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E-Mail: jchambless@valenciacc.edu
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***NEW FEATURE***
Thoughts on the World Around Us
Relax, America, and learn to enjoy $4-a-gallon gas
The Orlando Sentinel
May 18, 2008
Memorial Day will soon be here, and with it the kickoff to the unofficial start of the summer driving season. With gasoline prices seemingly on a collision course with what seemed impossible only a few short years ago, now might be a good time to step back, decompress and reflect on all of the good things we will get from $4-per-gallon gasoline.
First, as we all know, human beings are the worst creatures for the planet who have ever existed. With apologies to cows and other large-quantity methane producers, there is simply no other species that has created more waste, burned more energy and damaged the planet more. These days you cannot swing a dead cat without finding some expert, or Al Gore, telling us that the polar bears will have only 3 feet of ice left and Orlando will be under water within the next six or seven years because of our horrible use of fossil fuels.
Somewhere around 100 percent of all Americans, give or take an oil executive or two, now believe that "going green" is our only salvation. Since burning gasoline is the moral opposite of going green, we should all cheer as prices hit $4 per gallon -- and $5 or $8 would be even better. As gas prices increase, eventually SUVs will all be parked in the Museum of Bad Ideas -- and we will all be so happy to ride in aluminum cans that get 50 miles per gallon but don't fare so well when hit by trucks, flying birds or large wind gusts. No matter. Because unless we are all colossal hypocrites, higher prices for gas will save the planet from melting -- and that's a far more valuable goal than, say, having money at the end of the month to enjoy our lives.
Second, think about how great $4 per gallon will be for our grocery shopping. A few years ago, Congress and President Bush got together and decided that burning corn was the answer to starving Middle Eastern nations of our money. The key to fighting terrorism, they told us, was to move to ethanol. After all, none of the nations we are mad at grow corn next to their oil wells. There is no way they can add this crop to their cartel.So, we are all now forced to burn perfectly good sources of popcorn in our cars. This has dramatically increased the demand for corn -- and thus corn prices. The farmers of the Midwest are now building mansions, and everything made with corn is far more expensive in our stores. What's so good about that?
We all know that Americans are the largest bipeds on Earth. People from other countries visit here and think that we eat 20 pounds of pork rinds at every meal. I don't recall the exact number, but the experts tell us that the average child is around 97 pounds overweight and parents can no longer get in and out of bed without the assistance of a forklift.
Thus, $4 per gallon -- created by our diet-friendly ethanol laws -- will help all of us lose the weight that we have been trying to shed all these years. If we cannot afford to buy as much food, then we no longer need Jenny Craig or liposuction.
Finally, as we get to $4 per gallon we get to be closer to our European brethren. How so?
For years we have heard how the Europeans pay somewhere around $13 per liter or hectare or yard -- or however they buy gasoline.
We have all heard that Europeans have great buses and trains and subways. Now is our chance to sit next to people on Lynx buses that pull up near your home at 4:15 a.m. and get you to work at about 3 p.m. We can now enjoy riding our bicycles down to the train station of the future and sit, packed like sardines, next to our fellow passengers who have not bathed regularly.
With any luck, we can all become as happy as all of those heavily taxed, heavily regulated French and German folks who have enjoyed the benefits of lower net incomes for years.
I am so excited that I might have a party once we get to $4 per gallon.
If I can afford the popcorn and my guests can make it to my house on their bicycles.
Using Jesus to Justify Theft
April 6, 2008
The most casual reader of this newspaper cannot help but notice that a trend seems to be developing among those who advocate greater assistance to Floridians who have low incomes, disabilities, illnesses, advancing age or any number of other maladies. The trend is to presumptuously delve into the mind of Jesus in order to guilt all of us into believing that our private property can justifiably be taken to aid our fellow citizens.
Recently, Linda Chapin, Northland Pastor Joel Hunter and Sentinel columnist Mike Thomas – among others – have taken to these pages to claim that Jesus would be appalled by the fact that Florida’s budget problems are about to translate into immoral cuts in programs for Florida’s economically disadvantaged citizens.
While it is admirable that these respected citizens – or anyone for that matter – would seek to use the New Testament as a guide for how to extend our wealth to the neediest among us, it is also ironic that this use of the teachings of Jesus also means that supporters of such aid are advocating behavior that Jesus explicitly disapproved of. That is to say, that anyone who seeks to use the arm of government to aid anyone, for any reason, is supporting force, coercion and theft.
No where in the teachings of Jesus or his disciples can you find any commandment that involves forced will, rather than free will. Jesus taught people to freely love one another, to help one another and put our own well-being behind the well-being of others. However, he never told anyone to use force to aid anyone.
What are taxes if not an extension of the use of force? Government is the only institution that is legally allowed to compel people to give up their private property. Every government program is backed up by force, or the threat of it. If you do not pay your taxes you will lose your freedom. When taxes are taken from one person to directly aid another it is an act of benevolent theft.
What if I, a private citizen, decided to begin robbing people along I-drive for the express purpose of giving the money to unemployed single mothers who are ill? Would I be commended for an act of benevolence, or would I be arrested? What is the difference between this act, and government-aid? Both take away the free will of the plundered in order to engage in forced philanthropy. Yet when government does it, we find people who will say that it is democracy in action and that we must have government programs like these because charity is not enough.
