The Angry Economist

Unions vs. Globalization

Unions are against globalization. To listen to them, unions are a force for good for all workers (rather than just the workers who pay the union its dues). But to watch them, you can see that they're in favor of cartelization. They don't mind other people competing against them, as long as those people are hobbled by the same pay rate, protections, and benefits as the union members have. In other words, they're not allowed to use a lower cost of living, or a lower regard for their own safety, or a longer work week as a competitive advantage.

Sigh. Unions! Still selfish, after all these years.

Stupid Conservatives

Yo! Stupid conservatives! Y'all keep whinging about how wonderful it is that Arizona is FINALLY doing something about immigration. It sounds like you wish that the Federal Government would do its job and keep those dratted foreigners out.

Well, I have exactly zero words for you:

[nelson@desk ~]$ grep -i immigration ~/Constitution 
[nelson@desk ~]$

Yes, that's right, immigration is not one of the enumerated powers. Maybe you'd like it to be? Maybe you wish that it was? Maybe you're willing to give this one power, just this one, to the Feds?

Well, I have exactly one word for you: emigration.
If the Feds can control immigration even though the Constitution doesn't give them that power, then they can also control emigration. So when the USA turns into the communist USSA and Der Presidente for life decides that you can't leave, where are you going to be THEN??

The Feds don't have the ability to stop people from entering or leaving the United States, and that's a good thing.

Williams Done Wrong

Hey you, over there. If you were offended by Mark Williams blog posting about a letter from Colored People to Abraham Lincoln, THEN YOU ARE STUPID. And you lack any sense of historical perspective. Many many people thought at the time that colored people could not take care of themselves. That freedom was too much for them. That they would have to think for themselves, and suffer the consequences of their choices. That colored people couldn't do that, and so for example, if you wanted to free your slaves, you first had to put up a bond against them becoming wards of the state.

So to pretend that "Colored People" were writing to Lincoln to agree with the racist opinion of the time, is just too delicious for words. It's absurd theater at its best.

Violently Protesting for Peace

I just have to shake my head. Again, at global government meetings, you have so-called "anarchists" who are demonstrating for their concept of peace and justice, which seems to include violence. But violence doesn't cause people to say "Hey, my government is engaging in violence. I must want less government". No, they say "Hey, my government isn't going enough to stop the violence. I should give them more power (money and privilege) so that they can keep these protesters in line."

It's like shooting yourself in the foot to promote foot health, to mix a metaphor.

Less Government?

I'm not sure Leonard Pitts is correct about Bobby Jindal rethinking his belief in less government. What if your next-door-neighbor contracted with a wind energy company to erect a wind generator, and it fell on your property? You'd be angry at the company, but you'd hold your neighbor responsible.

Now, the US Government claims ownership of the waters off the coast. It licensed BP to drill off the coast. That went sour, and Louisiana has been hurt. They're holding the US Government responsible.

This has nothing to do with the correct size of your next-door neighbor. Nor does it have anything to do with the correct size of the US Government (which does things not even remotely present in the US Constitution).

Government is the enemy in the case of this oil spill, since it didn't require remotely operated valves on the blowout preventer.

Not the free market's job

A bunch of people are tweeting and retreeting the question "I didn't look today, did the free market clean up the oil yet?". I have a couple of responses to that. First that there is no such thing as a free market. You're not free to sell something unless someone else is willing to buy it. That points to the conclusion that there are only customer-regulated markets and government-regulated markets. And that poses the question: who's the customer here, and if they're not regulating why not?

If customers can't regulate the behavior of sellers, then it's not even close to being that-thing-which-is-called-a-free-market. So that points to this: when governments regulate, they don't regulate in a vacuum. Their regulation displaces customer regulation. If you look at the oil industry, you'll find that it's regulated up the wazoo and back down again. Customers can't regulate because they're being prevented from doing so by government regulation.

Thus, to my friends who are asking this question, I suggest that since a free market isn't present in the oil industry, it's silly to expect that something which doesn't exist is capable of taking action.

And my second response is to ask what would have happened had this oil spill happened on private property. It's certainly the case that the property owner would have a contract with BP, and the contract would specify remedies. One way or the other, the property owner is going to be compensated for the risk of oil spills.

