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Recent Comments
- In The Mailbox: 02.28.23 (Afternoon Edition) : The Other McCain on Hey, longtime pw readers…
- In The Mailbox: 12.23.22 : The Other McCain on Patrick J. Carroll truly IS a sad, embittered psychopath
- Danger on Patrick J. Carroll might be a psychopath
- Danger on Patrick J. Carroll might be a psychopath
- In The Mailbox: 07.18.22 : The Other McCain on Patrick J. Carroll might be a psychopath
– Until you make it illegal to franchise lobbying, and eliminate all campaign donations other than individual citizens, American politics will be a stacked deck game, and our economy will be controlled by people with no long term interests in our survival.
– We need to let the market be free, same with business, but keep both the hell out of politics. As long as we allow the existing situation we’ll continue to be bought and paid for by the highest bidder.
The problem is that keeping the market out of politics creates some dicey First Amendment issues. I’m all for crushing crony capitalism, but the details get messy beyond the strictly quid pro quo stuff.
that’s why relentlessly pursuing a massively downsized fed gov’t is the constitutional way to go.
The way to eliminate crony capitalism is not to limit the money and influence going INTO the beltway but going OUT.
If the federal gubmint doesn’t have the power or the money to help special interests, they won’t waste their time lobbying for it.
The bigger the trough, the more swine you attract.
I’d mark this one up in the column “better too patient than not patient at all” I guess. Seems like it’s way overdue, particularly given the stakes far beyond Ryan’s own receipt of insult from Obama.
here’s a campaign we should get behind now
Link
– I wonder if my home state, Ohio, will finally get its collectivist head out of its ass and stop voting Democrat if unemployment goes above 15%. 20?. 25?
– How bad does it have to get before they figure it out.
Paul Ryan is Christie fiscal awesomeness, but without the fat or the Establishment Republican additives and fillers.
[…creates some dicey First Amendment issues.]
– Businesses/franchises et al have no voting rights, unless someone snuck in and rewrote the Constitution.
The problem is that keeping the market out of politics creates some dicey First Amendment issues. I’m all for crushing crony capitalism, but the details get messy beyond the strictly quid pro quo stuff.
Actually it’s simple. But not remotely easy.
The way you keep markets out of politics is you keep politics out of markets. They shouldn’t be regulating the markets like they are. Then companies would have no interest in paying them (unless it was political, in which case, it’s free speach).
The enforcement mechanism is nothing. It’s self-enforced. If there aren’t any byzantine rules to be gamed, there’s no reason to lobby politicians all day.
You don’t need to keep the market out of politics. You need to keep the government out of the marketplace. That way, the market won’t care about politics. Plus, those fuckers work for us, so there’s no messy issues in telling them to keep their dirty hands off.
Would that Jefferson had thought to write up a Wall of Seperation between Business and State.
– We aggressively imprison people for income tax evasion, but seem uninterested when special interests/businesses buy our politics.
– Its not rocket science. Deregulation, and as Di mentioned, drying up the well, along with stiffer laws. all would help, but what do you do to safeguard the populace from harmful products and business practices.
I like the part where Ryan goes down the list of bullet points, punctuating each item with “That’s another fucking Obama lie”.
A wolverine’s gotta dream….
Herman runs another ad, pulls in Justified bossman Chief Deputy Art Mullen, fo’ reals. heh
@15 3 months old
but what do you do to safeguard the populace from harmful products and business practices.
Why do you assume you have to do anything?
Killing off your customers really is bad for business. There’s always bad faith actors, scam artists, bad apples. Cyanide in the tylenol – that wasn’t even there in the manufacturing. That’s a law enforcement problem. Nobody rips anyone off without lying to them, and in trade that’s false advertising, fraud, whatever. Literally a criminal issue. And the criminals do it whether you put dozen of supposedly preventative laws and regulations in place or not.
Deep pub post spam. Zombies even.
what do you do to safeguard the populace from harmful products and business practices?
Underwriters Laboratories is privately owned, so they have a reputation to protect. If stuff they certify starts spontaneously combusting, they lose everything. So they maintain their rigor.
Consumer Reports likewise is motivated to maintain its standards.
Not so with a gubmint agency, which can fail eight ways to Saturday and nothing bad happens to either the agency or the people in it. We like to think that a gubmint agency is good for upholding standards, but it’s more likely to metastasize, as has the EPA, into a whirlwind of political and environmental zealotry and fanaticism.
To say nothing of the FDA, the SEC, the FAA….
geoffB,
Personally, I find hard-cover Assett Pricing of reputable online payday loan companies to be endlessly fascinating.
I might even subscribe to their newsletter!
Well I for one do not thoughts if she puts your weblog as her supply, provided she shares whatever she’s being supplied with.
Underwriters Laboratories is privately owned, so they have a reputation to protect. If stuff they certify starts spontaneously combusting, they lose everything. So they maintain their rigor.