Perhaps charity would be enough if two things were true. First, if we did not have to pay involuntary taxes like federal income and local property taxes there would be much more money available to aid our fellowman – and there is ample evidence to suggest we would gladly do it. Last year, U.S. citizens gave just over $290 billion to charity. That figure is larger than the entire gross domestic product of many western and northern European nations. Moreover, before government got into the business of transferring income and wealth, there were mutual aid societies all over the country, where local communities extended aid to poor people in exchange for work or service to the community by those receiving aid.
Second, if those who advocate government programs would give more of their own money and morally persuade others to do the same, we might not have to rely on the spiritually lazy way out that lets government bureaucrats take care of our neighbors that we should be taking care of.
The hardest part of course – that many ministers and other social do-gooders seem to never mention – is that Jesus also used many parables that taught people to bear responsibility for themselves. Part of the equation in the formula for a just society is that those we call the poor live up to their obligation to their fellowman and not engage in the types of behavior that creates forced charity to begin with.
Ronald Reagan would be shocked and disturbed by McCain
February 7, 2008
The Orlando Sentinel
On February 6th – the 97th anniversary of the birth of Ronald Reagan – I awoke to the news that John McCain has all but sewn up the nomination as the Republican candidate for president this year.
Given the fact that he and some of the other Republicans have been embroiled in a campaign to prove who is the most like Reagan, the choice of McCain is both shocking and a bit disturbing to those of us who remember the Reagan years fondly.
As a registered Libertarian/former Republican I must confess that I have utter contempt for any suggestion that McCain carries the mantle of Reagan Republicanism. If Republicans are honest – and remember anything about the 80’s – they can only conclude that McCain is a militaristic socialist.
Reagan came to power at the height of the Cold War, with 45,000 nuclear weapons in the hands of the expansion-minded Soviet Empire. He managed to expedite, if not win outright, the Cold War without invading the Soviet Union in an a preemptive war like the one McCain supported in Iraq. Mr. Reagan also dealt with Middle-Eastern terrorism in a pragmatic way.
When Libya bombed a club in Europe, Reagan bombed Qaddafi’s compound, but did not invade Libya. He reflagged oil tankers when Iran acted aggressively and protected this resource without invading Iran. He also rationally left Beirut when the Marines where killed in 1983.
McCain, if one listens closely, seems much more likely to stay in Iraq until today’s middle school children are old enough to go over there and fight. His words and demeanor also seem far removed from the humble qualities we consistently saw in Reagan. Rather, there seems to be even more bravado towards Vladimir Putin in Russia and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran than we have seen from George Bush.
On economic issues, just two weeks ago Mr. McCain said, “I really don’t know as much about economics as I should.” Wonderful. Just as the American economy is struggling with the outset of a recession in the short run and challenges from the global economy in the long run, we have Republican voters picking someone who doesn’t understand the economy?
His record on economic matters confirms he is telling the truth. While Reagan pushed for the second largest tax cuts in our history (John F. Kennedy’s were the biggest), Mr. McCain voted against far smaller cuts in income tax rates in 2001. He also has supported much of George Bush’s enormous expansion in the welfare state – an expansion unprecedented in size over the past 40 years.
Should John McCain win the nomination in September and eventually the election in November, he will simply continue what has become a trend in the Republican party since the elder George Bush was in office. That trend will be undoubtedly one of more government involvement in the lives of citizens in foreign lands – and thus more enemies to fight over time – while at the same time more bloated government spending at home, with less of a belief in the long-term tax relief we need for true prosperity.
I hope Ronald Reagan cannot see what has happened to his party. He would be ashamed.
Barry Bonds: Baseball’s best Economist
The Orlando Sentinel
December 13, 2007
Over the past several years the good citizens of this country have speculated as to whether or not Barry Bond’s villainously took steroids to approach and then break one of our most “sacred” records – most home runs ever.
Millions of dollars later, it appears that our suspicions were most likely correct. With the Mitchell investigation complete and Bond’s credibility in serious question, we now prepare for the possibility that Bonds and Michael Vick will become penitentiary pen pals for the next couple of years.
Yet, what seems completely lost in our zeal to lock Bonds up is the fact that he was simply acting on what Adam Smith would have called the beauty of the invisible hand of free market economics.
Consider the facts. In the wake of the 1994 player’s strike that cancelled the World Series for the first time in 90 years, the overall demand for major league baseball sunk dramatically. Fans actually honored their threats to stay away from the ballparks and the television and delivered a sizable drop in profits to our national pastime.
Compounding matters was the fact that baseball was already declining in popularity with young people in our country. With the proliferation of fast-paced video games, extreme sports like skateboarding, bicycle stunt performances and trick snowboarding, the youth of America were sending a message that spending three hours waiting for someone to bunt the winning run into scoring position was boring and not worthy of our shortening attention spans.
In the meantime, the NFL and NASCAR continued to grow in popularity with men and women, further carving up the sports fan’s dollars away from baseball.
The response on the part of baseball’s owners and players was predictable. Facing the prospects of earning revenues akin to professional soccer, the owners began a stadium building campaign that made virtually every new park in America much more “hitter friendly.” With fences moved in, combined with what many baseball experts believe was a more tightly-wound ball, the owners sent a clear message that home runs and higher scores was necessary to win back fans.
The players rationally responded to this Darwinian adaptation by looking for every means possible to get bigger and stronger. This meant more time in the weight room, but also more time opening packages from less than scrupulous chemical suppliers as well.
The evidence from 1995 through 2005 is unquestionable. Home run totals increased by 50 percent during this time period. More players hit more than 50 home runs during this span than at any time in the 120 years preceding 1995. And, of course, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds – none of whom who had ever hit more than 49 home runs in one season – ended up surpassing 60 and even 70 home runs at the end of their careers, when baseball players, like the rest of us, see a drop off in their productivity.
