The Kansas Meadowlark has a report with photographs of today’s protest at Representative Dennis Moore‘s office in Overland Park. Click on 500 in Overland Park brave cold, wind to protest stimulus, pork (photo essay) to see.
Category: Economics
Protest Pork in Kansas
Update: Report and photos of the event are here.
“A protest has been scheduled for
ep. Dennis Moore’s office (D-KS) in Overland Park, KS on Sat. the 21st at 10 am in response to his support of the Stimulus Package.”
Not many more details are available, but the post is from Michelle Malkin at Calling anti-porkulus activists: Next stop … Kansas.
Articles of Interest
25 random things about covering a capital murder trial. Wichita Eagle reporter Ron Sylvester offers surprising insights into covering a capital murder trial in a small Kansas city.
The Misdirection of Resources and the Current Recession. From a talk given by Mario J. Rizzo. “I believe that recent experience supports the claim that the economist and political philosopher Friedrich Hayek made in The Road to Serfdom in 1944. Democracy and central planning are incompatible or, at least, in deep tension.” Also some good explanation of the cause of the crisis from an Austrian perspective.
Evidence against the multiplier (Russell Roberts at Cafe Hayek). The multiplier is what’s supposed to make the stimulus work. It’s also a favorite argument of interventionism by local governments and their boosters in the field of economic development. But does it work? “The large and growing peer-reviewed economics literature on the economic impacts of stadiums, arenas, sports franchises, and sport mega-events has consistently found no substantial evidence of increased jobs, incomes, or tax revenues for a community associated with any of these things. Focusing our attention on research done by economists, as opposed to that of scholars from public policy or urban development and planning departments, we find near unanimity in the conclusion that stadiums, arenas and sports franchises have no consistent, positive impact on jobs, income, and tax revenues.” I wish we’d known of this before we built the downtown Wichita arena. Wait … we did know it. See Economic Justification of Arenas and the Downtown Wichita Arena, one of my first blog posts from October 2004.
Economic Miracle (Walter E. Williams) “The idea that even the brightest person or group of bright people, much less the U.S. Congress, can wisely manage an economy has to be the height of arrogance and conceit. Why? It is impossible for anyone to possess the knowledge that would be necessary for such an undertaking.” A fine explanation of how our economy is so complicated that it can’t be managed centrally. It’s the price system and self-interest that do the work.
Fed Up: The popular uprising against central banking (Thomas E. Woods Jr.) “It’s not surprising that arguments against the Fed are finally resonating. Since the crisis began in 2007, Fed Chair Ben Bernanke has engaged in all manner of emergency activity, much of it unprecedented and of such dubious legality that even some of those who may reject or be unfamiliar with arguments against the Fed have begun to wonder about the unaccountable power this institution wields over the economy.”
Obama Takes On Auto Crisis Without a ‘Czar’ (New York Times) “President Obama’s decision to act as his own ‘car czar’ means that in the next few months he faces decisions no American president has made since the invention of the automobile. … Even for an administration that is becoming the de facto decision maker for many of the nation’s financial institutions, it is a huge step. … In the meantime, the auto industry — like the financial industry — will essentially be run from inside the Treasury.” More nationalization of American industry. Will you buy a car designed and built by the President and Congress?
An Invitation to Debate the New Deal (Amity Shlaes). The author of The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression responds to criticism of her book. “The gist of ‘The Forgotten Man,’ which has been out for nearly two years, is that neither Herbert Hoover nor Franklin D. Roosevelt promulgated policies that worked, especially not in the sense that we use the word ‘work’ today.”
Articles of Interest
Upside Down Economics (Thomas Sowell) “From television specials to newspaper editorials, the media are pushing the idea that current economic problems were caused by the market and that only the government can rescue us. … What was lacking in the housing market, they say, was government regulation of the market’s ‘greed.’ That makes great moral melodrama, but it turns the facts upside down. … It was precisely government intervention which turned a thriving industry into a basket case.” Sowell goes on to explain how the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, not really enforced until the Clinton Administration, is responsible for the housing crisis.
