The current issue of The Economist leads off its United States section with a story on public sector unions that breaks down the issue very well.
For years, public-sector workers have basked in an alternative reality. Nevertheless, as private-sector unions have faded, public-sector ones have thrived. In 2008 37% of government workers were unionised, nearly five times the share in the private sector (see chart), and the same share that was unionised 25 years earlier. Over that period, the share of unionised private-sector jobs collapsed from 17% to 8%. In 2009, for the first time, public workers comprised more than half of America’s union members. Democrats in particular have little incentive to anger workers, who are often their electoral foot-soldiers, and neither party wants to prod them to strike, since they hold monopolies. Those who defy unions do so at their peril. In 2005 Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of California, tried to curb the unions’ power. His effort was quickly terminated.
The full article is available here (paid subscription required).
For more on public sector unions, see here.
Maybe the air is a little too thin out in Colorado and the supreme court justices aren’t getting enough oxygen to their brains. Perhaps that is why they made the inexplicable decision to uphold a ban on smoking in stage-performances based on the premise that promotion of public health comes before an individual’s right to free expression.
Six justices found that regardless of whether onstage smoking is a form of expression, the ban on smoking in public places is constitutional because it aims to promote public health rather than stifle free speech.
This is obviously unconstitutional. The public (aka a collection of individuals) is by no means improved when free speech is disregarded. Almost anyone looking at this case can see that such action is clearly in violation of our fundamental rights.
However, even more dangerous than the CO supreme court’s violation of fundamental rights is the more subtle surrender of rights on the part of supposed free-speech advocates:
The defense, led by state Attorney General John Suthers, argued that actors can and do use fake cigarettes as an adequate alternative.
Suthers, for example, attended a Rat Pack homage recently and found the bad-boy musicians all puffed mechanical stand-ins.
“You can accomplish the expressive content by using (a) fake cigarette,” Suthers said. “A lot of people are.”
With this kind of defense of free speech, it’s no wonder the justices thought they could get away with this kind of blatant injustice. It shouldn’t matter if the cigarettes are real or fake. It should NOT be up to some government agent to determine what is or is not acceptable in a performance.
…lawmakers intended [the ban] to extend to artistic performances, said former state Rep. Mark Larson, who carried a similar bill in 2005 and supported it in 2006, the year it passed.
A theater exemption was briefly amended into the bill but taken out of later versions, Larson said.
“Acting is acting,” Larson said. “Why not having a fake cigarette? What . . . difference does it make? Come on.”
If free speech advocates want to have any hope of defending their rights they will have to answer the fundamental claim: can individual rights be set aside for the “public good” or not? If the answer is ‘no’ then it is unconditional. The courts can’t kind of hamper free speech by forcing stage producers to use fake cigarettes–it’s an outright violation of rights. If advocates give bureaucrats that ground it gives them the ground to legislate any number of artistic choices (the music is offensive, the lights aren’t environmentally friendly, the costumes are too salacious). Under no circumstances should the government be able to extinguish the unconditional right of individuals to express themselves.
CEI Weekly is a compilation of articles and blog posts from CEI’s fellows and associates sent out via e-mail every Friday. Also included in the Weekly newsletter is a brief description of CEI’s weekly podcast and a feature on a major CEI breakthrough made during the week. To sign up for CEI Weekly, go to http://cei.org/newsletters.
CEI Weekly
December 11, 2009
>>Sarbanes-Oxley Taken to Court
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was taken to the Supreme Court on Monday in the case Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. The Wall Street Journalhas written that the implications of this case could set the precedent of appointing unaccountable economic regulators. CEI’s John Berlau has argued that the repealing of Sarbanes-Oxley would provide a tangible stimulus to small business.
>>Legislators Meet at Copenhagen to Decide Global Warming Action
As legislators begin to met at Copenhagen, Climategate still calls into question the science behind global warming. CBS’ Declean McCullagh, in his article, writes that the controversy caused by Climategate calls into question the premise of Copenhagen’s attempt create new tax regimes in developed countries to curb CO2 output. CEI’s Myron Ebell has called the meeting “a big echo chamber.”
>>EPA Rules Greenhouse Gases Poses Health Risks
The EPA ruled on Monday that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane are harmful will be regulated. However, CEI plans to take legal action against the ruling on the basis that the evidence that the ruling relies upon is flimsy and the economic implications are deleterious.
