Move over, Keynesians: We are all Austrians now.
If you’ve been looking for a new “libertarian econo-nerd dreamgirl,” look no further. Below is a new vid from singer-songwriter Dorian Electra crooning F.A. Hayek’s praises.
Here’s hoping Dorian’s debut has returned diva-dends for her, and we’ll look forward to more tunes from this fiscally fit songwriter in the future.
Follow Dorian Electra on Twitter here.
1. Ever wonder what a drop from a dry martini looks like under a laboratory microscope? Now you don’t have to.
2. New online services like DateCheck allow you to run easy background checks on prospective lovers.
3. Someone hacked into a giant television screen at a major Bangladeshi airport and screened five minutes of porn. Happy Holidays, Bangladesh.
4. “Did Facebook kill the Christmas card?”
5. New York Governor David Paterson was just fined $62,125 for accepting five free tickets to see the Yankees play the 2009 World Series. (Given how expensive Yankee Stadium is these days, Paterson may still have gotten away with a bargain.)
Photo Credit: wickenden’s Flickr photostream
As I have written about before, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) introduced a bill earlier this month that would legalize a limited form of online poker. While the bill was clearly a payback to the Nevada casinos that treated him so well during his campaign, and despite the fact that there were many problems with the legislation (i.e., the 15 month black out for all online gambling), it would have represented a step forward for professional online poker players. It would have at least provided some measure of protection for poker players from the government.
As yet another congressional session is set to end without an online gambling legalization bill passed, it appears that professional Internet gamblers will left out in the cold once again — left to the mercy of any state legislator of government agency that wishes to target them.
While it was believed that Reid would attempt to attach his legislation to the president’s must-pass tax bill, probably the best chance of passage during this session, that did not pan out. Now online poker players watch and wait as a couple of bills that could have legalized their chosen activity languish in the final days of Congress.
Frank’s bill H.R.226 — the Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act — which had a good measure of bipartisan support, was apparently shelved once it passed through committee. Then along came Reid with his surprise proposal to legalize online poker. His attempt to attach the bill to the Obama tax-cut bill is a promising move taken from the very same playbook used to pass the UIGEA in 2006, which is the sneaky tactic that prevented real debate in Congress seems to have worked against Reid. Unlike UIGEA, which was sneakily attached to the “must-pass” SAFE Port Act of 2006 and had at least gone through some debate, Reid’s legalization bill did not. As Sahmus of the website “Hard-Boiled Poker” wrote:
…when it came to the UIGEA, that sucker had been around a long, long time — in various forms, that is — having been proposed again and again for nearly a full decade before. And in July 2006, the House of Representatives had passed H.R. 4411, the Internet Gambling Prohibition and Enforcement Act proposed by Jim Leach (R-AZ), by a 317-93 vote (with 22 absent/not voting). That is to say, while the Senate never really debated the UIGEA (a whittled-down version of Leach’s bill) in late September 2006, senators at least knew the thing had been discussed and approved on the other side of Capitol Hill.
But Reid’s attempt to legalize online poker seemingly came out of thin air:
It seems to me that the situation surrounding Reid’s bill is entirely different. Neither the full House nor the Senate has been given a chance to discuss or vote on any of Frank’s earlier bills designed to license and regulate online gambling in the U.S. And there really hasn’t been any discussion even on the committee level regarding an online poker-only licensing and regulatory scheme.
It appears that Shamus was right. And the news that Sen. Reid’s bill probably won’t pass isn’t causing too many tears among online poker players. Despite an understanding that the future could be worse than the the present, most poker players were only tepidly in favor of Reid’s plans for legalization.
First off, it does not sound as though the bill if passed would be such great news to any of the current “U.S.-facing” online poker sites — most particularly the two largest ones, PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker — all of whom apparently will be swiftly swept away from the U.S. market for an extended period of time should Reid’s bill become law.