What resulted was a huge increase in the demand for baseball games in America. Attendance increased every year of the so-called steroid era. Baseball revenues increased accordingly, and player salaries – especially for those with enlarged biceps and craniums – routinely shot past $15 million per year.
Any economist worth his or her salt would respond to this with a hearty, congratulations for a job well done.
The owners of baseball’s teams have one primary obligation. That is to sell a product that the customer wants in order to maximize the return on their investment. The players have a responsibility to provide their employer with the greatest productivity possible, where productivity is defined by the employer. The fan has an interest in being served in such a way where the difference between the benefits of their purchase is as great as possible when compared to the costs.
Steroids created a win, win, win situation for all three principle parties. The only damage done in this era is to the long-run health of Mr. Bonds and others who took these substances and to the integrity of baseball’s home run records.
However, if we consider the fact that Mr. Bonds is an emancipated adult human being who has ownership over himself then we are left questioning the wisdom of banning any substance that he freely chooses to put in his own body. If he is willing to risk premature death for the sake of home run records and a higher salary, he should be allowed to do so without interference from the government.
If the owners and fans really care about the sanctity of baseball records the fans would stay away from the parks and turn off the television. The owners would then seek to get rid of steroids on economic grounds rather than out of political pressure.
Ultimately the Mitchell investigation and the possible imprisonment of Barry Bonds will be another colossal waste of time and money in an effort to alter the unalterable laws of supply and demand.
In defense of Michael Vick
He 'deserves' to lose his job, but what beyond that?
The Orlando Sentinel
August 24, 2007
Now that the saga of Michael Vick is coming to a close and his days as a free man are numbered, it seems an ideal time to suggest that we take a step back. We are about to lock up the Atlanta Falcons' former quarterback for heinous acts against animals when it might make more sense to use society's scarce resources to let him walk around free -- and face society -- while looking into other acts that violate the beings we are supposed to be stewards over.
That Michael Vick "deserves" to lose his job, his endorsements and his chance of being gainfully employed by the National -- or even Canadian -- Football League is inarguable. After all, Vick has a constitutional right to pursue happiness, not a guarantee that he will be happy. If the owner of the Atlanta Falcons or all of the privately owned NFL teams decide to avoid him for the rest of his life -- thus driving his value to zero to EA Sports, Nike and other firms -- this is the appropriate price he must pay in our quasi-capitalistic economy that seeks to maximize the value of an individual for the profit of the company. Vick may never have much economic value for the rest of his life.
But what about his value as an American with constitutional rights? If we ignore, for a moment, that men make laws that are gross violations of our rights to life, liberty and private property, by all means, he broke the law. So send him to prison.
However, what seems to be perversely lost in all of the arguments that he has created is that human beings have rights under our Constitution, and animals do not. If they did, we would not see the national hypocrisy we are now witnessing in this case.
On the day Vick goes to prison, there will be people attending rodeos where animals are arguably not being treated humanely. The cowboys will not go to jail. People will look at imprisoned animals in zoos and mistreated animals in circuses, and not be arrested when they buy a ticket. Greyhounds and thoroughbreds and show horses will be forced against their will to do things they would otherwise not do. Ranchers will castrate bulls, cut off their horns and brand them with no penalty. Ducks will have grain forced down their gullets to create foie gras for restaurant patrons. I might go bass fishing, which I start by running a hook through the back of a large piece of live bait so I can hook and kill a bass that does not want to be hooked and killed.
Inasmuch as humans are allowed to own animals, we implicitly acknowledge that Messrs. Jefferson, Madison and the other Founding Fathers did not intend for human beings to be jailed for dispensing with our property in the manner in which we see fit, so long as we do not violate the rights to life, liberty and property of others. In order to guarantee that this cannot occur, would zoos, rodeos and other for-profit, animal-laden ventures be outlawed? It seems so, since no beings with "rights" can be forced to do anything against their will.
Humans, however, do have rights -- yet few in our country would be willing to apply that fact to Vick, even though he did not kill a person or deny any other human their rights to liberty or property. It would seem that the free-market penalty of his lost jobs and national humiliation is enough. Sending him to jail is simply an irrational act of revenge by a tyrannical democracy that does not regard his rights as meaningful.
Compounding the problem is that part of his prison time will be associated with gambling on dogfights. Gambling! Imagine! All of you who hate Vick, yet play poker, go to Las Vegas, the dog track, the horse track, bet on NFL games, etc. -- imagine what the Founders would say about imprisoning people for making bets on animal fights.
We need to face the facts: We are somewhat disingenuous to demand that he go to prison, when pregnant women who smoke are allowed to be free and parents who verbally abuse their children are left alone. Perhaps it would make more sense to let Vick's sentence be a lifetime of living with his conscience.
He has paid society enough.More Guns, not fewer, would have saved lives
The Orlando Sentinel
April 17, 2007
In the wake of the horrific massacre that took place at Virginia Tech, newspapers around the country wasted no time in reporting that Virginia has some of the most lenient gun laws in the United States. According to the International Herald Tribune, “Ownership requires only passing criminal background checks, which can be bypassed by buying from an unlicensed dealer. And unlicensed dealers can sell their wares at gun shows without requiring criminal checks. Guns need not be registered unless the owner wants to carry a concealed weapon.”
