4 years, 4 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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I missed this story originally, but Marginal Revolution pointed me to the fact that Killington, Vermont residents recently voted to secede from Vermont and join New Hampshire. A little problematic, given that Killington is 25 miles from the VT/NH border.
Seriously, though, the reactions of Killingtonians (is that the right word?) is hardly surprising. In 1997, the Vermont Supreme Court ordered the state to change the way it funds schools, otherwise known as Shifting the Burden of Financing Schools to the Rich. Killington, a town with only 1,000 permanent residents, sends $20 million a year to Montpelier, and gets $1 million in return. Because most schools derive local funds from property taxes, places with lower property values extract less revenue from the locals than places with higher property values. In the name of “tax equalization,” a move is afoot to transfer wealth from places that have it to places that don’t. There are, of course, many problems with this. There’s absolutely no evidence that pumping cash into failing schools will make them anything other than failing schools with cash. Transferring wealth from one community to another does nothing to address the problem with financing education on the backs of property owners, punishing those who own private property. The whole scheme is a massive form of wealth extraction with very little benefit, and attempts at “reform” do little but make the problem worse.
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4 years, 4 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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With friends like these, does John Kerry need enemies?
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4 years, 4 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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Best thing about leaving DC for the friendly confines of Derbyland? I don’t have to endure the seasonal migration of “anti-globalization” protestors, essentially lost-soul college students, communists and anarchists, who attempt to take over the city, impede commerce and traffic, and show their love for humanity by vandalizing private property. No word, of course, on how this mish-mash of Soviet and Maoist iconography, ironic anti-capitalist sloganeering, street theater and percussionists can do better for developing economies than, say, actual investment capital and jobs. INDC Journal has a nice, albeit snarky, photoessay on this year’s festivities.
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4 years, 4 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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The Lexington/Fayette County anti-smoking ordinance banning smoking in most public places went into effect this week. This of course sent the Courier-Journal into fits of joy, proud guardian of the nanny state that it is. There’s three things you can count on the Courier-Journal to beat the drums for at least weekly, if not daily:
- Kentucky taxes are too low – although the modern euphemism for “tax increase†is “tax modernization.†Otherwise known as making sure we have enough cash to spend on the modern nanny state.
- Smoking should be banned in as many places as possible. We don’t have beaches, but I’m sure the C-J would advocate California-style smoking bans on them if we had them.
- The dreaded VET emissions test, stopped by the Kentucky legislature, should be brought back. This little crusade was dealt a severe blow when the judge hearing the environmentalists’ challenge directed the parties to discuss financial penalties for the city stopping the VET without EPA approval, rather than injunctive relief ordering the test to be restarted.
Look, I’m no smoker, and I’m happy that public spaces have non-smoking sections. I’m happy that I can come home smelling of something other than stale tobacco smoke. I used to work in a small office where 3 of the 5 employees smoked, and hated it. On the other hand, the arguments presented to support these bans is simply inadequate to support the serious infringement on the right of private property owners to use their property as they see fit, the right of individuals to decide for themselves whether to smoke or to be exposed to tobacco products, the right of individuals to freely associate with whom and under whatever circumstances they choose, the right of employers and employees to define their contractual relationship in the manner that best serves both their interests, and the right of everyone to be free of unnecessary governmental control.
Anti-smoking zealots argue that concerns about this “nasty habit†trump any property or contractual rights because smokers threaten the “public health.†After all, restaurant owners don’t have the right to serve rotten meat or to require their employees to work with dangerous chemicals, and second-hand smoke can kill you, right? This analogy is greatly misplaced. A free society recognizes that individuals have the right to determine for themselves whether a risk is outweighed by the benefits of a particular transaction, and should be wary of taking away that right. True public health risks are both immediate and unknowable. I have no way to know whether ground beef is contaminated with e coli when I go to a restaurant, and if it is contaminated, I can die. That risk is both immediate and unknowable. Exposure to tobacco smoke is neither. When I enter a restaurant or bar that doesn’t have a non-smoking section and I see a cloud of smoke hovering over the room, I know that I will be exposed to smoke. I also know that second-hand smoke carries with it some increased risk of health problems later in life. The risk is not unknown. It’s also not immediate, and therefore I can assess whether to bear that risk.
Society accepts that there are many risks in life that could lead to harm, yet accepts that individuals may conclude that the benefit outweighs the risk. There’s nothing inherently more dangerous about willing exposure to smoke that supports serious infringement upon individual property rights. Not even the “right†of non-smokers to a mobile penumbra of smoke-free air. Your right to be free from annoyance does not trump another’s right to associate with whom she chooses. If you’ve weighed the risks and concluded that exposure to smoke outweighs any benefit from dining in a particular establishment, then so be it. Stay away, but don’t tell me I can’t go.