Patton Boggs LLP has a detailed analysis of the recently-signed stimulus package available for download at its site. “Implementation of the massive stimulus package must be carried out by a myriad of Federal, State and local government entities on a severely accelerated timetable. The distribution of funding often involves new grant programs, programs that are parallel to existing funding mechanisms, new regulatory standards, and an array of bureaucratic issues. Moreover, although the money will be awarded quickly, with little initial oversight, during the next few years there will be close scrutiny by Congress and various agency Inspectors General of how the money is distributed and whether it is spent wisely and fairly.” Watch out, I say.
Rebuilding America’s Job Machine “Industrial policy isn’t dead. It’s thriving in the states—and may be the start of a U.S. comeback strategy,” according to BusinesWeek. At least this article sounds a few notes of caution: “Mixing taxpayer money and private industry is risky, of course. Public officials can be bad at picking winners. State intervention can lead to cronyism and market distortion. … These are some reasons Harvard Business School competitiveness guru Michael E. Porter preaches caution. ‘The grassroots model, where regions get on with it without waiting for Washington, is one of America’s great strengths,’ Porter says. But he calls many state interventions unrealistic. ‘Subsidies are usually a sign you have no underlying advantage in an industry.’
What’s in the Stimulus Bill for You (New York Times) “All the talk the last couple of days about the stimulus bill was about compromise and slimming down. What is left, though, is a huge spending bill, with well over $100 billion in tax breaks and handouts for individuals.”
Terrible Credit Crunch of 2008 — The Greatest Hoax of All Time? (Robert Higgs, The Independent Institute) Was there a credit crunch last year? Is it still going on? Robert Higgs presents evidence based on Federal Reserve System statistics.
It’s My Money — I’ll Bailout Myself!
From the Lone Star Times, economist Michelle Muccio appears in the video It’s My Money — I’ll Bailout Myself!
It’s funny how many people would rather keep control over their own money rather than sending it to Washington (and their state, county, city, and school district). Can people be trusted to spend their own money? The alternative is to let politicians and bureaucrats have control. Their record — just look at some of the things in the economic stimulus bill — is not good.
Facebook Finds Stimulus Petition Ad Misleading
My blogger friend Blue Collar Muse reports on a disturbing development at the extremely popular social networking site Facebook. The post FaceBook Drops NoStimulus.com Ad After Complaints explains.
Financial crisis caused by government
Did the “excesses” of capitalism cause the current financial crisis? First, we really don’t have capitalism in the United States, at least not any reasonable semblance of laissez faire capitalism, as explained in my post The Myth that Laissez Faire Is Responsible for Our Present Crisis, based on the work of Professor George Reisman.
The Wall Street Journal article How Government Created the Financial Crisis: Research shows the failure to rescue Lehman did not trigger the fall panic explains more in these excerpts:
Many are calling for a 9/11-type commission to investigate the financial crisis. Any such investigation should not rule out government itself as a major culprit. My research shows that government actions and interventions — not any inherent failure or instability of the private economy — caused, prolonged and dramatically worsened the crisis. … The realization by the public that the government’s intervention plan had not been fully thought through, and the official story that the economy was tanking, likely led to the panic seen in the next few weeks. And this was likely amplified by the ad hoc decisions to support some financial institutions and not others and unclear, seemingly fear-based explanations of programs to address the crisis. What was the rationale for intervening with Bear Stearns, then not with Lehman, and then again with AIG? What would guide the operations of the TARP? … Massive responses with little explanation will probably make things worse. That is the lesson from this crisis so far.
Kansas minimum wage at issue again
In Kansas, some want the state’s minimum wage to rise to match the federal minimum wage. The Lawrence Journal-World reports on this in its story Lawmakers asked to increase state’s minimum wage.
This issue has been covered on the Voice For Liberty in Wichita in several articles:
Unintended But Foreseeable Harms of the Minimum Wage
Minimum Wage: Helpful? Or Not?
Problem of Low Wages Not Easily Solved
The Descent of The Good Column