For the next several weeks we can expect more of this type of intellectual laziness as reporters, politicians, soccer-Moms and everyone else who is convinced that guns are bad lines up to offer up the latest “proof” that school shootings are “caused” by the lack of “gun control”.
As it turns out, the exact opposite is a fact. School shootings – and many other shootings for that matter – occur because we do not have enough law-abiding, armed citizens.
Let’s look at the evidence. John Lott, a University of Chicago economist, collected data from every one of the 3,054 counties in the United States over an 18-year period and examined changes in the rates of nine different types of crime. He also accounted for the effects of dozens of other variables, including variations in arrest rates, in the age and racial composition of a county’s population, in national crime rates, and in changes made to gun-control laws, including the adoption of waiting periods. Lott’s findings show that concealed weapons laws significantly reduce violent crime. On average, the murder rate fell by ten percent, rape by three percent, and aggravated assault by six percent.
By concealed weapons laws, we are talking of course about citizens who legally carry firearms to provide for their Constitutional protections before the police show up. Ask any law enforcement officer and they will tell you that it is far more common for the police to appear after someone is dead than a few seconds before the trigger is pulled. Society does not have the resources or the power of premonition to place our law officers in the right place at the right time. Therefore, the citizens, as our Founders believed, have the right and responsibility to prevent massacres like the one that has tragically occurred at Virginia Tech.
Every parent who cares about the long run safety of their children should actively pursue gun safety courses, gun training and a home environment that respects guns for what they are meant to do. If more parents did this, rather than listen to the histrionics of people who are ignorant about guns and our rights, then at some point during the Virginia Tech shootings the gunman would have faced the barrel of a gun being held by a responsible citizen. That could have been after one death or twenty, but it would have dramatically increased the probability of lives being saved.
It would have also given future gunmen that much needed moment of pause if more of them realized that there were many potential defenders of life out there among the citizenry.
How Do We Know Whose Trying?
April 10, 2007
Recently I had the opportunity to watch a movie called “The Pursuit of Happyness” with my 13 year-old daughter. If you have not yet seen this film it is ostensibly about a man who attempts – over and over again – to overcome economic obstacles as he pursues his version of happiness. The lead character in the movie (played brilliantly by Will Smith), even mentions Thomas Jefferson and our constitutional right to pursue happiness.
About half way through the film my daughter leaned over and whispered, “So daddy, do you still think the government shouldn’t help people like him?” This was an extremely profound question inasmuch as my daughter has heard me in and out of the classroom discussing the economics, morality and Constitutionality of using tax dollars in the name of benevolence.
John F. Kennedy once said, “I do not believe that Washington should do for the people what they can do for themselves through local and private effort.” As it turns out, JFK’s opinion is actually an important Constitutional fact, as well. If one takes a look at Article One, Section Eight, Clause One of our nations’ rulebook we can see that the Founders allow Congress to spend tax dollars on national defense, debts incurred in the protection of our rights and on expenditures for the ‘general welfare’ of our nation. Clauses 2-18 then enunciate what general welfare means.
Any reading of the works of Messrs. Madison, Jefferson, etc. clearly indicates that the use of tax dollars to financially prop up any individual member of our society is prohibited. The Founders felt that private initiative, family and charity – both secular and religious – were better tools to drive people out of poverty and into more productive, and ultimately more profitable pursuits.
But what about people who are really trying to be independent but continue to bump up against the random walk of life that often knocks them down over and over again? Would it hurt anything if the arm of government, financed with the tax dollars of others, reached out just to those people with temporary aid?
This question came to my mind over and over again during this movie and I found myself slightly bending towards the more socialistic conclusion that a proper function of government is to help those who are trying to help themselves. After all, even JFK yielded to the movement to create a social welfare state.
Yet, by the time the movie had ended and I was walking in the parking lot with my daughter I was able to tell her that not only were the Founders still correct, but that the man depicted in that film had proven that without any government assistance people can triumph over enumerable odds. In fact, the astute observer cannot miss the fact that government turned out to be his largest enemy. The big issue to consider is this:
If government could identify those who are trying (a monumental task), would those people keep trying once taxpayer aid arrived? Franklin Roosevelt once called welfare the “subtle destroyer of the human spirit.” Not only has he been proven to be correct (and he was the first to sign off on welfare), but we are now faced with a growing perception by the elderly, the baby boomers and the young that government should always assist us first before we dig down and find the fortitude to assist ourselves.
The Pursuit of Happyness is now out on DVD. If I may play the role of movie critic for a moment, I suggest that everyone who cares about economic liberty watch it as soon as possible.
When Saving One Life Makes No Sense
The Orlando Sentinel
February 7, 2007
In the Tuesday edition of the Orlando Sentinel, two My Word authors made the argument that tornado sirens should be put up all over Central Florida. Each author contended that if “it saves just one life” it is worth the millions of dollars of expenditures of the taxpayers money. I would respectfully suggest that the authors – and anyone else who uses the “just one life” defense are not only completely wrong, but are unwittingly suggesting public policies that could cost more lives than are saved.
As a resident of Oklahoma and Texas for more than 20 years I can certainly appreciate the sentiment that leans towards the construction of sirens in our state. After all, Florida is not far behind Oklahoma in tornado activity. What all Floridians need to think about before we irrationally begin putting up sirens all over the place is the fact that the money could save more lives put in other places. Moreover, when we make the “just one life” argument, we are ignoring the responsibility we have as citizens to live with, and rationally adjust to the risks that are associated with living in Florida.
