I’m happy to see Romney criticizing government favors for business. I’m less happy to see that Romney’s company, Bain, seems to have been on the receiving end of some of these favors. I’m somewhat amused that the author of this particular article thinks that Romney’s own cronyism shows that criticizing cronyism is wrong and that, in fact, government favors lead to prosperity. (HT: Kurt Kramer)
Latest problem afflicting America’s “homeless”: obesity.
Government support for science wrecks science. Exhibit A: The war on salt.
The truth about the Gilded Age: “By today’s standards–with air conditioning, TV, and iPhones–the Gilded Age looks bleak. But compared with the starvation lifestyle that most of the world faced, Gilded Age America was the land of opportunity. We know this because almost one million Europeans each year uprooted from their homeland to resettle in the U.S. They didn’t come here because conditions were worse, but because they were better.”
“[T]he unsustainable ‘bubble’ is not student debt or subprime mortgages or anything else. The bubble is us, and the assumptions of entitlement. Too many citizens of advanced western democracies live a life they have not earned, and are not willing to earn.”
Paternalism Watch: New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg wants to ban Big Gulps.
From the Bain story, it looks to me like Bain received some lots of favors. I had no idea this sort of thing was going happening on such an extensive scale (I assume the Bain story is replicated many many times across the U.S.).
I read an article just a few days ago about how Nevada was losing movie production opportunities because the state doesn’t subsidize film companies. Of course, with the film industry, if U.S. states don’t subsidize it, other countries will; the problem becomes multi-national.
So, with favors to business, cities and states are in competition with each other and there’s no way for the them to stop—without losing. It would have to be stopped at the national level, but someone would have to propose a bill and it would have to be passed; both seem impossible.
But, even if we somehow did get a nat’l. law against subsidizing films, other countries would subsidize them out of the country. Same with other industries. But, was the country and the economy built on subsidies? Are subsidies needed to maintain them? Not if we get gvt. back within its proper function. If we do that, business will prefer to operate here to anywhere else that offers big fat subsidies with money gotten - how? Getting gvt. within its proper function must be done on the nat’l. level before it can be completed on both the state and local level.
Perhaps I should have written “. . .both, unfortunately, seem impossible.” I would support such a bill, even if other countries still provided movie subsidies (I’m not sure, but, as I recall, Canada is a huge offender.) There may be a natural break on this, however, since movie companies don’t want to give up control of the screenplay and politicians, having to answer to voters, must look at what they are subsidizing. It seems strange to me that the arts, inevitably subject of market pressure, should even consider taking government money. I don’t know of any watch organization for this form of cronyism.
The Economic Situation - 2012 comes from The Mercatus Center at George Mason University. While looking around that website, I found a number of interesting articles: among them was Depression-Era Farm Subsidies Should End by Veronique de Rugy. She regards agricultural subsidies as “a clear example of cronyism” and defines cronyism as “the practice by which government officials provide preferential treatment (such as loans, subsidies or regulatory preferences) to handpicked firms or industries.” The occasion for the article is a new farm bill now in Congress. BTW, I have no objection to her definition of cronyism even though it’s distinct from government intervention in general.
” ‘ttention all hands!”. Why not just consider gettin’ gub’mint back within its proper bounds and function. That means outa all economics and outa our private lives, except for action against initiatory force. Not just the movie industry or agriculture, or this, that, or the other thing, but, the whole works. Cronyism, subsidies, gifts, grants, favors, loans, etc. offered under cover of the guise of law & gvt. all come from money, wealth or unused resources snatched or assumed under cover of the guise of law & gvt., and from the whole tax, inflation, spend and regulation regime perpetrated under cover of the guise of law & gvt. It all leaves law & gvt. less able to do its job, its proper function. Get rid of all that and we have law & gvt. left, free to do its proper job, unimpeded. Then, watch the economy and our private lives take off, dwarfing all previous expansions, in time as well as degree. Watch foreign individuals and entities ditch their “sticks and carrots” and come here. Watch the actual and potential economy of the whole world come here. If the whole world won’t fit into the U.S., watch’em set things straight in their own countries, but fast. Then there’ll be room. Civil, as opposed to criminal, human relations establishes law & gvt. everywhere with a foreign and domestic (or public) policy aimed at the goal of enabling and protecting exactly that, the economy and our private lives, by doing nothing but responding forcibly against initiatory force. Once enabled and protected this way on a perpectual basis, the economy and our private lives WILL take off and won’t stop.