Who is the property owner here? Why, it's the federal government, which claims to own the seas off our coast. What does their contract with BP say? If it doesn't hold BP's feet to the fire for enough money to clean up the oil, then why did the government allow the drilling?

So the question is not why the free market hasn't cleaned it up yet, but instead why the government screwed up. Private companies fire incompetent executives, and if they don't do that, they go out of business. Who's going to lose their job over the irresponsible handling of the BP drilling? And if they don't, will the government go out of business?

The answer is obviously "no" to the second, and probably "nobody" to the first. And that, my friends, is exactly why you want to limit the things you let your government do.

Racism by Rand Paul?

Rand Paul points out that customer regulation of markets doesn't tolerate racism. Racism in a market is a commons. Anybody can be a racist, up to a point, but if too many people are racists, the market for racism gets destroyed. In order for all the racists to succeed in business, you need to manage this commons. Typically, this is done by government, and specifically, in the case of black racism, by Jim Crow laws.

Just another example of government regulation of markets making everyone worse off. It's a dangerous tool that we're better-off without. Yes, it can sometimes succeed, but most often it fails, and because the future is unknown to us, we can't pick the successes and avoid the failures.

Better to have separation of state and markets. Let customers regulate markets, not politicians.

Immigration, the victimless crime

I am disappointed by conservative's reactions (Fred Thompson, and Anne Coulter, to name two) to the Arizona legislation. They point to a higher crime rate by illegal immigrants, to which I say "When immigration is outlawed, only outlaws will immigrate." If you make it risky to immigrate, only those with nothing to risk will immigrate. Perhaps this will surprise some conservatives, but there are Mexican professionals like doctors, lawyers, engineers, and programmers, who have better things to do than come to the US and standing around waiting to be hired.

Also, I want to see the victim of the crime of illegal immigration. Name the victim, or else I'll claim it's a victimless crime.

Or maybe they want to claim that Mexicans come here just to go on welfare? Sorry, but the facts go against that; instead they work on fake social security cards for which they will never be able to claim the benefits.

Or maybe they want to claim that Mexicans are here to take American's jobs? Well, the day that a spanish-only Mexican can take an english-speaking American's job, is the day that Mexican deserves the job. If an American can't or won't work harder than a Mexican, I have no pity for them. If they're a victim, it's of their own laziness.

No Free Markets!

There is no such thing as a free market. There are only markets regulated by customers, and markets regulated by politicians. If you want your markets regulated by politicians, you have to believe that they are better at running your own life than you are. I don't understand why you think that. If you think you can explain that to me, my email is nelson@crynwr.com

DIY fiber

I live on a rural road, with 10 houses per mile where the local cable franchise is only required to wire when there are 20 houses per mile. With practically no growth, it seems foolish to wait for anybody else to wire it up. We have power and telephone, and so plenty of poles. The trouble with poles is that they're tied up in engineering costs, pole rental, make-ready costs, and other bureaucrazy.

The alternative of burying or laying the cable on the ground seems like the only sane choice. Our road is about 50% fields and 50% dense brush/woods. So, burying in the fields, and laying through the woods.

I found some nice COE/CPE for $80 each end. Uses a single strand of singlemode fiber, transmitting on one frequency (color) and receiving on a different one. Gets you 100Mbps Ethernet. Or you can spend $250 for a box which has wifi, four Ethernets on a switch, and two RJ11 VOIP lines, AND a fiber cable tray (which you need anyway because bare fiber is very fragile).

Planning to do a home run, running a strand of fiber for each house all the way down the road. At the state highway there's Time Warner, Verizon, and the tri-county municipal fiber (but they only want to connect you at a POP, and they don't have a POP anywhere nearby). I could probably become an ISP and haul in bandwidth, but I'd prefer not to have to get into that business. Been there, done that.

The problem is: how do I get to the other side of the road? I could cut through the asphalt, but that seems like a lot of work, and wouldn't please the town highway department. Directional boring is expensive (and boring). I could go over on poles, but that gets back to the crazy. I could go over using trees, but there's a reason why telephone companies quickly abandoned trees: falling limbs.

Perhaps the solution is simply to run fiber down both sides of the road?

If you're interested in DIY fiber, join the Communities-United-for-Broadband Facebook group.