Archives for the 'CEI in the City' Category
CEI Encounter With Sopranos “Tony” in DC
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In today’s fluff news, CEI Warren Brookes journalism fellow Lene Johansen got a nice mention in the Washington Post (Amy Argetsinger’s Reliable Source) and DC Examiner (Patrick Gavin’s Yeas and Nays). The dynamic writer from Norway met the chief Sopranos mobster at Washington’s famous Hay-Adams Hotel on Wednesday night, when a small group of free market warriors gathered to imbibe a few posh cocktails. Anyhow, check out the write up + picture of Lene that appears in both papers.
Heritage Speech
I’ve just got back from delivering a speech at the Heritage Foundation on the subject of my book. I think it went well and the audience certainly seemed enthusiastic about it. You’ll be able to watch it here when the webcast gets properly archived within a day or so. Thanks to ever-excellent John Hilboldt and his team for putting it on and to Ben Lieberman for hosting it.
Last Day to Vote For Freedom in Economist.com Debate
Today is the last day to vote for the free market and against overregulation in a debate I am participating at the web site of the magazine The Economist. If Open Market readers aren’t enthused about any of the candidates in this year’s presidential election, here is a venue where their vote could make a difference and the principles of freedom are definitely at stake. If CEI and I and the free-market side win this debate, it could have a positive influence on the larger debate over regulation of financial markets.
I am arguing in favor of the proposition, “By intervening to regulate business and financial risks, governments have made things worse.” To vote for me and for less regulation, go to the site, http://www.economist.com/debate, register (registration is free), and cast your vote as “PRO.” Voting continues all through today, and will cease tomorrow at an unspecified time.
The voting is neck and neck. I am now winning 52 to 48 percent, after being down earlier this week 47 to 53 percent. Every vote counts for the free-market to squeak out a victory in these challenging times when much of the media is blaming deregulation for all the ongoing financial woes.
Today, after being attacked by three “featured participants” arguing for an ever-expanding regulatory state, I finally get an ally among the guest commenters. Thomas Firey, managing editor of the Cato Institute’s magazine Regulation, writes a masterful refutation of the nostalgia among the commenters for New Deal banking regulations.
“Let us consider just how well US banking regulation ‘worked’ in the post-war period,” Firey writes. “[T]hroughout the post-war period, costs to borrowers were much higher than they are today. Since the banking deregulations of 1980-91, terms for both depositors and borrowers have improved greatly.”
Firey also argues that while stricter lending regulations may have benefitted the lenders and borrowers involved in the 1 million subprime loans now in default, “what of the other 5 million subprime loans that are in good standing, most of which have provided people with homes that they otherwise could not have purchased?”
I make many of the same points in my “Closing Statement” that was posted yesterday. “Indeed, when looked at in terms of distribution, the housing boom’s benefits may have been even more widely dispersed than those of the tech boom,” I argue. “Nearly 70% of US families and close to one-half of American black and Latino families now own the homes in which they live.” I remind readers that the overall foreclosures, while numbering in the millions in correspondence with the dramatic increase in the number of homeowners, is still only 2.04 percent of all mortgage loans.
I argue that while some volatility is the price we pay for a dynamic economy that improves everyone’s standard of living, “volatility can be much reduced through the introduction of what we should call a second stage of deregulation. Let us deregulate private risk management, as we have risk-taking, for ordinary investors as well as hedge-fund fat cats.”
As an example, I propose lifting restrictions that make it difficult for mutual funds to short stocks and other securities. Allowing mutual funds to engage in the same strategies as the smart hedge funds that shorted subprime loans would bring gains to middle-class investors and would have sent a stonger signal to the markets that something was wrong with mortgage securities.
Appreciate any feedback or suggestions from Open Market readers on deregulating risk management. In the meantime, make your freedom-loving voice heard today in the Economist debate!
Blomquist on Microsoft and Yahoo
Cord’s recent C-SPAN appearance, debating the issues surrounding the proposed Microsoft / Yahoo deal (and by extension any big tech buyout or merger) is now available for convenient YouTube viewing. No longer are we enslaved by the shackles of Real Media.
The policy side of CPAC
I can’t remember a Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that received more media coverage and broke more news events. As fate would have it, political speeches probably scheduled months in advance were affected by the results of the primaries, and particularly the Super Tuesday primaries just two days before the conference began.