Good example. It’s almost easy to forget UL is private, not government, because it’s stamped on everything electrical or electronic. They are the absolute standard.
Another (less ginormous) example would be BICSI and the TIA/EIA, and most everything to do with communications technology and infrastructure cabling.
BICSI is Building Industry Consulting Service International, TIA stands for Telecommunications Industry Association, which is a sidebranch of the Electronics Industry Alliance. By and large the technology snuck way way up on regulators, and since it’s low voltage and non-essential and quite preposterously non-dangerous, it’s gone largely unregulated. That’s changing of course.
But for all the electronics and communication cabling put in over the last 2 decades, there has been pretty much no building codes or trade regulations whatsoever. Organizations like BICSI have set the standards in that whole industry as entirely as UL has more broadly.
But even as regulations are written, a lot of localities will probably just regulate the existing BICSI standards. In other building trades as well, it depends on the locality. Some regulators write their own screwy special-interest-laden building codes, others may adopt standards devised by private industry associations.
What the hell garauntee does it give you if it’s approved by the FDA? Any claim it makes it makes on the strength of it’s reputation. It’s been plenty wrong before too. If there is any market at all for that kind of service, and there is, it can be provided at market. What would lead anyone to believe a government monopoly would do better than the market here?
“To say nothing of the FDA, the SEC, the FAA….”
– You left out the FCC, who’s tireless efforts have led us to paying an average of $90/mo. for TV we used to watch for free, and an even higher average for telephone service that used to cost a fraction in terms of city wide rates.
– But on the positive side we now get free advertising for our higher bills.
– And best of all the last three generations all think its the “coolies”.
– P.T.Barnum didn’t know how right he was.
Since I’m both cable- and satellite- TV deprived I can tell you that you don’t miss much not having them —until you do, that is.
The biggest problem with free broadcast TV is when you can’t get the signal tuned in. Thanx digital TV! At least I used to be able to see the game on Fox through the “snow.”
You don’t need to keep the market out of politics. You need to keep the government out of the marketplace. That way, the market won’t care about politics. Plus, those fuckers work for us, so there’s no messy issues in telling them to keep their dirty hands off.
The mortgage mess shows that. Ron Paul is right on that, the government should stay the fuck out of it. Let the chips fall where they may, have some acocuntability for bad decision making, and let the market heal itself. With some fo this stuff we are rewarding the stupid and punishing the thrifty and cautious.
– Yes, our dear leaders effectively pounded the last nail in the coffin and handed the cable/satellite companies localized monopolies in many of the highest viewership area’s. Even PBS, which is supposed to be a public service, funded mainly through gov. grants and private donations, is unavailable in most area’s now. That situation is an outright scandal, where-as the rest are just illegal trusts.
– And of course, while they were at it they made sure they obsoleted every existing set so we could all buy new ones.
– Your tax dollars in action!
Then there’s Angie’s List, the eBay feedback model and the like. If you persist in screwing people, you’re going out of business in short order. Then, you also have recourse in the courts that doesn’t require regulatory minutia.
Punch back twice as hard.
Nice punch-back by police in Oakland last night.
Oh, and ‘feets, this. Ad copy. AIDS Awareness ad copy. Very Kevin Jennings-ish. Somewhat ‘NSFW’ and, a TRIGGER ALERT~! for good measure.
I just realized something! The 99% have 98% more than the 1%! That’s like totally unfair! How does one side justify having so much more % than the deprived Other %?
We, the Under-represented 1% demand the elimination of 98% of the 99%!
For Teh Fairness®
Here’s a link at Heritage for a livestream of the Ryan talk “Saving the American Idea: Rejecting Fear, Envy and the Politics of Division”, which starts at 10:00 am EST.
– Until you make it illegal to franchise lobbying, and eliminate all campaign donations other than individual citizens, American politics will be a stacked deck game…
You do realize how impossible this would be to enforce, both in practical and in philosophical terms. If I’m a wealthy man, I totally support your new law, because it makes my checkbook the loudest voice. If I’m a crooked man, I quietly collect donations from my compatriots and then write a big-ass check, pretending that the money is all mine.
If I’m a man of modest means, I’m not able to provide much support, and I’m prohibited from joining with my neighbors to chip in together to fund an advertisement or a donation. My voice goes unheard, and my First Amendment rights of free association are trampled.
That’s not a path I’m going to walk down. Better that we shackle and starve the beast, until its power is so limited that evil men no longer seek to control it.
Which is to say that the government should be returned to its intended purpose, which had nothing to do with creating market outcomes.
Are you sure, Pablo? I’m pretty sure there’s something in the Bill of Rights.
Amendment 3.14: FREE SHIT. The rightf of the People, seeing that otherf have more shit than they, to affemble and rediftribute said shit until such time af their shitty needf be satiffied, shall not be abridged.
Are you sure that’s not from Stuff Jefferson Said, 3rd Edition, Revised, Squid?