The bill as written requires that no licenses to operate online poker sites in the U.S. will be issued until 15 months after the bill becomes law. Furthermore, the bill includes provisions to prevent issuing licenses to anyone but U.S.-based casino operators (or other business entities who have been involved in the industry here in the states for five years or more) for the first two years after that. In other words, Stars, Full Tilt, Cake, the Cereus delinquents, and others would all have to sit in the penalty box (so to speak) for at least 39 months before coming back to the U.S.
The idea here is obviously to try to develop this new market of online poker in the U.S. in such a way as to ensure its primary beneficiaries are U.S.-based (and, not incidentally, significant backers of Reid’s campaigns).
The future of online gambling, at least over the next two years, will most likely advance through state-by-state initiatives. The result could be a patchwork of regulations that still shuts out the current platforms from the market. We could also see World Trade Organizations complaints and lawsuits against states. The real victims, though, will be the online poker players, mothers, fathers, disabled, retired, etc. — people who simply want to earn an honest living through online competition; they will find their income drying up, or at the least will remain in a state of confusion about the legality of their chosen profession.
As I wrote last week, the federal government has no laws that makes online poker illegal in the U.S., but its ambiguous legal status will continue to see innocent online poker players snared by the U.S. legal system.
The Food Safety Modernization Act was passed again by Congress on Sunday, apparently without a provision that earlier drew criticism for violating the Constitution by having a tax increase contained in it originate in the Senate rather than the House (something forbidden by the Constitution’s Origination Clause). The Washington Post story about this cites only the alleged benefits of the bill, not its potential costs to innovation, small business, and the availability of unconventional foods, which we previously discussed at this link.
Greg Conko, an expert on food safety regulation, has explained how the bill’s expensive and cumbersome red tape might thwart “firms from developing innovative new processes and practices that could deliver real food safety improvements.”
From the Post story, it sounds like the Senate version of the bill, not the House version, became law, although it’s not clear. The House version of the bill would have driven “out of business local farmers and artisanal, small-scale producers of berries, herbs, cheese, and countless other wares, even when there is in fact nothing unsafe in their methods of production,” warned legal commentator Walter Olson at Overlawyered. The Senate version of the bill is less extreme, but even it “would leave tens of thousands of small and mid-sized farms and food stands to be crushed under the weight of rules designed for some of the world’s largest food processors,” Conko says.
The tax increases contained in an earlier Senate version of the bill violated the Constitution, argued Conko (who is a lawyer) and law professor Jonathan Adler.
I earlier discussed false claims made by the law’s sponsors about its reach over farms and activity that doesn’t cross state lines.
Tech:
Chavez defends plan for Internet regulations:
“Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez defended plans for a law that would impose broadcast-type regulations on the Internet, saying Sunday that his government should protect citizens against online crimes.”
Broadband firms urged to block sex websites to protect children:
“Ministers believe broadband providers should consider automatically blocking sex sites, with individuals being required to opt in to receive them, rather than opt out and use the available computer parental controls.”
The FCC’s Threat to Internet Freedom:
“Tomorrow morning the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will mark the winter solstice by taking an unprecedented step to expand government’s reach into the Internet by attempting to regulate its inner workings. In doing so, the agency will circumvent Congress and disregard a recent court ruling.”
The Auto-Pilot iPad App:
“You’re cruising over the clouds when the pilot suddenly clutches his chest and slumps forward, unconscious. Now what? Software entrepreneur and pilot Austin Meyer, creator of the X-Plane flight simulator, thinks he has the answer. He’s written an iPad app, EFIS-App, that automatically finds a nearby airport and instructs the flight control computer to glide in for a safe landing.”
Global Warming / Environment / Energy:
White House Science Czar Orders No Political Interference in Global Warming Sham:
“People like the US De-Developer in Chief John Holdren certainly don’t seem to mind “political interference” when that interference is helping promote their cause and fleece taxpayers, but when the tables turn and some skeptics enter the scene, all of a sudden science is off limits to politics:”
Coldest December since records began as temperatures plummet to minus 10C bringing travel chaos across Britain:
“Swathes of Britain skidded to a halt today as the big freeze returned – grounding flights, closing rail links and leaving traffic at a standstill.”