Anti-smoking advocates also argue that anti-smoking ordinances are justified to protect the health of workers, who shouldn’t be “forced to choose between their health and a paycheck.†This is nonsense, of course. They aren’t forced to choose between their health and a paycheck, but between a perceived threat to their health and that paycheck. If their health concern is legitimate, then there will be plenty of non-smoking workplaces from which to choose, and the smoke-filled workplaces will carry higher wages to compensate for the risk. Employees in other fields do this all the time – you can hardly argue that it’s more dangerous to work the smoking section of a burger joint than, say, an off-shore oil rig. Or a chemical plant. Or a cop on the beat in the inner-city. The most dangerous job in America is, somewhat surprisingly, timber cutter. Lots of jobs have risks, and lots of employees freely accept the wages offered to bear the risks.
The real agenda is obvious. Smoking opponents know that prohibition won’t work and won’t get through the legislature, so they try to get in through the back door, and make the arenas in which one can smoke narrower and narrower. Overblown rhetoric and ignorance of economics are not sound bases for deprivation of liberty.
UPDATED 4/29/2004 to add link to timber cutter article.
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4 years, 4 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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We wrapped up the local YMCA’s Spring Soccer league this past weekend. This was Funkhead’s first foray into semi-competitive league sports. I say semi-competitive because the Y’s 4/5 year old division uses modified rules to ease the kids in slowly. They don’t keep score, and there are no goalies (apparently, the rules of soccer and parental admonitions to “don’t kick things at your sister” don’t mix, and the little ones were afraid to kick the ball at the goal with a goalie in front of it). It all went really well, all things considering. We are not Soccer Parents, even if we did arrive in a minivan. Some pictures from the last day are here.
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4 years, 4 months ago,,
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The clan, save paterfamilias (i.e., me) took a trip to Lawrence, Kansas to visit cousins at the end of March. Here are some pictures. Enjoy.
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4 years, 4 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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If you Google “waffles” you get this. Here’s a screenshot if things change.
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4 years, 4 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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A group of bloggers, including Kevin Brancato of Truck and Barter, has started a weblog dedicated to all things Wal-Mart. I saw it via Virginia Postrel’s weblog, and was eventually led to this post on Catallarchy discussing an Esquire article (subscribers only), which notes that, popular media accounts to the contrary (which imply that Everybody Hates Wal-Mart), Wal-Mart is, in fact, wildly popular. This got me thinking about Wal-Mart again. Why do they inspire such vitriol from those who could just choose not to shop there? I see a few reasons that aren’t all that connected to Wal-Mart itself:
Elitism: It’s undeniable, at least to me, that a significant percentage of the Wal-Mart boycotters are put off by the places Wal-Mart locates and the people who shop there. It’s the blue state elites vs. the red state consumers. Overgeneralized, sure, but those that do all their shopping at quirky boutiques or Pottery Barn and Williams-Sonoma, for that matter, are unlikely to have all that much sympathy for someone who wants to save money on merchandise from Wal-Mart in rural Arkansas. They see Wal-Mart expansion as a way for “those people” to invade their cloistered world. Wan’t proof? Why hate Wal-Mart but not Best Buy or another bix box store that sells to a higher-end market? We don’t call them limousine liberals for nothing. Of course, the elites see themselves as protecting the little people from themselves, which leads us to…
Labor activists and fellow travelers: You won’t get rich working at Wal-Mart. You won’t get free health insurance. You probably can’t support a family on a Wal-Mart salary. Of course, you can’t do any of those things working for another company in the discount retail space, either, nor frankly should you be able to. A realistic assessment of the relative contribution of these jobs to the American economy should suggest as much, but nobody wants to admit that some jobs are just less valuable than others. Wal-Mart does provide health insurance, and I don’t see why they should be expected to do it for free. Vastly increasing Wal-Mart’s operating costs would do little to help its employees (many of whom would lose their jobs as Wal-Mart’s costs increased), and would certainly harm many who are able to live the way they do only by saving money at Wal-Mart. That’s never stopped those who believe that capitalist enterprises are pots of free money waiting for the taking by The People. Similar in many ways to…
Urban Planning Fantasists: Like the labor activists who believe you can conjure up jobs paying $40,000 with free health care for Wal-Mart employees, some Wal-Mart haters think you can wish away half a century’s experience with flight to the suburbs. This group sees the success of Wal-Mart as both contribututor to and beneficiary of suburban “sprawl.” They argue that Wal-Mart could not succeed but for government subsidies to roads and other infrastructure, tax give-backs, construction of homes further and further away from the cities by shifting costs to existing residents, and so forth. I don’t have statistics, but I’d guess that most governments offering explicit subsidies to Wal-Mart do so believing that they’ll get more than they give through increased job growth and tax revenue. The other “subsidies” are inherent in the system, and don’t have much to do with Wal-Mart specifically. I have long believed, however, that even if you limited the subsidies, you’d still have sprawl. People moved from the cities for a reason: they want to avoid crowding, crime, congestion, bad schools; they want to gain larger homes with lawns to play in, they want good schools for their kids and the recreation opportunities that go with suburban life. Many, many people simply don’t see urban life as something to be praised, and gladly accept suburban sprawl as a bearable burden, if not an asset.