Consider this. Around 350 Florida children under the age of 5 die in swimming pools each year. That is a far greater total than die in tornadoes. Under the “just one life” argument, the state of Florida would save hundreds of lives by banning the ownership of backyard pools. From 1949 to 2005 sixteen people were killed by alligators and eight by sharks. To save just one life, how many alligators and sharks should be eliminated? Each year almost 200,000 Floridians are injured by nails, screws and bolts. Over 1,500 a year are hurt by toilet bowl cleaners and over 100 a year die in bike accidents. That is a much higher injury and death toll than tornadoes too. Should we pursue a just one life model in those areas as well?
If you are ever in Oklahoma please take a good look in the back yard of most residents. While Floridians put in swimming pools, Oklahomans put in tornado shelters. Does this mean Floridians are dumb? No. It means Oklahomans and Floridians have an inherent understanding of probability theory and therefore different levels of risk acceptance. Tornadoes that hit in Oklahoma are usually much bigger and hit more often than here. Therefore it is rational to put in a shelter. With a much lower probability of killer tornadoes here, a pool is a more economical use of ones hard-earned money.
I understand why politicians and their voters are now clamoring for sirens. Disasters always throw cost-benefit analysis right out the window. The problem is that life is a random walk that carries with it risk. If we want to save lives we need to look at how many people die from red-light runners, drunk drivers and drug deals gone bad. Instead of allocating our scarce resources to sirens that would help us once ever ten years, we should be putting those dollars into the day-to-day causes of death and destruction.
Maybe we should have'House-Gouging' Laws
The Orlando Sentinel
September 21, 2006
The September 19th edition of USA Today revealed the results of a Gallup Poll that found 42% of Americans believing that gasoline prices were being manipulated downward by the Republican Party so that the GOP would get more votes in November.
It’s official. At least 42% of Americans are stupid.
As an economist I have had to listen to approximately 32,971 theories on why gas prices go up and down. No one I talk to ever asks why prices change. Since everyone I meet is already an expert on the vagaries of international oil markets there is no reason to do more than spout the conspiracy theory of the week.
The ‘experts’ that make up the 42% have told us (so far) that oil prices go up because big oil companies have conspired to gouge us; because OPEC is gouging us; because the government has secretly paid off people who can turn water into gasoline; because the Bush Administration is secretly in love with the Saudi Royal Family and on and on and on.
Every time any economist I know points out the facts – demand is up because Chinese and Indian consumers have decided bicycles and donkeys are not as good as cars; no new refineries have been built in thirty years; hurricanes damaged key production facilities; we drive Hummers 92 mph down the highway, etc. – no one seems to listen or believe us.
Therefore, I would like to try a completely different approach to this problem of economic illiteracy. Let’s play a game called, “You own a house”.
Suppose you own a house that you paid $150,000 for several years ago. Over the last several years more and more people have decided to move to the area where your house sits. They want houses too. However, even with all this new demand for a house, there is a problem. There are fewer and fewer places to build houses in the area where the new people want to live.
You get a knock at your door some day. The person on your porch tells you that they love your house and want to pay you $400,000 for it. What do you do then?
Curious about why they would offer so much more than you paid, you query them on their motives. They tell you that your town is great, your neighborhood is great and there are many people who would be willing to pay that. They also mention that there are not many houses like yours around.
If you take the higher price should you be called a ‘price gouger’? Should newspapers interview your neighbors to gauge whether or not you are greedy or mean? Or, since the house is your private property, should you be congratulated on your good fortune?
Unless you are a colossal hypocrite, you know your answer. Every American who cashed in on the housing boom implicitly paid homage to the forces of supply and demand that allowed them to make a killing. Now those same Americans are saying that people who have private property rights over their oil should not be allowed to do the same. Worse yet, they want the government to come in and regulate the greed of those who are reaping the benefits of an oil drinking global economy.
The next time you fill up your car, ask yourself, would you want the government to determine a “fair” price for your house? If not, then please pay whatever the market price is at that moment, shut up and drive away.
Pay for your own evacuation
July 28, 2006
In 1794 Congress appropriated $15,000 for relief of French refugees who fled from insurrection in San Domingo to Baltimore and Philadelphia.
James Madison – the principal author of the U.S. Constitution – stood on the floor of the House to object saying, “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”
I wonder what Mr. Madison would think of his country now.
In the wake of the turmoil that has engulfed Israel and Lebanon, hundreds of American citizens have found themselves in the unenviable position of being the in the crossfire of an increasingly deadly conflict. Now, those Americans – who all used their freedom to pursue money and happiness in Lebanon – are getting a taxpayer-financed trip to safety.
It should not come as a surprise that as soon as the Bush Administration came under criticism for their plan to have these people pay for their safe transit, that it would cave in and bilk the taxpayers instead.
After all, President Bush was the first president since the 1800s to wait this long to use his veto authority on a spending initiative.
What all Americans should be asking at this point is when will we ever see our government return to the principles our Founders gave us with respect to spending our tax money?
The enumerated clauses of Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution do not provide for any use – ever – of our money to aid people who have made bad decisions. The people who went to Lebanon – or built homes in New Orleans, or along the coast of Florida – had the freedom to move where they thought they would be better off.
Now that those people are facing a conflict between two foreign nations or really bad weather coming in from the Atlantic, they expect the taxpayers who did not make such bad decisions to pay for their mistake.
Unfortunately for taxpayers in the short run, and liberty in the long run, we have a president who campaigned as a “Compassionate Conservative.” This means that Mr. Bush must show us, over and over again, with our money, that he is compassionate about all that might befall us.