Insurance / Gambling:
Ladbrokes Looks to Put 240M on Web Firm 888:
“The bookmaker is believed to be considering a bid of about 70p a share, valuing 888 at about £240million – 888 shares closed at 49p on Friday, up 12.6 per cent on the day. ”
Health / Safety:
Probable carcinogen hexavelent chromium found in drinking water of 31 U.S. cities:
“An environmental group that analyzed the drinking water in 35 cities across the United States, including Bethesda and Washington, found that most contained hexavalent chromium, a probable carcinogen that was made famous by the film “Erin Brockovich.””
Economics:
Quantitative Easing at Least Modestly Successful: Bullard:
“US economic growth will be stronger than previously expected in 2011 and quantitative easing has been “at least modestly successful so far,” James Bullard, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis said on Monday.”
Legal:
Lawyers cry foul over leak of Julian Assange sex-case papers:
“Incriminating police files were published in the British newspaper that has used him as its source for hundreds of leaked US embassy cables.”
Labor:
David Cameron holds historic meeting with union leaders:
“David Cameron was locked in talks with union leaders today amid growing anger over public sector spending cuts and job losses numbering in the thousands.”
Transportation/ Land Use:
Hammon set to unveil high speed rail plans:
“But campaigners have claimed the minister is attempting to bury the unpopular plan, while the nation is gripped by the big freeze.”
Forbes magazine recently blew the whistle on how skyrocketing college tuition is ripping off the public. Thanks to some colleges’ greed, and the federal and state financial aid subsidies that reward tuition increases, “Higher education’s price-earnings ratio looks like Nevada housing circa 2007″ at the height of the real estate bubble. “The financial data are making a college education tougher and tougher to defend.” And ”a college education contains a risk factor that no stock or bond does: zero liquidity. For good or for ill, you’re stuck with it. You can sell a security back to the market, but you can’t sell your degree back. . . . No Refunds. And things are only going to get worse.”
An increasing number of Americans have gone to college in recent years, at enormous expense to taxpayers, students’ families, and the students themselves. But most of the increase has ended up in unskilled jobs that require no more than a high school diploma to perform competently. For example, 5,057 janitors have Ph.D’s or other advanced degrees. By one estimate, 17 million Americans have economically useless college degrees, a number that the Obama administration’s policies would increase further.
America is in the midst of a college debt bubble that dwarfs the recent housing bubble. As we noted earlier, 100 colleges now charge $50,000 or more a year, compared to just 5 in 2008-09. College tuition has surged along with federal financial-aid spending, which effectively rewards colleges for increasing tuition. College financial-aid policies punish thrifty families, so that “parents who scrimp and save to come up with the tuition are in effect subsidizing the others.”
Rather than fixing these policies, defenders of academia have sought to divert blame by demonizing a small number of for-profit colleges, often for practices engaged in every bit as much by the far more numerous “non-profit” colleges (who use their wealth to enrich ever-growing numbers of college administrators rather than shareholders). This scapegoating took the form of a recent government report that has now been thoroughly discredited, but not before being trumpeted for months by liberal media organs.
Image credit: Honeywell-Nobel Initiative’s flickr photostream.
The most recent list of judicial hellholes has just been released by the American Tort Reform Association. It lists ”courts in Philadelphia; California’s Los Angeles and Humboldt counties; West Virginia; South Florida; Cook County, Illinois; and Clark County, Nevada, as some of the worst in the nation” for lawsuit abuse. The list is accompanied by an executive summary and a detailed report. (I previously wrote about how courts in Clark County are a threat to Nevada’s economy, and how they mishandle personal injury, divorce, and family law cases to redistribute wealth.)
