Senior Fellow Angela Logomasini debunks scare stories that chemicals in makeup and other household products cause cancer, neurological disorders, birth defects, and other health problems. The cardinal rule of toxicology is that the does makes the poison. That dose just isn’t there in cosmetics, no matter how loud the shouts of some activists. For more information, see the new CEI study, “The True Story of Cosmetics: Exposing the Risks of the Smear Campaign,” by Dana Joel Gattuso.
January 2012
In a recent Washington Times op-ed, Mark Hyman of the Sinclair Broadcast Group makes some compelling arguments calling for a spectrum inventory. His suggestion that the NTIA and FCC fulfill their mandate from President Bush in 2003 to increase spectrum efficiencies is on point and laudable. It’s certainly true that plenty of spectrum currently sitting in government hands could be put to better use, and thus a part of the problem is spectrum management. But that’s about all Hyman gets right.
His assertion that the “looming spectrum crisis” is a ruse manufactured by FCC Chairman Genachowski and parroted by major cell phone companies is completely erroneous. Hyman points to “the only independent study” on this subject to support this claim, one conducted by Citigroup. That report claimed that cellular companies were using just a fraction of the spectrum assigned to them. Critics have since eviscerated the Citigroup report, pointing to its use of outdated figures and misunderstandings of mobile technology as the cause of its flawed and ultimately inaccurate conclusions.
Hyman also alludes to public statements from Sprint and Verizon as proof that no spectrum crunch exists. Yet this September Verizon’s CEO declared that the AT&T / T-Mobile merger “was kind of like gravity” and had to happen in part because of the government’s inability to get sufficient amounts of spectrum to carriers. Such a statement bolsters claims that we do in fact face a spectrum crunch.
The FCC was actually aware of this problem at least as far back as 2002, when the Spectrum Policy Task Force issued its report. That report detailed how FCC’s allocations of spectrum in 1994 were based on predictions that there would be 54 million mobile users by the year 2000. In 2000 however the number of mobile users was more than double that base amount; the authors explained that the FCC and industry “have significantly and consistently underestimated the need for additional spectrum and the public’s utilization of new technologies and applications.”
Action this Election Day in Washington State may send tremors across America by cracking open the anti-consumer, anti-competitive alcohol regulations in that state.
Initiative #1183 strikes at the heart of a government-enforced three-tier system for distributing alcohol, which is common in most states. This system requires alcohol producers and importers to sell only to wholesalers, who in turn are the only source from which retailers may purchase their inventory. Most states also ban “vertical integration,” preventing any single company from owning and operating businesses in more than one tier.
These mandates benefit the middlemen — alcohol wholesalers — by ensuring they get a cut in the profits on every sale. But it’s bad for everyone else from consumers to small wine, spirits, and beer producers.
But cracks have emerged within the three-tier system during the past decade. A major blow came in 2005 with the Granholm v. Heald U.S. Supreme Court decision, which barred protectionist state alcohol laws.
Now Costco Wholesale Corp. is leading the campaign for change in Washington State. A number of Washington state laws that enforce the three-tier system prevent Costco from effectively implementing its wholesale model, which involves direct purchasing of large volumes of product at discounted prices, central warehousing, and eventually delivering to its retail outlets where cost savings are passed on to members of its wholesale club.
Costco had already won the right in court to buy alcohol direct from both in-state and out-of-state wine producers, skipping wholesalers altogether. But laws barring them from buying direct from the spirits industry and against central warehousing of alcohol undermine their model.
Reading the tired, silly claims of left-wing, anti-Wal-Mart activists generally makes me yawn. But it annoys me to see some of my former neighbors from my hometown of Chanhassen, Minnesota, going around trampling on property rights and opposing the liberalization of the real estate market.
Let’s start with a demographic profile of modern Chanhassen. When my parents moved our family there in the early 1990s, large parts of the city were still undeveloped. It was on the fringe of the southwestern Minneapolis suburbs. Since then, the city has developed rapidly due to its close proximity to the Minneapolis-St. Paul core — leading to population doubling over the past two decades, with most of the growth coming from upper-middle class families with children. According to the 2010 Census, households are quite wealthy, with 48.6 percent of them earning at least $100,000 annually. Only 2.1 percent of families are below the poverty level, with the median family income hovering around $113,000 annually. High-quality housing, good schools, and recreational amenities abound. Things are so great in Chanhassen that Money magazine ranked it #2 on their 2009 list of Best Places to Live in the United States (it appeared at #10 in the nation in 2011).