In the short run, such compassion comes at the cost of plundered tax dollars going towards inefficient causes. This means we face a mounting deficit and greater interest payments on the debt.
In the long run, Mr. Bush is charting a course that tells every American that freedom no longer comes with any personal responsibility whatsoever. This can only lead to the day when every person in this nation believes that they have a right to demand other peoples’ money when their pursuit of happiness falters.
When that day comes, the word liberty will become meaningless and America’s days will be numbered.
An Immigration Policy for 'Real Americans'
April 5, 2006
Here we go again. It seems that every few years someone looks around and starts shouting that too many people are showing up on our shores, in our airports and in our labor markets.
Round 132 in the "Are Immigrants Destroying America?" debate is upon us, and politicians from both sides of the aisle are frantically sticking their wet fingers in the political winds to see what Americans want this time.What is unfortunate in this debate is that we keep ignoring all of the historical and contemporary analysis that has been applied to this question, and we keep finding the same facts. We may not like the facts we are finding, but as Aldous Huxley once said, "Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."
So, what are the immutable truths about the folks who walk, fly and swim to get here?
First, they create jobs, not destroy them. Immigrants from up and down the wealth scale have proved to be incredibly entrepreneurial. Many technologically savvy immigrants from Western Europe and India helped create thousands of jobs in Silicon Valley. One in six of these companies was started by immigrants.
Many of America's best scientists, economists and engineers are not originally from Kentucky or Florida or Maine. They are from Beijing, Moscow and Bangalore. This reality is because American kids can't do math and science, so Microsoft and Google have had to find these geniuses somewhere else.
Poorer immigrants have created thousands of restaurants, retail shops and other service-based companies. One visit to San Francisco, New York or Chicago will show you how many native-born Americans are earning a paycheck because of the incredible efforts immigrants have put into our quasi-capitalistic market.
Immigrants without money and business plans have filled jobs in meat packing, textiles, lawn care and restaurants that Americans simply won't take. Sadly, it is beneath the dignity of the average American to pick onions or cut fat off a pig 10 hours per day. Who is supposed to fill this gap?
Immigrants have also helped keep our rate of inflation down by supplying valuable labor in areas where shortages would otherwise exist. Imagine what the price of housing or restaurant meals would be if not for immigrant roofers and dishwashers with tremendous work ethics.
We can also thank immigrants for having lower crime rates, higher graduation rates and lower participation in the welfare state than native-born Americans. Routinely, immigrants from the Caribbean show up, look around and find opportunity where many native-born Americans look around and give up on the chance to advance over time.
If I were president of the United States, I would fly to New York and read the plaque on the Statue of Liberty. Then, I would go on television and announce to my fellow Americans that every one of us is a descendant of someone who originally was not from here. I might also mention that if we want to help India and China pass us up in the economic superpower game, the surest way of achieving that is to keep immigrants from those nations out.
I would also suggest that we are never going to win the war on terror if we do not let liberty-loving people from the Middle East come over here to find out why America is a nice place to live.
Finally, I would suggest that if we want to kick out the immigrants, we might want to look at our own history with respect to the first Americans, "real Americans." I seem to recall that when we showed up from Europe -- as immigrants -- we took away their property, forced them to move to less desirable places and killed many of those who resisted.
Perhaps then the best immigration policy of all would be for everyone who is not an American Indian -- also known in politically correct terms as a Native American -- to leave at once.
Reagan's Biggest Mistake
The Orlando Sentinel and Freedom's Phoenix
January 26, 2006
Although I am a Libertarian and not a Republican -- and fight with those who are more conservative than I would like -- I do pause for a few minutes to reflect on a man born 95 years ago this Feb. 6 whom I believe to be the greatest president of the 20th century.
When Reagan came into office, there were 14 income-tax brackets, the highest of which was a staggering 70 percent. In eight years, Reagan pushed through two massive income-tax cuts that led to only two tax brackets and a top rate of 28 percent. Many economists have pointed out that the past two decades saw unprecedented economic growth and increasing government tax revenues due to the efforts of Reagan to free Americans from the shackles of the Internal Revenue Service tax code.
In addition, Reagan is also largely responsible for freeing hundreds of millions of citizens around the world from the grip of communism. If we believe Mikhail Gorbachev, Reagan played a far greater role in the demise of the Soviet Union than people give him credit for. With 45,000 nuclear weapons aimed at the U.S. and Western Europe, Reagan used his brilliant negotiating skills, faith in American technology and understanding of the economic struggles facing the USSR as a tool to force the Soviets to give in to virtually all of his requests. By the time he left office, much of the tyrannically controlled eastern half of the world was on the course of freer markets and freer republics.
When we consider that during the past 276 months, the United States has had merely 15 months of recessions and a robust 43 million jobs have been created, we should ask: How many recessions would we have had if not for these historic tax cuts and expanded free trade with nations that were formerly closed off to the world?
For such liberty, Reagan should never be forgotten. However, he did make one colossal mistake that threatens to undo much of his work.
On April 10, 1980, George H.W. Bush -- a rival of Reagan's for the Republican presidential nomination, was asked his view of Reagan's tax-cutting agenda. Bush called the idea "voodoo economics," and the term stuck with Reagan's critics.
Many have observed that on both economic and foreign-policy issues, Reagan did not view the elder Bush as strong enough to push liberty forward. Yet, Bush Sr. was a moderate voice from Texas. Reagan selected Bush as his running mate to help balance the ticket. The rest is history.