As Carter Wood notes at Point of Law,
“Philadelphia’s transgressions are definitely noteworthy. Incredibly, there’s an actual strategy to encourage more litigation as a form of local ‘economic development.’ From ATRA’s news release:
Philadelphia is a source of great concern due to the philosophy and trial practices of its Complex Litigation Center, as well as the area’s reputation for excessive verdicts. The judicial leadership is engaged in a campaign to draw in massive personal injury lawsuits from around the country, viewing the increase in lawsuits and out-of-town lawyers as a boost for the court’s revenues and the local restaurants and hotels. Controversial practices, such as ‘reverse bifurcation,’ unfairness in multiple trials against the same defendant at the same time, and combining multiple cases into a single trial provide incentives for plaintiffs’ lawyers to bring their claims to the City of Brotherly Love. Punitive damage awards over $1 million have reportedly tripled in Philadelphia courts. State tort law that is out of the mainstream further encourages lawsuits.”
Another phenomenon fueling judicial hellholes is the vast amount of government red tape and new laws constantly being generated, which judicial hellholes turn into a basis for more lawsuits even when the red tape was only intended to be enforced by administrative penalties and not private lawsuits. Activist judges treat technical infractions of arbitrary government rules as being negligence per se or breaches of a newly-created duty of care. ATRA general counsel Victor Schwartz has worked to rein in the worst excesses in this area, and to keep courts from imposing unjustified duties of care more generally (for example, he has worked to pass state laws barring courts from allowing trespassers to sue homeowners for accidental injuries sustained as a result of trespassing).
State attorney generals have also abused their power in recent years to enrich their cronies and foment more lawsuits. In 2010 and 2007, CEI issued reports rating the nation’s worst state attorneys general.
Image credit: maveric2003′s flickr photostream.
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 17, 2010
>>Featured Story
In a crucial decision this week, a federal court ruled that the individual mandate of the new federal health care law is an unconstitutional violation of states’ rights. CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman and Senior Counsel Hans Bader were cited on the issue in The Washington Examiner Blogs and on MichelleMalkin.com, and Bader blogged about the case here and here. CEI earlier filed an amicus brief in a separate Florida case challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare; you can read that brief here.
>>Shaping the Debate
The Enemy Within
Iain Murray and Vincent Vernuccio’s cover story in National Review
Alcohol Regulations Disrupt Holiday Cheer
Angela Logomasini’s op-ed in The Sacramento Bee
Democrats Diverging From Unions
Ivan Osorio’s op-ed in The Washington Times
Keep Privacy Policies Private
Wayne Crews’s column in Forbes
Obama’s GM Numbers Are Not Adding Up
John Berlau’s op-ed on NewsMax.com
Why Is the Food Safety Bill So Controversial?
Greg Conko’s citation in The Huffington Post
Cigarette Warnings To Be More Graphic?
Sam Kazman’s citation in The Washington Times
Not Triangulation But Regulation
Wayne Crews and Vincent Vernuccio’s citations in The American Spectator
Odd Couple Files Brief Against Tobacco Settlement
CEI’s citation in Forbes
>>Best of the Blogs
Interchange Price Controls: Gift to Big Merchants, Lump of Coal to Consumers and Community Financial Institutions
By John Berlau
High-Speed Rail as the New Political Football?
By Marc Scribner
More Disincentives to Work, Thanks to the Federal Government and the Stimulus Package
By Hans Bader
There Are No Victors in Trade Wars
By Brian McGraw
>>CEI Podcast
December 15, 2010: Alcohol Regulations Across the Country
Michelle Minton, CEI’s Director of Insurance Studies, takes a whirlwind tour of alcohol regulations across the country. From Pennsylvania to Texas to Colorado, there are regulations at every turn. They do everything from raise revenue to tell people what products they can buy at what times, to shelter politically favored companies from pesky competition. In this way, alcohol is like most other sectors of the economy.
>>Support CEI
Like what you read?
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Photo Credit: Flickr Photostream
When a government agency is threatened, it will inevitably lash out in efforts to keep the government jobs safe and the tax money flowing. This has played out numerous times in the ongoing efforts to liberalize the alcohol industry in the United States.
