Monthly Archives: November 2009

Unfathomable Mindset

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Kurt Bouwhuis, Mackinac Center Intern

Here is a letter Don Boudreaux recently sent to the Baltimore Sun:

Don
http://www.cafehayek.com/
http://marketcorrection.powerblogs.com/
…………………………

……….

24 November 2009

Editor, Baltimore Sun

Dear Editor:

You are right to warn against politics infecting health-care decisions (“Medicine trumps politics,” Nov. 24).

But you are also unreasonable to do so.  Yours is among the most strident voices in support of Obamacare.  To demand more government-enforced and financed health-care arrangements AND to decry the politics that arises in response to this government intervention is like demanding government-enforced and financed free love AND decrying the unwanted pregnancies and STDs that would arise in response.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030

The First Thanksgiving: Liberty at Last!

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Fleeing the prisons in England and the threat of foreign invasion in Holland, a band of so-called “Separatists” left Europe forever aboard the crowded Mayflower to found the freest nation the world has yet seen. It is no accident that those who search for freedom find it. In the fall of 1621, these Pilgrims feasted to give thanks to God for His providence in their trek to safety.

“And thus they found the Lord to be with them in all their ways, and to bless their outgoings and incomings, for which let His holy name have the praise forever, to all posterity” – William Bradford

Read more on Landmarks of Liberty…

E. Wesley – Mackinac Center Intern

Market “Impossibilities”

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Here is a letter I recently sent to the Lansing State Journal:

In his recent letter, James W. Perkins claims that “The health-care system does not belong in the free enterprise arena, where one checks prices, then decides to buy or not to buy because the item can be done without. With health care, not treating the condition can lead to worse health or death – that’s not a free enterprise decision. Leaving crucial, desperate, life or death health concerns in the hands of those who are in profit making businesses is not wise” (“Market can’t run health,” November 25).

Changing a few words in his statement revels why such a statement is faulty. “Growing food does not belong in the free enterprise arena, where one checks prices, then decides to buy or not to buy because the item can be done without. With the food industry, not eating can lead to worse health or death – that’s not a free enterprise decision. Leaving crucial, desperate, life or death health concerns in the hands of those who are in profit making businesses is not wise.”

Kurt Bouwhuis

Prosperity or Plunder?

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Here is a letter I recently sent to the Lansing State Journal:

In a recent editorial, The Lansing State Journal states that the stimulus money is key to the long term recovery of the mid-Michigan economy (“Stimulus funds matter to mid-Michigan,” Nov. 20).

Nonsense.

The majority of the stimulus has been funded through borrowed money.  Every time the government borrows a dollar, there is one less dollar available for the private sector to borrow.  Since the private sector relies on borrowed money for expansion, the stimulus has essentially deprived several businesses of opportunities that would have been viable had the credit been available.

Additionally, forcibly obligating American taxpayers to billions of dollars of debt is no path to long term economic growth.  Especially when a large portion of the borrowed dollars are being shoveled into the bank accounts of special interests who have effectively used government to garner additional revenues at the taxpayer’s expense.

Kurt Bouwhuis

Politics and Theatre

Posted on by razma766
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Here is a letter I recently sent to the Midland Daily News:

John Burke writes in his recent letter that: “[U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak should] also remember that health care reform is a moral issue in itself. That thousands are dying every year because of the lack of affordable health care is also a call to provide help “to the least of these” (Matt 25:40)” (“Stupak Admired,” Nov 18).

I agree 100% that thousands of people dying every year due to lack of health care is awful.  Unfortunately, it does not logically follow that government is the most effective tool for alleviating this problem.  Even if it were possible to accurately communicate the desires of the public to congress, it is highly unlikely that congress would fulfill the desires of the public over the desires of special interest groups. 

The current health care proposals are no exception.  Although health care reform has been sold to the public as a solution to the suffering illustrated above, behind the scenes, it is nothing more than a power grab by big businesses that have effectively used special interest groups to rig government policy in their own favor at the expense of American consumers.

Kurt Bouwhuis

The Ant and the Grasshopper

Posted on by razma766
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Kurt Bouwhuis, Mackinac Center Intern

Here is a letter to the editor that I found to the be entertaining.

 To the editor:

I received this from one of my nieces as an e-mail. The author is unknown. However, I think it speaks volumes about the way our country is headed. Perhaps you would want to share with the readers of the MDN.

THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER

This one is a little different: Two different versions, two different morals!

OLD VERSION: The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.

The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself.

MODERN VERSION: The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long , building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast.

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, “It’s Not Easy Being Green.”

ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the ant ‘s house where the news stations film the group singing, “We shall overcome.” The Rev. Jeremiah Wright then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper’s sake.

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity and Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government’s house he is in, which just happens to be the ant’s old house, crumbles around him because he doesn’t maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow.

The grasshopper is later found dead in a drug-related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.

    MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2012.

    JOHN L. PFENNINGER, MD

    Midland

Thoughts Out of Balance

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Kurt Bouwhuis, Mackinac Center Intern

Here is a letter I recently sent to the New York Times:

In his recent op-ed, Paul Krugman expresses great concern over the growing trade deficit between the U.S. and China (“World Out of Balance,” Nov. 15).  A simple example reveals why such concerns are pointless.

Suppose an American businessman decides to trade with China.  He loads American cargo valued at $200,000 onto his ship and exports it to China.  When the ship arrives in China, he sells all of his goods for $250,000 generating a profit of $50,000.  He then uses all of his proceeds to purchase Chinese cargo valued at $250,000.  He loads the cargo onto his ship and brings it back to the U.S.  The net result of this profitable transaction is a trade deficit of $50,000 for the U.S. 