The first Bush presidency gave us the second-largest tax increase in our history along with a dramatic increase in expensive regulations of American businesses. Moreover, his tax hike began an era of increases in the number of tax brackets, which now total six.
These policies contributed greatly to the 1990-91 recession. In addition, the U.S. military set up shop in Saudi Arabia, which fueled hatred and resentment in the Arab world.
Real conservatives should understand that our current president is not much different from his rather ineffective father. Yes, George W. Bush has cut our taxes -- twice. But if Republicans are honest, they must admit that non-military government spending has increased at a faster pace under George W. Bush than under any president since Lyndon B. Johnson.
Bush's domestic spending should make Reagan Republicans long for the fiscally conservative presidency of Bill Clinton.
Overseas, Republicans should also find reasons to grimace. Instead of expanding liberty around the world by humbly showing people the moral superiority of freedom as Reagan did, the younger Bush has contributed to the notion that the U.S. is the imposer of our definition of freedom.
I wonder if Ronald Reagan would have approved of the Patriot Act, runaway spending on seemingly every program that hits his desk and foreign wars where the enemy has not yet been identified.
Yet, before we blame too much on the three terms that men named Bush have occupied, we should also ask:
Where we would be if Reagan had never picked the first Bush to begin with?
Liberals and Gas Prices
December 7, 2005
One of the first requirements of being an economist is that you must be - by nature - a curious person. You have to want to understand things and you must be willing to ask questions that other people might not ask, even if it offends people to ask. So here goes.
I would like to ask my readers who are liberals for some help with a problem that I am having. The problem is figuring out what you want to happen to gasoline prices.
I recall when gas prices fell below $1 a gallon a few years ago that many of you liberals were complaining about all of the SUVs people were driving. You griped about how big the SUVs were getting and you said that cheap gas had encouraged us to not only ruin the environment by belching out air pollution but had also helped pay for terrorist activity in the U.S. and abroad.
This makes sense on many levels. As the price of gasoline falls, it naturally follows that people will buy more of it - often by purchasing bigger cars. You liberals are also right that burning gas causes air pollution and if we buy things that burn extra gas, nastier things will go into the air in larger and larger quantities. Finally, you are economically correct that the more fuel we buy the more money we unwittingly send to nations that use oil revenue to finance people who want to blow us up in our SUVs. So, on all counts, your economics is airtight. Congratulations.
Now we come to 2005. Gas prices rose to more than $2 per gallon and stayed there. After the hurricanes, the average price of unleaded gas topped $3 per gallon, but did not stay there. Today, gas prices are inching below $2.25 per gallon in many parts of the country and you are mad about gas prices again.
Why are you mad this time? Oh, I understand. Now that prices are going up you are upset that the greedy oil companies are reporting record profits. You are mad about the perceived price gouging that has taken place, and you are frustrated that poorer Americans now have a tougher time making ends meet because more money for Exxon-Mobil means less money for food.
In two out of three areas your economics is solid. Yes, higher prices for a product with an inelastic demand means higher profit for the seller. Yes, the law of opportunity cost and scarcity means that if I spend more money on one thing I have less money for the other thing. The price gouging claim is a poor one. If they can gouge us because we have no choices over what we put in our car and must buy gas, why have prices fallen by 80 cents per gallon this fall? Why not keep prices at $3 since we would buy it anyway?
Every economist knows that the demand for oil is increasing due in large part to our growing economy and the appetite for fuel in China and India. We also know that supplies are tight because new refineries were last built in the 1970s and government-mandated additives has made it more expensive to make gas. Plus, the hurricanes set aside a big part of supply.
Getting back to your economics, I want to applaud you for being right about what happens when prices fall and what happens when prices rise.
What I don't understand is this. If lower prices makes the air dirty - which is bad - won't higher prices make the air cleaner? If high prices hurt the poor and line the pockets of oil company fat cats, don't lower prices help the poor and deny those fat cats more money?
I am suggesting that you liberals pick your favorite gas price argument and stick with it. You cannot complain about the environment and the budgets of the poor and the profits of greedy corporations all at the same time without sounding like a bunch of idiots.
It is time to choose whether you want lower prices or higher prices.
Thank you for your time.
9/11, Katrina and the Bird Flu…
(for more click here)
Recently, President Bush told the world that he would like to allocate $7.1 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars to help the United States prepare for the possibility of the avian bird flu. Given his administrations established track record in preparing for manmade and natural disasters it might come as a welcome sign to many citizens that the federal government is finally acting in a proactive, preemptive manner to save all of us from another crisis.
Don’t get your hopes up.
It is not that I don’t have faith in George Bush and Congress to do the right thing (I don’t by the way) it is just that government at all levels and under the control of any political party never really does anything very well. This is especially true when government – made up of bureaucrats that get paid whether they do a good job or not – is asked to recognize future threats and react to them in time.
Going all the way back to 1776 we find George Washington practically begging a moribund Congress for money to feed and arm his troops in order to prepare for eventual British onslaughts.
In the fall of 1941 there were numerous threats – both implied and direct – that the Japanese were going to attack the United States, only to have the Roosevelt administration fumble around with mountains of telegraphs as the planes took off for Pearl Harbor.
In the aftermath of 9/11 we learned first hand how inept government at all levels can be. The Immigration and Naturalization Service issued a student visa to hijacker Mohammed Atta months after he was dead. The FBI and CIA refused to coordinate information that could have lowered the probability of an attack.