Now, the Pennsylvania State Lottery Commission released a statement encouraging lawmakers to oppose Senator Reid’s efforts to re-shape the laws of internet gambling in the United States.
From their statement:
Additionally, the Lottery provided more than $160 million to retailers across the state, many of which are small businesses that rely on the Pennsylvania Lottery for commissions and increased store traffic. For nearly 40 years, this mutually beneficial business relationship has helped Lottery retailers create jobs, inject money into local economies and create taxable revenue for the commonwealth.
The new gaming industry that would be created by Senator Reid’s bill would put points of purchase in every Pennsylvanian’s home, directly vying for the discretionary entertainment dollars Lottery games attract exclusively through a network of 8,700 retail partners, thereby leaving the Pennsylvania Lottery at a competitive disadvantage. Online poker would negatively impact the local economies our retail partners support and directly threaten funding for programs that protect older Pennsylvanians’ independence, preserve their health and improve the quality of their lives.
…
The stated purpose of the new bill is to “strengthen the prohibition of unlawful Internet gaming, to provide for licensing of Internet poker with consumer protections and strong regulatory oversight, to enforce the tax code, and for other purposes.”
However, the bill is unnecessary and harmful to states because it would interfere with a state’s right to conduct and regulate gaming. Therefore, it is important to protect the games now being offered by individual states. The Reid bill will exempt from the scope of the Wire Act of 1961 only those lottery games in which the outcome is determined daily or less frequently. It would not include in the safe harbor, for example, existing games such as video lottery, five-minute keno or “instant win” games such as virtual instant ticket games. The Reid bill suggests that all such games would be prohibited under the Wire Act if bets on such games (or information assisting in the placing of such bets) were transmitted via a wire communication facility and the routing of the bets (or information assisting such bets) crossed state lines – even if it crossed state lines only to return to the same state. Existing lottery games – even if played from a licensed lottery retailer location – could thus be prohibited depending on the routing of the wagering transactions.
Their complaint boils down to the fact that they will lose money, which is the reason they have jobs spent on all sorts of great causes, because people will fore go purchasing lottery tickets in lieu of being able to gamble online from their computers. The bill, in its current form, would seem to make online state lottery purchases illegal. This is probably a good thing.
A couple of things:
The state’s involvement in gambling is morally dubious and hypocritical. Gambling in many instances effectively functions as a regressive tax, much like taxes on cigarettes or alcohol. While the right for an individual to do what he or she wants is a bedrock of our society, and it is the primary reason why gambling should be liberalized, the government should not participate in encouraging consumption of these services. With one hand the government is attempting to redistribute wealth via progressive taxation, yet monopolistic state lotteries exist everywhere and much of the funding they are giving to seniors, etc. is coming from low income taxpayers.
The competitive disadvantage argument is fair, they are unlikely to be allowed to sell their services on the Internet. Though if you think the government’s provision of gambling services is not a proper function of government, then any restrictions on it should be considered a positive. And gambling law is so incredibly vague and confusing, that many payment processors such as Visa and Mastercard already refuse to sell online lottery tickets, despite its current pre-Reid bill legality. (Dear Government Regulators: It makes me secretly happy that banks deny payment processing to state services I disapprove of because of your complex regulations.)
Breathe easy, Pennsylvania bureaucrats. The efforts to legitimize online gambling seem to have failed. The new Congress is unlikely to be supportive of repeal, and the DoJ will continue its unrelenting crusade against what Americans choose to do within the privacy of their own homes.
Image credit: FamilyofFun’s flickr photostream.
1. Paid parental leave programs in countries like Australia are keeping small businesses from hiring women of child-bearing age.
2. ReasonTV presents the 2010 “Nanny of the Year” Awards.
3. A hacker reveals how he hacks weak passwords.
4. Slate on the evolutionary case for cannibalism.
5. The Adderall Defense: lawyers for the UVA lacrosse player who beat his girlfriend to death are arguing that her death was actually caused by her adderall prescription.
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