Locals are fond of these mostly arbitrary rankings, almost as fond as some of them are in believing Wal-Mart will destroy their quality of life if the mega-retailer is allowed to open a store in Chanhassen. After several hundred angry, presumably wealthy NIMBYs showed up at a recent Planning Commission meeting to demand that a site currently occupied by a large vacant building not be put to productive use (yes, you read that correctly), the notoriously anti-development Commission denied the Wal-Mart request for a necessary upzoning (a designation that permits more intense development). It is now up to the City Council to decide whether or not it will listen to the city’s planning apparatchiki.
A couple of the irate NIMBYs, after finding a free website template online, created an online activist group called “Chanhassen1st.” For a city long known for its support of conservative Republicans (George W. Bush was the first president to visit Chanhassen in the run-up to the 2004 election and put on a huge rally for supporters), I found it odd that the Firsters were regurgitating the faux-arguments manufactured by multi-million dollar astroturf organizations funded by the United Food and Commercial Workers union (due to Wal-Mart ostensibly believing the same thing about unions as Whole Foods founder and CEO John Mackey: “The union is like having herpes. It doesn’t kill you, but it’s unpleasant and inconvenient, and it stops a lot of people from becoming your lover.”) and citing a propaganda film by far-left “documentary” filmmaker Robert Greenwald (perhaps most famous for directing the 1980 Olivia Newton-John box office flop “Xanadu”). Oh, and a barely-sourced article written by a North Carolina State University economist that does not even conclude that Wal-Mart’s entry results in net negative economic effects.
Let’s face it: If you’re the proprietor of a bar that caters to a predominantly heterosexual crowd, it’s in your financial interest to attract female customers. Not only will women spend money at your bar they might have spent elsewhere—men will spend more than they might have. Unless there’s a very interesting game on TV, your average male customer will generally prefer drinking in an establishment in which there’s at least a smattering of women.
And thus, once upon a time, bars began promoting ladies’ night discounts in hopes of becoming staple locales for Girls Night Out, that fabled feminine tradition that is the stuff that romantic comedies (and most Sex and the City episodes) are made on.
But ladies’ nights are quickly becoming a thing of the past. Richard Thompson Ford, author of Rights Gone Wrong: How Law Corrupts the Struggle for Equality, explains how anti-discrimination laws are being used by civil liberties groups and men’s rights organizations to attack ladies’ discounts in the courts. Such efforts have thus far been largely successful, and many states now ban gender-based discounts.
A round up of the interesting booze-related news stories from around the nation. Hint: the two best are at the end.
National: Our nation’s leaders will spend part of the day gettin’ crunked in the name lower taxes and small businesses. The Autumn Capitol Hill Beer Tasting, happing today (Nov. 2) will feature 15 small brewers from around the country offering their bubbly beverages to over 500 members of Congress and their staffers. The event, organized by the Brewers Association and the National Beer Wholesalers Association, is in support of the Small Brewers Act (HR 1236), which would reduce the federal excise tax on small producers of beer.
Alabama: After successfully petitioning the Alabama legislature to lift the alcohol limit in beer (from 6% ABV to 13.9% ABV) Free the Hops, a grass-roots beer advocacy group is setting its sights on the states absurd limitation on bottle size. Currently, beers in the Mosquito State are limited to no more than 16 ounces — the only state with such a restriction. Since many craft beers are bottled in containers of 22 ounces (such as the charitable “save our shores” beer), residents of the Yellowhammer State (its actual nickname) are missing out. Good luck guys!
Massachusetts: As I wrote in my last roundup, the Ale-oween edition, wholesalers and current retailers of wine and beer were shaking in their boots over a possible ballot measure that would have allowed residents to decide if they wanted more types of food and convenience stores to be allowed to sell beer and wine. All of the entrenched interests are now supporting a bill that wouldn’t allow new players into the market, but would increase the number of stores a chain could have selling alcohol — from three to five. The idea is great for companies already selling alcohol, not so good for small grocery stores or those looking to crack into the market, and definitely bad for consumers looking for choice and price competition.