After Katrina we found that Wal-Mart can deliver ice, food and water before and after a hurricane with no problems but that FEMA could not even agree on the degree to which death and destruction warranted a quick response.
The problem with relying on government to prepare for the avian bird flu is straightforward. Government is a not-for-profit collection of protected agencies. If the Bush administration squanders the $7.1 billion purchasing bird cages, no agency will be forced into bankruptcy and the officials in charge will likely avoid the type of punishment that the private sector doles out. When private companies spend $7.1 billion they must prove to their shareholders that the investment was a wise one or they get fired, their companies go under and the free market awards their competitors with more business.
Therefore, since the government is in charge of this operation I would suggest that all Americans do what I am going to do to prepare for the bird flu. Run like hell at the sight of anything with wings.
France needs Freedom, not Welfare
The Orlando Sentinel
November 9, 2005
Also available on the Neal Boortz website for November 11, 2005 and USA Today
At first glance it would seem strange that rioters would pick Paris, France to unleash their frustrations. After all, France is a place reputed for its civility, art and culture and is a wonderful place for the well-to-do to vacation. Moreover, given France’s history of generous social welfare benefits, why would any French citizen want to burn down a country that seems to take care of its citizens so well?
A famous French economist by the name of Frederic Bastiat once suggested that when social policies turn out to be harmful to the citizenry it is because politicians often react to economic problems that they can see, without any regard for the unforeseen consequences of their solutions to those problems.
In essence, it is the vast socialist network of labor laws, social welfare benefits and archaic regulations of businesses that has provided the kindling necessary to ignite the flames of rebellion.
Consider the facts.
Workers in France are not allowed to work more than 35 hours per week. Union-negotiated contracts have pushed wages in France up faster than productivity has increased. French labor law also makes it virtually impossible to fire anyone. When these laws are combined with mandated vacations of six weeks per year, overly generous pension and health care benefits and an onerous tax burden on everything from income to restaurant meals it all adds up to an unemployment rate in France that was 10.1 percent in 2004 – double that of the U.S. rate.
What has occurred in France is straightforward. In their zeal to have economic security, the citizens of France have traded in their economic liberty. This tradeoff does not always punish the well-connected, but it is particularly punitive to the people that need liberty most – immigrants, especially poorer immigrants without connections or established wealth.
If we listen to what the poorer Muslims and other immigrants are saying, we can hear them asking for opportunity. They don’t want to live isolated in housing projects with welfare as their only means of survival. They don’t want their government – in the name of security – passing laws banning religious freedoms. They want a road out of poverty that the state can only provide by allowing them to pursue their self-interest in a productive manner.
One only needs to look at immigrants in the United States to see what economic freedom can do. We don’t see riots taking place in Muslim, Korean or Caribbean communities. That is because when immigrants get here, they look around and find that in a quasi-capitalistic society there are no guarantees of economic success, but there is the guarantee that you can at least try to be successful. Here, opportunity exists if people are willing to take risks.
In France, even if immigrants want to take those risks, their socialistic government tells them to stay in their place.
That is why France is burning.
Government-Created Crybabies
November 16, 2005
Count me among the few Americans who have had enough of hurricane season, but for reasons completely removed from meteorological forces. I am suffering from crybaby fatigue.
The crybabies I am speaking of are not, I repeat not, those individuals who did everything they could to assume responsibility for themselves while hurricanes barreled down on them. I am not referring to people who have maintained a spirit of quiet dignity while attempting to rebuild their lives after the storms. I am also not upset with people who we have seen crying over lost lives or property. I know what it feels like to lose your home or a love one unexpectedly.
No, I am referring to the people we keep seeing on the news that pathetically expect the government to show up like a genie out of a bottle the nanosecond the wind stops blowing. You know the people I am talking about. We see them on the news screaming and waving their arms in South Florida demanding to know why FEMA did not provide ice and tarps at their doorstep immediately. We hear about them saying they are going to “ride out” the hurricane, only to blast everyone with the last name of Bush for not saving their lives during the hurricane. We sometimes see them standing in or around half-million dollar homes with waistlines that indicate they have not gone without food, crying about how cruel the government is.
God forbid this country ever gets invaded by an enemy large enough to cause years of suffering. I would also hate to see what would happen if America ever went through another Great Depression. I can only imagine the sight of spoiled Americans falling down on the first day of the next Depression and flailing about with no sign of personal fortitude whatsoever.
How did this happen? The answer is pretty simple as it turns out. This country was founded by people who stood in the snow barefooted with no food and barely any support from government while fighting for liberty. A big part of our nation was built on the backs of slaves who persevered under horrific conditions and once freed, had the dignity and courage to simply ask for their God-given liberty, rather than government aid. Our forefathers fought in World War II and returned – quietly – to rebuild an economically challenged nation.
Unfortunately, beginning with the New Deal and carried on through the current fiscally irresponsible administration, Americans have become conditioned to depend on government to pick up the pieces for problems that naturally occur from time to time. We now teach our children to sue fast-food companies if we let them get fat. We demand our rights to things that are not rights at all and we fail to buy ice and tarps before hurricanes hit, knowing if we cry loud enough, taxpayer dollars will arrive with goodies that come from plundering the citizens that do not depend on government.
Thus, the next time you hear someone claim to be a victim of a storm or a victim of unemployment or a victim of discrimination, maybe you should start by asking them to define the word victim. Their answer might help you realize that our country has become a nation of victims who have forgotten that we have a moral responsibility to manage our own lives rather than ask the government to act like mommy or daddy for us.