There is, however, a simple way to convert the $50,000 trade deficit into a trade surplus of $200,000 — sink the returning ship and all of its Chinese cargo in the middle of the ocean before it reaches the U.S. port – the import will be nonexistent and our trade balance will gain all that the oceans have swallowed.

Kurt Bouwhuis

The Gettysburg Address

Posted on by ewreynolds
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More than 51,000 Union and Confederate solders fell in the Battle of Gettysburg from July 1, 2, and 3, 1863, in what is the bloodiest battle in the North American continent.  President Lincoln only spoke for two minutes, yet his message is one of the most endearing speeches in all US history. As commander-in-chief, Lincoln’s military might was unmatched on the continent, but as a man, his life was outweighed by the death of 51,000 others.  Read more on Landmarks of Liberty…

E. Wesley – Mackinac Center Intern

Who’s to blame?

Posted on by razma766
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Here’s a great letter to the editor by Don Boudreaux

Don
http://www.cafehayek.com/
http://marketcorrection.powerblogs.com/
………………………………….

17 November 2009

Editor, The Wall Street Journal
200 Liberty Street
New York, NY 10281

To the Editor:

John Micetich argues that “if we add up the bailouts to all financial firms, we’re well over $1 trillion, at least 10 times more than the Fred/Fan bailout. Therefore, let’s put most of the blame where it belongs: Wall Street investment houses and commercial banks voluntarily taking inordinate risk with shareholder money” (Letters, Nov. 17).

Let’s say that your brother Bob is pastor of a church.  You – a successful gangster – make it known to Bob that you stand ready to repay any of the church’s debts if ever Bob finds the church’s cash flow to be inadequate.

Whom would Mr. Micetich blame if Bob then launches ambitious construction projects to expand the size of the church, only later to find that his parishoners’contributions are too small to allow payment of the church’s debts?  Surely he won’t blame brother Bob, for Bob quite rationally relied upon your promise to backstop these debts.

The blame clearly is yours, which would be forgivable if your generosity were made manifest with money you earned honestly.  But because you forcibly confiscate money from others, the ultimate losers in this little tragedy are the persons whose wealth you seize – the persons whose seized wealth supports your gaudy lifestyle and your faux-generous promises to brother Bob.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030

Bought and paid for?

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Kurt Bouwhuis, Mackinac Center Intern

Dustin Anderson, a friend of mine, just submitted an excellent letter to the Midland Daily News:

To the editor:

    In a recent letter Susan Gessford stated, “If you are not bought and paid for by the insurance companies, you will agree with this and fight with me” (The only way, Sept. 29) in referencing the apparent need for single payer health care.

    I do not support single payer health care, so therefore I am bought and paid for by insurance industry? This is news to me. But by this logic it would appear that I am bought and paid for by the agriculture industry as I do not support a single payer meals program. I am bought and paid for by the apparel companies because I do not support a single payer clothing program. I surely must be bought and paid for by the home builders association since I do not support a single payer home program.

    In this debate, let us please stop with the ad hominems. Like any other good or service health care reacts to supply and demand. How is the demand for health care insurance any different?

    Instead what politicians have done is institute policies that have altered the supply and demand structure of this industry and have put into place barriers of entry that disallow people to come in and give care for cheaper (across state lines for example). If we wish to make health care cheaper, further distortions of supply and demand and creating a monopoly (read, further barriers to entry) is not the way toward real reform and cheaper health care.

DUSTIN ANDERSON

How little we know

Posted on by razma766
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Kurt Bouwhuis, Mackinac Center Intern

This is a fantastic piece by the always great Russ Roberts at Cafe Hayek.  It is barely over four pages and is definitely worth the read.

by Russ Roberts on November 12, 2009

in Financial Markets

Here is my take on financial reform at The Economists Voice. Other opinions by Posner, Richardson and Acharya, Hubbard , and Calomiris, here. My piece is very Hayekian as you might guess from the title.

Kids in a Candy Store

Posted on by razma766
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Here is a letter I recently sent to the Midland Daily News:

Dana Saxton is troubled by Granholm’s proposal to slash the agricultural extension program (Support Extension, November 12).  She lists several benefits, and concludes by stating: “We need to act now! If we don’t act, we will regret it for a long time… Don’t let this happen!  Support MSU and 4-H. Contact your government representatives now!”

Amongst the lofty benefits of the program, Dana fails to make even a single mention of the costs.  Lacking any idea of its cost, she then urges her readers to contact their representatives in support of the program.  This is akin to entrusting a child with his parent’s credit card at the local candy store.

Kurt Bouwhuis

Bryan Caplan on Education

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Kurt Bouwhuis, Mackinac Center Intern

Who should and shouldn’t go to college?

Bryan Caplan: There are two ways to read this question. One is: “Who gets a good financial and/or personal return from college?” My answer: people in the top 25 percent of academic ability who also have the work ethic to actually finish college. The other way to read this is: “For whom is college attendance socially beneficial?” My answer: no more than 5 percent of high-school graduates, because college is mostly what economists call a “signaling game.” Most college courses teach few useful job skills; their main function is to signal to employers that students are smart, hard-working, and conformist. The upshot: Going to college is a lot like standing up at a concert to see better. Selfishly speaking, it works, but from a social point of view, we shouldn’t encourage it.

How much does increasing college-going rates matter to our economy and society?

Caplan: College attendance, in my view, is usually a drain on our economy and society. Encouraging talented people to spend many years in wasteful status contests deprives the economy of millions of man-years of output. If this were really an “investment,” of course, it might be worth it. But I see little connection between the skills that students acquire in college and the skills they’ll need later in life.

Original link here