Downtown Defenders, or Blinded by the Haze of History: This is another class of fantasists, who see Wal-Mart as a threat to the mom and pop stores of a vibrant downtown. They’re fantasists because the downtowns they praise don’t in any large measure, actually exist. Downtowns have been dying for a long time, threatened not so much by Wal-Mart as by population shifts from the cities to the suburbs. In addition, many of the areas served by Wal-Mart are suffering from economic shifts and dislocation of workers from 19th and mid-20th century industries to a 21st century economy. The downtowns that have flourished are those that have filled market niches, filled with retailers that serve markets not served by big box merchandisers (and which are not threatened by Wal-Mart in any event). Other downtowns have shifted from a retail focus to other areas of economic activity. The idea that if Wal-Mart went away tomorrow, small downtowns would thrive is silly. It may be true that a general merchandiser can’t compete from downtown on price, but there are many other businesses and ways to differentiate one’s market offering.
NIMBYs: Never discount the power of NIMBYs and BANANAs. This isn’t so much an attack on Wal-Mart as a wish that land not currently used for productive economic activity remain thus evermore, at no cost to those that benefit from the open space. Wal-Mart’s just a convenient target, but ultimately this seems to be a free rider problem, although many NIMBYs also fall into categories listed above.
There are many other issues related to Wal-Mart, of course, and Wal-Mart certainly doesn’t deserve unqualified praise (I wouldn’t call them a Randian hero, for example). Real economic analysis has been sorely lacking, and it’s nice to see the blog as a central repository.
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4 years, 4 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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The Reunion: As noted earlier, we missed last week’s Thunder Over Louisville, the kickoff to the 2-week Kentucky Derby Festival, in order to attend the 10th reunion of Marshall-Wythe School of Law’s class of 1994. Overall, our travel problems notwithstanding, it was a fair trade. An interesting dynamic of reunions generally is that people tend to spend the most time with those classmates that they were closest to in school and therefore are most likely to have seen on a semi-regular basis anyway, but we did get to catch up with a few lost souls. Assisted, no doubt, by the round number on the end of the reunion designation. Interesting overgeneralizations about law students from this event:
- A large percentage of large firm lawyers abandon ship before the partnership track yields its bounty, given that said track is now at least 10 years. Those that leave seem to be attracted more to in-house positions than government, even close to Washington, DC, although my sample is assuredly not representative (what right-thinking free market advocate would go to the government over the private sector?)
- Single people are more likely to stay in large law firms than married ones (OK that was an easy one, and high on the Duh Factor)
- Never assume you will be able to predict who will get married, who will stay married, or who will or won’t have kids in ten years. This was the single most surprising thing to me.
- Conventional wisdom notwithstanding, most young lawyers do not seek out non-traditional jobs, and the most common non-traditional job is perhaps the most tradition-bound job in human history (stay-at-home parent). Notable counter-examples are, of course, available: my class contains several entrepreneurs, a retired-from-the-law mountain man, and the co-founder of a public service legal organization
- Networking at alumni events is vastly overrated. Most of the people I know found the soon-to-be-minted lawyers a bit grating.
Silliest moment: presentation of The Big Check by the alumni coordinators. Most disappointing: the food (why can’t event organizers hire decent caterers, anyway?). Best moments: watching the kids, who tend to put things in perspective, even those wearing Bush-Cheney t-shirts.
For my comrades stumbling upon this post, I put up some pictures. Email me if you have your own to contribute.
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4 years, 4 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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Every year at about this time, I am reminded how bad my timing, or karma, or historical research, or fortunetelling ability or something really is. In addition to the neverending gratitude I feel toward The Spouse for sharing her life with me (Happy Anniversary!), I get reminders of all the bad things that happened on yesterday and today, to wit:
It’s also the birthdate of Napoleon and Joey Lawrence, for whatever that’s worth. Now, thanks to Reason’s Hit and Run, I know it’s a ceremonial day to smoke cannabis. Wonders never cease. Still think there’s enough good karma in my anniversary to outweigh the bad karma of Columbine and Joey Lawrence, but I’m biased.
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