, all labor-market subsidies run into two insuperable
obstacles in both good times and bad. First, a wily employer could receive a
subsidy for jobs that would be created in any event. The transfer payment to
the lucky employer thus imposes an additional tax burden on everyone else,
without any offsetting gain. Or, worse, the subsidy will create a shiny new
job — albeit of little or no social value. In line with
today’s fashionable Keynesian babble, only force-fed government jobs
are said to exhibit a vaunted “multiplier” effect, by spurring
additional economic activity up and down the distribution chain. But any new
private-sector job would have exactly the same effect, and the added virtue
of producing something of value. Alas, all public subsidies crowd out good
private jobs and create useless public ones. In the long term, they reduce
the overall wealth base on the nation, which in turn contracts both public
revenues and private economic activity. We cannot solve 10% unemployment by
creating 12% unemployment! There is a better
course of action for labor market reform, just as there is for health care
reform. David Hyman and I have recently argued that the current health care
debate is marred by the fashionable insistence of piling new regulations on
an already overheated regulatory system. As libertarians know, government
sages should first direct their fire to reduce market drag by-shudder!
— deregulation. Yet on a matter that intersects health and labor,
Democratic health care reform proposals predictably protect collective
bargaining rights in all health care markets, thereby perpetuating highly
inefficient labor monopolies. That
interventionist mindset, writ large, is killing labor markets today. This
past July, a third 70-cent increase has raised the minimum wage from $5.15 to
$7.25 per hour in just over two-years. Why is anyone surprised that this
40%-plus increase caused a current sharp increase in teenage unemployment
that hits minority males especially hard? The minimum wage only directly
impacts the bottom tier of the economy. Strengthening the anti-discrimination
law protection for women makes matters worse across the board, at a time when
men in virtually every age group and occupation have taken a harder hit than
women. Far worse, just
keeping the misguided Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) on the legislative
agenda sets up a massive disincentive for firms to hire new workers. Who
wants to expand a workforce in the face of the potential double whammy of a
card check and compulsory contract arbitration, capable of sending any firm
into bankruptcy? Finally, the massive confusion over health care reform is
yet another stealth job killer. The prospect of new employer mandates and
special taxes make it prudent to trim workforces or to avoid creating new
businesses at all. Yet look as you
may, none of the administration’s current champions of job creation
will lift a finger to take the heavy foot of Uncle Sam off the throats off
the private employers, who are the only persons who can sustain job growth.
Perhaps our government wizards fear that deregulation cuts budgets and
reduces their power. But their dubious motivations are not the core of this
debate. The great curse of the current downturn is to delude well-intentioned
people to cling to the miraculous idea that policies known to be dangerous in
good times somehow become social necessities in bad times. Sorry, but there
is no way to ease the pain of labor markets without a massive dose of
deregulation. Shame on the Obama administration for missing the point. Richard A. Epstein
is the James Parker Hall distinguished service professor of law, the
University of Chicago; the Peter and Kirsten Bedford senior fellow at the
Hoover Institution; and a visiting law professor at New York University Law
School. His recent book, The Case Against the Employee Free Choice Act, is
available from the Hoover Press. He writes a weekly column for Forbes. STOP THE GOVERNMENT INSANITY! “Insanity
is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
(1) In private hands, this insanity is a vice. In government hands, it is a
crime. Private
insanity hurts those who do it and those who support it. It punishes those
who are responsible. Government insanity injures everyone EXCEPT those who do
it and enable it. It protects those who cause and condone it while punishing
the innocent. Private
insanity causes private problems and pain. Government insanity causes
widespread economic and social damage and destruction. It imposes the costs
and consequences on those who did NOT cause them. This
insanity is not blindness, but the refusal to see. Not deafness, but the
refusal to hear. This insanity is deliberately ignoring cause and effect,
action and consequence. The
cure for most forms of government insanity was discovered in 1946. It’s
a short, readable book called ‘Economics in One Lesson’ by Henry
Hazlitt. (2) It’s what happens when today’s politicians refuse
the cure. Government
economic insanity lets Congress give the first $1 trillion in bailouts to reckless
and irresponsible lenders and borrowers. To over-priced, wasteful, and
uncompetitive car companies. And probably to bloated and wasteful state
governments. Government
economic insanity lets Congress print or borrow money to stimulate the
economy. Government economic insanity lets Congress vote for government
programs to “create jobs.” Government economic insanity lets
state legislatures over-charge taxpayers for roads, bridges, and other
infrastructure while pretending this creates jobs. Politicians
and government officials have developed ways of re-packaging and selling the
government insanity. Announcing: New, Improved Government Insanity. RE-NAME
what doesn’t work, do it again and again, and tell us we’ll get
different results. PUT
DIFFERENT PEOPLE IN CHARGE of doing what doesn’t work, do it again and
again, and tell us to expect different results. SPEND
MORE TAX DOLLARS, ASSIGN MORE GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES to do what doesn’t
work, again and again, and expect different results. RE-ORGANIZE
AND REFORM THE DEPARTMENT that did what doesn’t work, do it again and
again, and expect different results. BELIEVE
“YES, WE CAN,” do the same thing, again and again, and expect
different results. Stop the
Government Insanity! Email
this issue of “Small Government News” to your family and friends.
Share what you learn with your co-workers. 1.
Tell them: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and
expecting different results.” 2.
Give them examples of government insanity: trade protectionism, government works
projects, “jobs” programs, “stimulus” programs, and
more. 3.
Link them to or buy them ‘Economics In One Lesson’ by Henry
Hazlitt. Ask them to take 8 minutes to read a few key pages. 4.
Ask them to speak out. To inform and influence their co-workers, friends, and
families. Stop
the Government Insanity! (Footnotes) (1)
This quote has been attributed to John Dryden, Albert Einstein, Rita Mae
Brown, and others. (2)
‘Economics In One Lesson’ by Henry Hazlitt explodes and refutes
these fallacies and most of the economic insanities Congress is trying to
sell us. Read the preface, Chapter 1: ‘The Lesson’, and Chapter
2: ‘The Broken Window.’ About 8 minutes reading: http://www.fee.org/library/books/economics.asp Or: http://www.fee.org/pdf/books/Economics_in_one_lesson.pdf Buy
a copy of the book. Highlight, underline, and make notes in your copy.
It’s pure gold economic sanity. =================== “The right
of a citizen to bear arms, in lawful defense of himself or the State, is
absolute. He does not derive it from the State government. It is one of the
“high powers” delegated directly to the citizen, and is excepted
out of the general powers of government. A law cannot be passed to infringe
upon or impair it, because it is above the law, and independent of the
lawmaking power.” — Cockrum v.
State [1859] A society of free
and responsible individuals who are able to form voluntary associations will
solve the social dilemmas they confront through various means of
self-governance. — “Elinor
Ostrom’s Nobel Prize in Economics“ [October 15, 2009]
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