Mitt Romney chose his CPAC speech on Thursday to announce that he was suspending his campaign. That made McCain’s speech later that afternoon one of rallying conservative support for the GOP frontrunner, rather than persuading conservatives to support him over other primary candidates. There was much media attention on conservative reaction to McCain’s almost-certain clinching of the GOP nomination.
But overlooked in the media was the broad policy focus of the conference. In CPAC sessions and its exhibitors’ booth, the conference featured a broad array of public policy topics of interest to the center-right coalition. There was also a healthy debate on different points of view within the coalition.
Yes, there were some odd topics among the exhibitor. But there were also some overlooked groups from outside the Beltway that had powerful messages. From my hometown of Kansas City, Mo., America’s Majority Foundation made the heartland conservative case for why more immigration benefits America’s economy and culture. Law Enforcement Against Prohibition gave some cops’ perspectives on why the Drug War is a failure, and how drug legalization would reduce crime and let police focus on real criminals.
There were also panels on everything from the failure of gun control in Great Britain to the overcriminalization of white collar crime. All in all, CPAC provided a good chance for conservatives to rejuvenate from the fountain of ideas, whatever happens in 2008.
Tom Lantos, RIP
California Democratic Congressman Tom Lantos passed away this morning. A Holocaust survivor and fervent anti-communist, the Hungarian-born Lantos’s thick accent and propensity for hyperbole made him one of Congress’s more colorful characters.
While I didn’t agree with him on much beside the evil of communism, I did have the pleasure of witnessing one of his last controversial episodes, during his speech at the dedication of the Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington, D.C. in June 2007, where he caused a small row with Germany when he blasted former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, calling him a “political prostitute, now that he’s taking big checks from Putin,” and quipped that “the sex workers in my district objected so I will no longer use that phrase.” Former French President Jacques Chirac came in for some verbal abuse as well. Whatever one thinks of the Iraq War, it’s always fun to watch politicians tear each other down. RIP.
Taxis, fares, and branding — history lesson from Yellow Cab
Eli, I agree with Michelle on this one. There is no justification for regulating the fares of either taxis or pick-up limousine services.
What’s overlooked, I believe, in cases like this with customers supposedly “captive” to service providers, is the power of branding. Were there no fare regulation, a customer wouldn’t necessarily be at the mercy of every unknown cab driver.
Rather, companies would spring up with visible slogans they would emblazon on their cab. Consumers would know — from sources ranging from the Internet to word of mouth — approximately what fares a particular cab company or franchisee would charge when they saw them driving by on the street. It’s the same concept that fast-food restaurants and motel chains rely on for drivers on car trips who don’t have time to search around a particular town for a place to eat and sleep.
And in this case, I don’t need to point to theory, because this is exactly what happened in the early days of taxis, with the familiar “Yellow Cab” franchise. In 1907, entrepreneur John D. Hertz, who would later found the rental car company, took his excess vehicles from his Chicago car dealership and painted them the visible color of yellow. According to this article on the web site of the University of St. Francis, “Since the other taxicabs were too expensive for the average person, John made his taxicabs accessible for everyone by lowering the rates. He also told the public that his taxicabs could be wherever they wanted them within ten minutes.” By the ’20s, Yellow Cab had gone national.
So the market already had this problem worked out when cars were barely on the road. To make the taxi business again a stepping stone for the John Hertz-like entrepreneurs of today, we just need to go “back to the future.”
Cooler Heads Prevail at the Smithsonian
The multi-dimensional debate over political correctness at The Smithsonian (everything from exactly how many children Thomas Jefferson fathered to the proper display of the Enola Gay) has another entry: climate science at the Museum of Natural History. From today’s Inside the Beltway:
Suffice it to say, the Smithsonian Institution is not buying into the “global warming” hysteria being spread by Al Gore.
While in the District in recent days, professor Jeff Bennett of the Crawford School of Economics and Government at Australian National University toured the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, where he snapped photographs, since forwarded to Inside the Beltway, of two displays that caught his eye — both dealing with climate change and “the Future.”
“Initiation of glacial conditions may be triggered by surprisingly rapid climate changes,” reads one display. “Therefore, the minor global-cooling trend of recent decades … is being carefully watched and studied.”
