The war on Wal-Mart
“I know what’s better for you than you, and I’m going to use the power of law to make sure you don’t do something stupid.” Whether it’s a smoking ban (you’re too stupid to decide where to eat dinner), Social Security (you’re too stupid to plan for your own retirement) or any number of other issues, there’s a lot of that attitude going around. Another […]
Socialism on a small scale
For the most part, Americans reject the idea of government ownership of the economy. Yet Minnesotans are comfortable with the idea of government ownership of facilities that provide recreational activities better left with the private sector. It’s not just Minneapolis and Saint Paul that are home to city-owned recreational centers and such. The attitude that “government should go into the business of fun” carries out […]
How about cleaning up after yourself?
If a tree falls in the middle of your property and there’s not a government employee around, will it still be cleaned up? When I returned to town from a recent trip up north, I noticed that many homeowners had placed tree branches, some of them very large, out by the curb. Of course that told me that a significant storm had passed through. But […]
Billions for teacher unions; What about taxpayers?
Are courts going out of the school budgeting business? Maybe, though I have my doubts. Back in October 2006, Sol Stern wrote about what happens when a politician, beholden to a teachers union, must then find a way to pay when the union’s demands threaten to impose significant burdens on the state. A group in New York sued the state for another $5 billion in school […]
Risk as a political wedge
Bad stuff happens in life, some of it predictable, much of it not. Trade-offs are inevitable (guns versus butter, you know). So is risk. Lately I’ve been wondering if the most accurate way of describing the political divisions in the country is to ask some questions about risk. Take retirement planning, for example. If you prepare by investing in a broad portfolio of bonds and […]
We Need Grown-Up, not Childish Reaction to Bridge Collapse
A bridge collapses into a river, killing several people, traumatizing many. The reaction of some? Blame the no-new-taxes pledge that the governor took. Childish? Yes, especially when the blame was put into rhyme by one resident who used a child’s song in a letter-to-the-editor, published in one of the metropolitan area’s major newspapers. Ah, the wisdom of children! Children want what they want when they […]
The Cost of Regulation: Seen in Housing Prices
No surprise here: government action has consequences. In this case, people are being priced out of the housing market. Forbes reports on the least affordable U.S. real estate markets in its July 23 issue. Some of the numbers are astounding: “For example, in the first quarter of 2001, 42.3% of homes sold in Los Angeles were available to the median earning household. But in the first […]