In a time when the federal government’s involvement in the economy appears to only grow, it’s encouraging to see at least one industry where the trend may soon move in the opposite direction, even if at the state level. Virginia Governor-elect Bob McDonnell has proposed priviatizing the state’s liquor stores — known as ABC stores, for Alcoholic Beverage Control.
As Garrett Peck, author of The Prohibition Hangover, notes in The Washington Post, this is long overdue. (The op ed is due to…
From attempting to manipulate the definition of “supervisor” to changing the way in which workers are organized, the above seems to be a guiding principle in organized labor’s bold new approach to increasing union membership. Consistent with that, some union friendly government officials are trying to change the way in which votes for some workers are counted.
Today, as The Wall Street Journal reports, National Mediation Board chair Elizabeth Dougherty wrote to more than a dozen Republican senators, protesting her colleagues’ proposed rule…
I pay my power bill online, so whenever I get something from Dominion Virginia Power over snail mail it catches my attention. Usually, it’s some notice about utility work nearby. However, the mailing I got today was unusual. It was an appeal to sign up for Dominion’s Green Power initiative.
The scheme appears simple enough. The mailer says, “When you sign up for Dominion Green Power, you add a little extra to your monthly bill which Dominion will use to purchase…
Today, Slate features a rant by disgraced former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer that includes distortions and falsehoods so blatant that they wouldn’t merit a response if they didn’t come from so loud a megaphone.
Spitzer is miffed at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for opposing the major expansions of government power currently being proposed in Washington.The Chamber, he says, has a “right to be wrong” (wrong in Spitzer’s universe apparently being anything that opposes the expansion of government), but it doesn’t…
Plenty, according to the new film, The Cartel. The film purports to show “educational system like we’ve never seen it before. Behind every dropout factory, we discover, lurks a powerful, entrenched, and self-serving cartel.” Trailer below.
In fact, the power of teachers unions is part of an even greater problem: the growing ranks of unionized government workers, a phenomenon that creates a permanent constituency favoring the growth of government — one that is well organized, motivated, and well funded.
For more on…
Slate blogger Mickey Kaus explains how public sector unions are driving state and local governments to the brink of bankruptcy (via Nick Gillespie at Reason Hit & Run, via Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit):
The justification for public sector unionism is way weaker than that for private sector unionism. “[Government] workers are not extracting a share of the profits but rather a share of taxes,” as former N.Y. Liberal Party leader Alex Rose puts it. And the right to strike, in the hands of key…
The Economist’s current Lexington column highlights the growing public resentment at the widening disparity between compensation and job security in the private and public sectros — which are largely the result of increasing unionization of government employees. (Subscription required for the Economist link.)
Those who are still employed have seen their wages stagnate and their pensions shrivel in the stockmarket crash. Their health insurance is insecure, but they don’t trust Congress not to make it worse.
Meanwhile, they can see that one group…
In honor of the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Economics to Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson, it’s worth recalling a mention of Ostrom’s work by a previous Economics Nobel laureate, Vernon Smith, then at George Mason Univeristy, whom I interviewed for CEI’s newsletter, the Planet (then Monthly Planet). Here’s the 2002 Economics Nobel Prize winner, on the future 2009 winner:
One of the best pieces of work on public choice was done by Elinor Ostrom of Indiana University, Governing the Commons.…
Not content with exposing Florida to financial catastrophe by taking on responsibility for insuring coastal properties, Florida Governor Charlie Crist (R) continues his assault on his state’s fiscal health, this time by imposing nonsensical populist measures on utilities. As Seeking Alpha’s Roger Conrad observes:
Florida Governor Charlie Crist is running for US Senate in 2010–and darned if he’s going to let power utilities’ need for capital during a recession stand in his way.On Thursday, Crist effectively fired two long-standing members of the Sunshine…
In his Wall Street Journal column today, Holman Jenkins highlights one of the prizes at stake for organized labor in the current health care debate.
Union members not only like the tax-free, open-ended health -care benefits they’re used to getting. More important and often overlooked, organized labor itself is increasingly made up of health-care workers who benefit from an incentive system that artificially force-feeds great gobs of GDP into the industry’s maw.
