Who is John Galt?

new gm slogan

America's car company. Literally.

a conflict of interests

This week the federal tobacco tax goes up, from 39 cents to $1.01 per pack.

Now, I suppose that if you've got to tax a behavior, it might as well be something that's destructive.  However, I can't help but notice that the more government becomes dependent on tobacco revenues, the less inclined it will be to actively cut into tobacco sales.

I remember how outrageous it was when I heard about US tobacco companies, looking to gain access to foreign markets, arguing that shorter longevity resulting from tobacco use ultimately reduces the load on their welfare states.  I'm not sure that's true, but I have no doubt that some statist politicians think that way, including many here.

There's plenty of evidence that tax revenue from tobacco sales is misused at every level of government.  Despite politicians' claims to be concerned with the general welfare, so-called "sin" taxes are an important part of their vote-buying revenue scheme.  The public opposition to tobacco does not extend to politicians' personal ambitions.  Everything we've seen shows that politicians will give up lives for votes if they can rationalize it, and perhaps conceal it.  And tobacco is no exception.

gm

Now, obviously, I don't think Washington has any business telling GM's CEO to step down, but such is the nature of the partnership GM entered into when it took bailout money.

And I get a chuckle at headlines reassuring me that GM will not have to file Chapter 11, considering that Chapter 11 is exactly what GM needs.  Only a court-supervised bankruptcy, and not liberal Democrat politicians, will ever vacate GM's collective bargaining agreements.

GM is not too big to fail -- but it is too big for perpetual life support.  The best thing the company could do for America would be to refuse additional bailouts, and seek Chapter 11 protection from the UAW gorilla on its back.

Update:  Even though the federal government has arguably bought a commanding interest in GM, I'm still surprised at the lack of reporting on the outrage that the government is calling the shots here.  Various news sources all report, "Obama Fires GM CEO," but none of the reporting seems to reflect the shock and anger I and my fellow laymen are feeling at this display of hubris on the part of the government. 

Honestly, when did it become presumed that career civil servants know better about running institutions like GM than the professionals who've come up through the ranks of those organizations?  Are that many Americans so foolish that they believe the political class has even the faintest clue about such matters?  Give me a break -- there is no balance sheet on earth more in the red than the federal government! 

If anything, this entanglement with the government is the kiss of death for GM and the auto industry as a source of national pride and a marvel of American ingenuity.

inequality and risk

I found this Paul Graham essay a few years ago.  One of my favorites.  I can't say I agree with everything he's ever written, but I love the way he thinks here:

So let's be clear what reducing economic inequality means. It is identical with taking money from the rich.

When you transform a mathematical expression into another form, you often notice new things. So it is in this case. Taking money from the rich turns out to have consequences one might not foresee when one phrases the same idea in terms of "reducing inequality."

the missing dead

47 Million.  I don't even have to say 47 million what. You already know who they are.  Google recognizes it before you even finish typing it -- start keying 47 million into Google, and before you finish the prompt is begging to complete your query: 47 million uninsured Americans.  No health insurance.

It sounds bad.  Tragic, even.  And you can't gloss over it.  Even when you know that ten million or more of our uninsured are young, healthy people who've simply elected to forgo coverage during times of good health, it's still a tragedy -- even for them.  After all, young people do get cancer occasionally.  They take foolish risks, and end up having more accidents.  Dying in childbirth.

Even among ten million healthy young uninsured, there must be thousands -- probably tens of thousands -- of life threatening medical emergencies each year.  And without insurance that can only mean certain death for tens of thousands of precious young lives.  Right?

why the markets are edgy

Look, you wouldn't expect to get full price for watered-down beer, would you?  Why should Treasury bonds be any different?

Treasury prices fell after surprisingly weak demand for a record $34 billion five-year note auction. The indirect bid - demand from domestic and foreign institutions, including foreign central banks - for Treasury's $34 billion five-year note auction was 30%, compared to 48.9% in the previous auction in February and the average of 30.1% for the last 10 auctions.

Since debt is always defined in fixed dollar amounts, inflation literally transfers wealth from creditors to debtors.  So who in their right mind wants to buy IOUs from a government that's actively inflating its currency?

What you see here is rising global uncertainty about what the dollar will be worth when these bonds mature.  And rightly so.

wrong.

Hillary Clinton was all over the news yesterday for blaming violence in Mexico on America's "insatiable" appetite for illegal drugs. 

Wrong.  The problem is the illegality of drugs that people want -- enough, apparently, to commit violence over.

True, that's a fine distinction, but it's enough to make it clear that the real problem is not people abusing drugs, but rather government abusing power.

The only reason there are guns in the war on drugs is because the government brought them.  Walgreens is full of drugs, but you don't see pharmacists carrying guns, do you?  You don't see pharmacists settling territorial disputes with drive-by shootings, do you?

Look at it another way: When the law made it a crime to dispense some drugs, it opened up the entire industry for criminals to work in.  The drug culture did not go away; it went underground -- and got a lot more expensive for society in the process.  That's what prohibition does every time it's tried. 

I say we bring it back into the light, and give the industry back to pharmacists who know what they're doing.

I know there are conservatives who are going to disagree with this, but these are your principles: Government's proper role is to tax recreational drug use until it truly pays for itself, minimizing its cost to those of us who don't use them.

That is what government is supposed to do, and how conservative principles would be correctly applied to solve the drug problem.

some welcome, welcome backbone

A very worthwhile three-and-a-half-minute YouTube video.

This is Daniel Hannan, a British Member of the European Parliament, complaining to PM Gordon Brown about economic irresponsibility.  It's quite gratifying to hear this sort of talk.

There's something in here for everyone -- even Barack Obama could benefit from seeing such a great speech given without a teleprompter. 

rally? what rally?

Dow at close on Nov. 4th, 2008: 9625.28.

Dow "rallying," Mar. 23rd, 2009: 7775.86

We're not up 500 points; we're down 1800.

liberalism

A liberal is someone with two handicaps.

First, he is convinced that some things are more important than freedom.

And, second, he cannot see that all the things he considers important are derived from freedom.