>>Shaping the Debate
Did Deregulation Cause the Great Recession
Ryan Young’s op-ed in RealClearMarkets.com
An EPA Power Grab
Iain Murray and Marlo Lewis’ op-ed in the New York Post
Congressional Misdiagnosis
Greg Conko and Kevin Hilferty’s On-Point study at CEI.org
>>Best of the Blogs
Global Warming Alarmists Continue Their Exploitation of Children
by Fran Smith
This, I think, has to go down as one of the creepiest “editorials” written by global warming alarmists recently. Clive Hamilton, ABC News in Australia’s public “intellectual,” has an open letter to the child of someone who works for the fossil fuel industry. Here are some selections:
“Hi there, There’s something you need to know about your father. Your dad’s job is to try to stop the government making laws to reduce Australia’s carbon pollution. He is paid a lot of money to do that by big companies who do not want to own up to the fact that their pollution is changing the world’s climate in very harmful ways.”
Maryland Doesn’t Stand in Casino’s Way
by Michelle Minton
While it is certainly is good news that the state of Maryland hasn’t denied permission to developers hoping to install slots in a new casino planned in the Anne Arundel Mall, the rationale on which the decision was based and the fact that they require permission at all is deplorable. The amount of tax revenue and number of jobs that a new casino could generate for the state should not be the basis for government getting out of the way of private business owners. The government should not be in the way in the first place.
EPA Moves to Bypass Climate Change Legislation
by Michael Fumento
While climate experts were off at the Copenhagen summit working on their tans (in sunny Copenhagen), the EPA pulled a fast one. As the Washington Post noted in an article that was actually quite good in providing the negatives, the agency formally announced that six gases, including carbon dioxide and methane, pose a danger to the environment and the health of Americans and said it would begin drafting regulations to reduce those emissions.
>>LibertyWeek Podcast
Episode 72: Champagne Wishes and Climate Change Dreams
We begin with UN climate hypocrisy in Copenhagen, presidential arm-twisting on health care and a cloudy look at government transparency. We conclude with the end of the tobacco road in Virginia and scandal of banking and nepotism in Venezuela.
>>Support CEI
Like what you read?
The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s 25-year record of success is made possible by our over 3,000 supporters. Make sure to stop by www.cei.org/support and make a donation to continue your support or become a supporter. Curious about all the possible ways to donate to CEI? Contact Al Canata at acanata@cei.org or 202-331-2280 to find out more.
Charles Huang
Web and Media Associate
Competitive Enterprise Institute
chuang@cei.org
http://www.cei.org
http://www.openmarket.org
202-331-1010
One can only stand back in awe.
President Obama said this at Home Depot today:
“The simple act of retro-fitting” — installing new windows, doors, cooling and heating equipment, etc. — “is one of the fastest, easiest and cheapest things we can do to put Americans back to work while saving money and reducing harmful emissions,” Obama continued. (11:19 a.m.)
He also said he thinks energy efficiency and retrofitting are “sexy,” according to Politico: “I know the idea may not be very glamorous, although I get pretty excited about it.”
But, one might ask, where does the money come from to do the sexy retrofit? Frederic Bastiat first described this broken window fallacy; here is Henry Hazlitt’s explanation of it from Economics in One Lesson. For some of us, a government that gets out of the way of free enterprise and true economic recovery is pretty sexy.
Or somewhere new, anyway. By necessity. So says Al Gore.
In a speech at the Copenhagen climate summit he declared: “These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.”
We’re talking a massive relocation of elves, folks.
In a curious twist, Dr. Maslowski thereupon claimed that Gore had distorted his views. ““It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,” he told the Times of London. “I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.”
Another Gore fibbery! But apparently not.
Climate Depot’s Marc Morano obtained a Danish government handout citing the Monterey, California professor’s modeling and reaching the same conclusion as Gore. “Projecting the trend into the future indicates that autumn could become near ice free between 2011 and 2016 (Maslowski, 2009).”
Which simply means Gore didn’t intentionally misrepresent Maslowski, not that either the professor or the former veep is right. Still, you can’t blame Santa for being just a bit nervous.
“A principal in Arlington County, Virginia announced Monday that she will call off an assignment that asked students to represent the views of the Taliban during a mock United Nations after some parents called it inappropriate,” reports the Washington Post.
Yeah, you could say that.
Next week’s debate subject: “Resolved, the killing of 12 million people in the Holocaust was icky but nevertheless necessary.”
