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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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are not deductible for income tax purposes. Currently, an individual,
business entity, or any other organization or group of persons may not
contribute more than $25,900 (including loans) to Dale Ogden’s primary
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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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