Their long retreat elsewhere in the economy may continue unabated, but…
Yesterday in Harrisburg, rowdy unionists disrupted a rally held by two Pennsylvania state legislators to promote legislation to end project labor agreements (PLAs), which put nonunion contractors at a sever disadvantage, on state construction projects. Under a PLA, an open shop contractor could be required to employ workers from union hiring halls, acquire apprentices from union apprentice programs, and require employees to pay union dues. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that “testy exchanges and pushing and shoving followed” the press conference. Meanwhile, the…
Remember the California budget debacle? Now it seems like not a month goes by without another state facing a budget crisis. Now it’s Michigan’s turn. Predictably, state politicians are trying to scare the public with talk of cutting funding for libraries and prisons, in order to make tax increases an easier sell. Also predictably, policy makers appear to be avoiding looking for budget savings where substantial ones could be realized: government payrolls. As The Detroit News points out:
Employee pay and…
Yesterday, I strongly criticized the taxicab medallion system proposed for the District of Columbia by council members Jim Graham and Muriel Bowser as protectionist, economically illiterate, and so incredibly stupid as to defy reason. Today, an explanation for this idiocy may be at hand — Graham’s chief of staff, Ted Loza, has been indicted on bribery charges relating to the taxicab legislation.
This cannot but help remind me of the happy conclusion of CEI’s dinner video this year, “It’s a Wonderful Institute.” To…
The old saying that, “The problem with socialism is socialism; the problem with capitalism is capitalists” proves itself true time and again. So does Lenin’s claim that the capitalists would sell the Bolsheviks the rope with which to hang them. Thus, I’m not too surprised at The Los Angeles Times‘ brief profile of one capitalist doing just as Lenin expected:
He’s been called a bully and a monopolist. Al Gore once labeled him “Darth Vader.” The Wall Street Journal described him…
If you’ve ever been to Brooklyn, you’ve almost certainly seen firsthand the shortage of taxis that has been created by New York City’s licensing restrictions, known as the “medallion” system. Under this system, only a limited number of licensed cabs are allowed to run in the city. You’ve probably also seen how the locals get around these restrictions: through the use of unlicensed taxis, known as “gypsy” cabs, and car services, which are technically limo services which you have to…
Slate’s William Saletan has had it with the growing overreach of the food police, a reaction which he acknowledges puts him in unusual company.
For a long time, the only discernible libertarian around here was Jack Shafer, a man unable to wean himself from speech, guns, and other annoying constitutional amendments. But lately, other folks seem to be getting a bit Ayn Randy. On Saturday, Jacob Weisberg blew the whistle on New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg for trying to ban outdoor…
Today in the Washington Examiner, James Jay Carafano of The Heritage Foundation makes a strange case for what he describes as the opening of a new American frontier — where it was once closed. The column is highly unconvincing for two main reasons.
First, and most importantly, Carafano seems to imply that there is some direct correlation between food production levels and the number of people working in agriculture:
A report prepared for the G8 in April concluded that global food production would…
The AFL-CIO, at its recent convention in Pittsburgh, had much to celebrate, including the fact that a Labor Secretary showed up to pay tribute to her biggest supporters when she campaigned for Congress. Reports Investor’s Business Daily:
Late last Friday, the White House decided to slap a 35% import tariff on Chinese tires. In doing so, the administration sided with the United Steelworkers despite the risks of a trade war with China, the largest holder of Treasuries at a time of record…
Interesting lectures are a great thing. Good cocktails are a very good thing. But when the two are combined into a single presentation, the effect is just plain fun, which is how I describe the event I attended last night.
Garrett Peck, author of The Prohibition Hangover: Alcohol in America from Demon Rum to Cult Cabernet, walked an audience through the history of Americans’ conflicted relationship with alcoholic beverages (at Jackie’s Restaurant in Silver Spring, Maryland). Moving along in time, the lecture…
Today, DC Progress, a public policy organization that focuses on the District of Columbia, hosted a panel on the issue of underemployment. DC Progress President Christian Robey noted that underemployment can be defined in different ways: either as somebody working at a job for which he or she is overqualified, or at fewer hours than desired. However defined, the problem of underemployment is one of unfulfilled potential, both for job creation and for access to good jobs that do exist.…
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