Your hosts Richard Morrison and Jeremy Lott team up with special guest co-host Tim Carney to bring you Episode 73 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We start with the climate crisis in Copenhagen, the legislative tightrope on health care legislation in the Senate and the passing and legacy of economist Paul Samuelson. We continue with the latest pork-filled spending bill and conclude with an interview with Tim Carney, author of the new book Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses (available online and at fine booksellers everywhere).
Remember avian flu?
Until swine flu came along, that’s what was going to wipe out mankind. My last unprinted letter to the Washington Post scored the paper’s opinions page for declaring “panic is good . . . panic is what we want,” for claiming swine flu could kill 207,000 Americans and nine to 10 million worldwide, and for refusing to print anything to the contrary. Well, with the swine flu hysteria dying down in light of very few humans,dying the Post in desperation is switching back to the bird variety. And, true to form
rejecting sane letters such as this one of mine.
To the editor:
The review of Alan Sipress’s book “The
Fatal Strain: On the Trail of Avian Flu and the Coming Pandemic” (December
6, 2009) is misleading in one important respect and terribly wrong in another.
While writer David Oshinsky states humans have been
contracting avian flu H5N1 for a decade without it becoming readily
transmissible between humans, according to the World Health Organization it was
first detected in Scottish poultry in 1959. Hence it’s been making contact with
humans for at least half a century. Oshinky says “a sort of mutation, common to
influenza viruses” could “produce an H5N1 variant that is transmissible.” But an
exhaustive 2007 lab study in the Oct. 2007 issue of Virology showed,
in the words of the researcher leader, “We think [H5N1] will need to get to 13
[mutations] to be truly dangerous.”
Oshinsky also wrongly parrots Sipress’s assertion that for H5N1
“the mortality rate has been a staggering 60 percent.” That’s based solely on
those who come into contact with the medical system, thereby excluding those
with milder symptoms. Consider that the recent CDC estimate of swine flu includes
4,000 deaths, 98,000 hospitalizations, and 22 million infections. So the ratio
of deaths to hospitalizations was one in 24 but to overall infections was
merely one in 5,500.
Indeed, a January 2006 Archives of Internal Medicine study
found extremely high rates of apparent bird flu illness among Vietnamese living
and working in close proximity to infected poultry, yet by definition none of
these people had died.
There, now! Nothing in that letter that could possibly be of interest to Post readers!
Statement of John Berlau, director, Center for Investors and Entrepreneurs, Competitive Enterprise Institute:
President Obama’s twin goals of more bank loans and more heavy-handed regulation are in conflict with each other. Large financial institutions, such as the ones represented at the White House, as well as smaller regional banks and credit unions, may be holding back their lending due to uncertainty—both about the economy and about what Washington is going to do.
The House bill that passed Friday creates a new Consumer Financial Product Agency with largely undefined powers and broad jurisdiction. The bill contained a $150 billion bailout fund that would institutionalize “too big to fail,” and force prudent banks to pay hefty fees to subsidize the failure of reckless ones. This “prefunding” for the resolution bank failures are really taxes that will be passed on to consumers and investors. The bill also has arbitrary break-up authority—going beyond current antitrust law—for any institution a financial regulator deems as “systemically dangerous.” And both the House bill and pending Senate bills contain broad definitions of financial institutions that could include any business that offers credit—including auto dealers and retail stores with layaway plans.
The good news is that due to Republicans and the efforts of many freshmen and sophomore Democrats, some reasonable provisions were included and destructive provisions were eliminated. The best provision of the House bill is the exemption of smaller public companies from Sarbanes-Oxley internal control audits. This provision, introduced by freshman Rep. John Adler (D-N.J.) and which garnered the limited support of the Obama administration, will help smaller firms be less dependent on bank loans for growth by making it easier for them to go public without paying a costly price for extensive Sarbanes-Oxley audits that have produced little benefit for shareholders. The House also wisely defeated the “cram-down” that would allow bankruptcy judges to abrogate mortgage contracts. If collateral in mortgages is not secure, fewer loans will be made and mortgage interest rates will likely skyrocket. And the House fell just 15 votes short of passing an amendment by Rep. Walt Minnick (D-Idaho) that would have gutted the CFPA and would have instead created a council of bank regulators for a more deliberative regulatory process.
If President Obama wants responsible lending and vibrant entrepreneurship, he should listen to this bipartisan coalition in the House and others interested in balancing the costs and benefits of regulation.
RSS Updates 
RSS E-Mail Updates 
Twitter 
Facebook 
CEI.org 
WorkPlaceChoice.org 
GlobalWarming.org 
CEI On Demand Video 
Liberty Week Podcast 