Amazon Pressured on Sales Tax: “Across the country, state officials struggling with big budget shortfalls are trying to get Amazon.com to take on a role it does not want: tax collector.”
Survey: 41% of Facebook Users Total Idiots: “In an experiment, 41% of Facebook users were willing to divulge highly personal information to a complete stranger. This according to IT security firm Sophos, which invited 200 randomly selected Facebookers to befriend a bogus Facebook user named “Freddi Staur” (an anagram of “ID Fraudster”). Of those queried, 87 responded to the invitation, among them 82 people whose profiles included personal information such as their email address, date of birth, address or phone number. In total:”
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 March 11, 2011 >>Featured Story
On Wednesday, Senate Republicans voted to pass Governor Scott Walker’s emergency budget bill, which restricts the collective bargaining rights of state workers. CEI’s Iain Murray and Vincent Vernuccio previously defended Walker’s bill inThe Washington Times; and this week, Vincent Vernuccio coauthored an American Spectator op-ed with Research Associate Trey Kovacs titled, “The Truth About Wisconsin.”
In yet another example of why prudence is necessary on the behalf of law makers, who might have a little more faith in the market getting it right the first time:
Less water per flush means less water pushing sludge along through sewers. Now California has spent $14 million (aside from $100 million in previous attempts to deal with this problem) on bleach that will eventually flow into the San Francisco bay. That doesn’t sound very environmentally friendly.
See Rand Paul’s questioning earlier this week on the issues of low-flush toilets and efficiency standards for light bulbs here. “We don’t even save money. We flush ‘em ten times. They don’t work.”
Tragedy struck Japan this morning. It will be some time before we know just how many lives the tsunami took, and how much damage was done. But pundits are already saying dumb things.
Larry Summers, who should know better, committed the economists’ cardinal sin this morning: he fell for the broken window fallacy. The sunny side of the destruction is that it will boost the economy. Just think of all the jobs that will be created by the rebuilding process!
Over at the Daily Caller, I gently correct Summers. Natural disasters are bad for the economy. All the rebuilding activity in the next few years will only get Japan back to where it was. If the tsunami had never happened, all that energy could be put to creating new wealth. Disasters are just that: disasters.
On Tuesday, the House will probably vote on a Continuing Resolution to avoid a government shutdown. Republicans are asking for $6 billion in spending cuts as part of the package. If they succeed, this year’s budget deficit will go from about $1.6 trillion to $1.594 trillion.
Never let it be said that congressional Republicans don’t think big!
Herb Kohl vows Google probe: “Media consolidation, net neutrality and Google’s dominance in Internet search are among the issues the Senate’s leading legislator on antitrust issues plans to scrutinize in the months ahead.” Darrell Issa: White House Influencing net neutrality: “In a November 2009 letter to Genachowski, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said media reports suggest “that Obama administration officials had knowledge of and potentially contributed to [the] crafting of” the controversial net neutrality rules.”
Illinois Governor Signs Amazon Internet Sales Tax Law: “After two-months of fence-sitting, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn today signed controversial legislation requiring Internet retailers like Amazon.com and Overstock.com to collect Illinois’ 6.25% sales tax if they have affiliate sellers in the state. House Bill 3659, the Mainstreet Fairness Bill, was passed by the state’s lame duck legislature in early January. Since then, the bill has been the subject of fierce lobbying by traditional bricks and mortar retailers, who supported it, and Illinois-based Internet-only businesses, who warned that if Quinn didn’t veto it some of them would flee the state. Had Quinn done nothing, the bill would have become law tomorrow without his signature.”
It’s a new era in fast food. Last decade everyone was asking which food was the healthiest. Now growth is global, and it all comes down to dominance. The bigger they are, the bigger they’ll get.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Subway has trumped McDonald’s in the US and abroad, though McDo continues to rule in sales dollars:
At the end of last year, Subway had 33,749 restaurants worldwide, compared to McDonald’s 32,737. The burger giant disclosed its year-end store count in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing late last month.
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Subway has achieved its rapid growth, in part, by opening outlets in non-traditional locations such as an automobile showroom in California, an appliance store in Brazil, a ferry terminal in Seattle, a riverboat in Germany, a zoo in Taiwan, a Goodwill store in South Carolina, a high school in Detroit and a church in Buffalo, New York.
“We’re continually looking at just about any opportunity for someone to buy a sandwich, wherever that might be. The closer we can get to the customer, the better,” Mr. Fertman says, explaining that it now has almost 8,000 Subways in unusual locations. “The non-traditional is becoming traditional.”
“The ethanol tax credit is bad economic policy, bad energy policy and bad environmental policy. The $6 billion we waste every year on corporate welfare should instead stay in taxpayers’ pockets where it can be used to spur innovation, stimulate growth and create jobs,” Coburn said in a statement Wednesday.
The bill would repeal the VEETC. As before, a broad coalition emerged in support of the legislation.
CEI’s Marlo Lewis commented on the idea that ethanol is an infant fuel that needs protection:
Henry Ford built his first car, the Quadricycle, to run on pure ethanol. That was in 1896. In 1908, Ford built the first flexible fuel vehicle capable of running on either gasoline or ethanol. Today, more than a hundred years later, the perennial infant known as the corn-ethanol industry still can’t ‘compete’ without government coddling. We commend Senators Cardin and Coburn for challenging Congress to stop throwing good money after bad.
Associate Director of Technology Studies Ryan Radia talks about how to prevent data privacy violations in the Internet age. Your data may be safe if it’s stored on your personal hard drive. But if it’s in the cloud, as with Gmail or Dropbox accounts, you can’t count on the Fourth Amendment to protect you against unreasonable search and seizure. Radia suggests some reforms to outdated laws to better reflect today’s technological realities.
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