Also in Massachusetts: After a 25-year ban, Massachusetts bars can now offer discounted drinks for “happy hour.” With the creation of three casinos in the state, all of which wanted to offer free or discounted drinks, the state overturned the ban on discounted drinks which had been on the books since 1984. Allowing all bars to offer happy hours evens the playing field between the new casinos and existing bars. Addition: the news broke yesterday that, although the amendment passed as part of a larger casino bill, the final version is likely to leave out the removal of the happy hour ban when it goes to the Governor for approval.
Bank of America and other banks are cancelling plans to impose monthly debit card fees. This was one of the ways Bank of America, as well as regional banks such as SunTrust and Regions (both of whom also have shelved the new fees), planned to recoup about $12 billion a year in revenue lost to price controls from the Durbin Amendment of Dodd-Frank. That measure, as implemented by the Federal Reserve on October 1, limits the interchange fee a bank or credit union can charge a retailer to process a debit card transaction to about 21 cents, no matter how expensive the purchase is.
So this backing down in the face of not so implicit pressure from politicians — from the president on down — is giving supporters of Dodd-Frank and the Durbin Amendment something to cheer about. “See Dodd-Frank isn’t costing consumers,” they say. And then they tout the virtues of free-market competition. Would they only do so when it comes to teachers’ unions and the Postal Service!
But competition cannot overcome what economists call the deadweight loss of a government mandate. There’s no such thing as a government-imposed free lunch.
In just one week, New Jersey voters will have their say on whether or not the state should pursue legalizing sports betting.
According to preliminary results, residents overwhelming favor legalization. Yet, even if residents are 100 percent in favor of sports betting, the process of actually making it legal, like a “Jersey Shore” character, is going to be loud and ugly. That’s because there are several federal laws that make the activity illegal in all but four states.
State Senator Ray Lesniak has been attempting for years to overturn the federal ban on sports betting, a ban he believes is unconstitutional. As I wrote almost exactly a year ago, Lesniak attempted to file a lawsuit on behalf of New Jersey against the federal government, an effort that was supported by former Governor Jon Corzine. Current Governor Chris Christie was a little more reluctant to support the attempt and hasn’t shown any change of heart since. The governor’s support is required in order for the suit to have standing in court.
In yesterday’s Washington Times, Brett Decker (editorial page editor) reviews Patrick J. Buchanan’s book Suicide of a Super Power: Will America Survive to 2025? In his article titled Buchanan: Take the China Test, he rallies against free trade and China, with half truths and fear-mongering to appeal to individuals who see trade with China as a negative thing.
Decker starts his story by narrating his visit to a car dealership, on the look-out for an American muscle car, but becomes distraught when he sees that “the domestic content was only 55%,” and that the transmission was manufactured in China. The author was also shocked to find that a box of nails, and even a box of fruit, was manufactured by the Chinese. As Decker puts it, “the reds had invaded my refrigerator.” He challenges readers to take the China Test: “Anytime you buy anything, flip it over and read the label to see if it was made in [China].” He concludes the paragraph by saying that “America is making less all the time”, which is simply not true. In fact, according to the Federal Reserve, manufacturing output has steadily increased since 1975, as this graph prepared by the Mercatus Center’s Veronique De Rugy shows:
Uncle Sam may be the biggest spook to business this Halloween. A new Gallup poll of small business owners shows that “complying with government regulations” is their #1 problem right now.
As I explain at The Daily Caller, Obamacare and the Dodd-Frank Act are two of the biggest perpetrators. With thousands of regulations yet to be written, risk-taking entrepreneurs just don’t see the incentive to take risks. That means fewer business ventures, less economic growth, and a dearth of jobs.
As bad as things are now, Obamacare and Dodd-Frank threaten to make them worse as their soon-to-be-written regulations send regulatory costs soaring even further. And worse yet, the president has made no indication of backing off this regulatory rampage. This Halloween, the government may be the scariest trick-or-treater of all.
Read the whole article here.
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