6 Comments to “Brain Food”
Just got Burton Folsom’s Myth of the Robber Baron. I had already started Giants of Enterprise by Richard Tedlow, which is interesting fact wise.
From the Bain story, it looks to me like Bain received
somelots of favors. I had no idea this sort of thing was going happening on such an extensive scale (I assume the Bain story is replicated many many times across the U.S.).I read an article just a few days ago about how Nevada was losing movie production opportunities because the state doesn’t subsidize film companies. Of course, with the film industry, if U.S. states don’t subsidize it, other countries will; the problem becomes multi-national.
So, with favors to business, cities and states are in competition with each other and there’s no way for the them to stop—without losing. It would have to be stopped at the national level, but someone would have to propose a bill and it would have to be passed; both seem impossible.
But, even if we somehow did get a nat’l. law against subsidizing films, other countries would subsidize them out of the country. Same with other industries. But, was the country and the economy built on subsidies? Are subsidies needed to maintain them? Not if we get gvt. back within its proper function. If we do that, business will prefer to operate here to anywhere else that offers big fat subsidies with money gotten - how? Getting gvt. within its proper function must be done on the nat’l. level before it can be completed on both the state and local level.
Perhaps I should have written “. . .both, unfortunately, seem impossible.” I would support such a bill, even if other countries still provided movie subsidies (I’m not sure, but, as I recall, Canada is a huge offender.) There may be a natural break on this, however, since movie companies don’t want to give up control of the screenplay and politicians, having to answer to voters, must look at what they are subsidizing. It seems strange to me that the arts, inevitably subject of market pressure, should even consider taking government money. I don’t know of any watch organization for this form of cronyism.
The Economic Situation - 2012 comes from The Mercatus Center at George Mason University. While looking around that website, I found a number of interesting articles: among them was Depression-Era Farm Subsidies Should End by Veronique de Rugy. She regards agricultural subsidies as “a clear example of cronyism” and defines cronyism as “the practice by which government officials provide preferential treatment (such as loans, subsidies or regulatory preferences) to handpicked firms or industries.” The occasion for the article is a new farm bill now in Congress. BTW, I have no objection to her definition of cronyism even though it’s distinct from government intervention in general.
” ‘ttention all hands!”. Why not just consider gettin’ gub’mint back within its proper bounds and function. That means outa all economics and outa our private lives, except for action against initiatory force. Not just the movie industry or agriculture, or this, that, or the other thing, but, the whole works. Cronyism, subsidies, gifts, grants, favors, loans, etc. offered under cover of the guise of law & gvt. all come from money, wealth or unused resources snatched or assumed under cover of the guise of law & gvt., and from the whole tax, inflation, spend and regulation regime perpetrated under cover of the guise of law & gvt. It all leaves law & gvt. less able to do its job, its proper function. Get rid of all that and we have law & gvt. left, free to do its proper job, unimpeded. Then, watch the economy and our private lives take off, dwarfing all previous expansions, in time as well as degree. Watch foreign individuals and entities ditch their “sticks and carrots” and come here. Watch the actual and potential economy of the whole world come here. If the whole world won’t fit into the U.S., watch’em set things straight in their own countries, but fast. Then there’ll be room. Civil, as opposed to criminal, human relations establishes law & gvt. everywhere with a foreign and domestic (or public) policy aimed at the goal of enabling and protecting exactly that, the economy and our private lives, by doing nothing but responding forcibly against initiatory force. Once enabled and protected this way on a perpectual basis, the economy and our private lives WILL take off and won’t stop.