Global-cooling trend?
Explains the next display: “the period 1890-1945 A.D. was abnormally warm, and there have been signs of cooling in the last few decades.”
Perhaps we should organize a field trip to celebrate this unexpected evenhandedness. While we’re on the Mall, we can even pick up a copy of The Dangerous Book for Boys and score a double victory against the PC enforcers.
Google Caused My Rock Band Addiction
Thanks to Google, I am now addicted to the game Rock Band. I don’t own the game, but I do alternate between playing the demo at BestBuy in Pentagon City and playing the demo at the Gamestop across the street in the mall.
How can I prove that Google caused this addiction? Here I am playing Rock Band with Jillian Bandes of Roll Call in Google’s game room.
Jill’s fake drum performance far exceeded my abilities at the fake guitar. Soon after this photo was taken a tech from Google’s New York offices schooled us on how to rock Rock Band and scored a 97% on a much more difficult setting. Thanks to Adam Kovacevich at Google for featuring my silly performance on Google’s policy blog.
On a more serious note, I’m looking forward to working with Google on some of the policy issues that we’ll likely confront in the coming year. CEI is of like minds with the monolith of Mountain View on issues like privacy and competition policy. But we also disagree on policies like network neutrality and the best way to liberalize spectrum in the U.S.
Google is a great company that has created an enormous amount of wealth. I hope that their DC offices focus on creating a freer market for them to operate within and that they move away from the standard Washington favor-seeking.
‘Tis Better to Give *and* Receive
Just in time for the multi-holiday shopping season, Bureaucrash is here to solve all of your gift-giving needs. Tell that special someone how much you love them (and liberty) with a stylish Bureaucrash t-shirt or hoodie. Shirts are patriotically priced at a mere $17.76. Buy now! Click the video below to see spokesmodels Michelle and Alex demonstrate the product.
Celebrate the Repeal of Prohibition, YouTube Style
Raise a glass to 21st Amendment!
Trent Lott Knows Your Name
Nearly everyone has an opinion about Sen. Trent Lott (who, the Associated Press reports, plans to resign from the Senate today.) My off-the-cuff judgment is that he was and is a skilled political operative with a flexible ideology.
Whatever one thinks of his policies, there’s no doubt that he was a great player at the game of politics. A fair amount of his success, however, may have to do with his amazing facility (best I’ve ever witnessed) for remembering names. I met him twice while working as a reporter and then did see him in person again for over six years. When I went to work for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist he greeted me by name on my third day at the office, remembered that I had been a reporter, and asked me what I had been up to. Since Frist happened to be on vacation when I started work in the Senate, in fact, I talked with Lott before I spoke with my own boss.
A month ago, while I was meeting with some folks up on the Hill, I passed him in the hallway. (Having not seen him in at least a year.) And, again, he greeted me by name.
The Simpsons imitates life
Almost as if to celebrate the grand opening of the new store at Union Station of Fantom Comics — owned by our friend Matt Klokel — this weekend’s new episode of “The Simpsons” features the opening…of a new comic book shop to compete with the awful, consumer-hostile “Android’s Dungeon.” Guest stars include comic writers Alan Moore, Art Spiegelman, and Dan Clowes. Coincidence it may be, but no matter. Congratulations, Matt!
Chris Horner Takes on the Law of the Sea Treaty
Your DC Metro Government at Work
The local transit authority for the Washington, D.C. area - known to most residents simply as “Metro” - is having problems getting feedback from riders on a proposed rate increase. It’s not that locals don’t have strong feelings about the plan; on the contrary, bus and rails riders are quite unhappy. It seems the main problem so far has to do with holding public meetings at remote suburban locations with no bus or rail service. So I guess they’re happy to hear from car owners who also happen to use Metro buses and trains occasionally, but are less interested in listening to anyone who actually depends on the system to get where they’re going.
Students of American history will remember that such inconveniently scheduled government meetings are nothing new. Over 230 years ago, colonists were complaining that a certain fellow named George had “…called together Legislative Bodies at Places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the Depository of their public Records, for the sole Purpose of fatiguing them into Compliance with his Measures.” Clearly, the Metro board members have realized that one hears much less criticism at hearings that are inaccessible to those most affected.
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