Tag Archives: incentives

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

The Ultimate Chain Letter

Posted on by razma766
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Kurt Bouwhuis, Mackinac Center Intern

Here is a great essay that is a bit more lengthy than most of my posts that is definately worth your time to read!

By: Russ Roberts

The other day I had to get some important tax receipts to my accountant. He’s in St. Louis, it was getting close to April 15, and it was very important that the papers didn’t get lost. To give my accountant plenty of time, I wanted the papers to arrive the next morning.

So what did I do? My first choice was to get on a plane and deliver the letter myself. Too expensive. Too much time.

So I did the next best thing. I went down to the airport and found someone headed to St. Louis. I told her how important it was for my accountant to have my receipts by the next day. Fortunately, she seemed really nice. She said she’d be happy to help me out. I sealed up the envelope, and she promised not to open it after I left.

I guess I’m naive. I know it was foolish to trust a stranger with something so important, but she seemed very honest. She smiled a lot, but I suppose a good thief could learn to do that.

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This is Spectacular

Posted on by razma766
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These are the concluding paragraphs of Bill’s op-ed in the Washington Times.  Enjoy!

“The truth is: It is not government’s function to create jobs. Putting people to work is easy, as demonstrated by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Depression-era Works Progress Administration (WPA), more accurately known as “WPA: We Piddle Around.” The bigger challenge is to create wealth. Toyota failed to foresee the economic events that caused its expansion plans to unravel.

Keep this in mind when Congress and the White House are selecting economic stimulus projects to fund this year. If highly successful private firms like Toyota – with their extraordinary market research and years of savvy and experience – sometimes embark on projects that turn sour, how can we expect politicians, most of whom have no such business know-how, to pick winners? There is a difference, however. Companies usually risk their own money. In Washington, the politicians will be risking ours.” – Bill Shughart


Full op-ed here

Want world peace? Support free trade.

Posted on by wfreeland
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William Freeland, Mackinac Center Intern

An outstanding article on the pacifying effect of trade by Donald Boudreaux  of George Mason Univerity and Cafe Hayek blogger. This from the November 20, 2006 edition of the Christian Science Monitor.

(Cross-Posted at Michigan SFE Blog)

By Donald J. Boudreaux 
FAIRFAX, VA.

Everyone knows that a key to the Democrats’big electoral win was their opposition to the Iraq war. But also, as the Wall Street Journal reported recently, “Democrats’stances against free trade helped build the party’s success at the polls and could tip the balance on trade matters. The new dynamic could put a definitive end to the already troubled effort to reach a global agreement to reduce tariffs and open markets….”

Protectionists (of whatever party) believe that consumers who buy goods and services from foreigners cause domestic employment – and wages – to fall. Economists since before Adam Smith have shown that this belief is mistaken, largely because foreigners sell things to us only because they either want to buy things from us or invest in our economy.

These activities employ workers here at home and raise their wages. Mountains of empirical evidence show that protectionism is economically destructive. The facts also show that protectionism is inconsistent with a desire for peace – a desire admirably expressed by many Democrats during the recent campaigns.

Back in 1748, Baron de Montesquieu observed that “Peace is the natural effect of trade. Two nations who differ with each other become reciprocally dependent; for if one has an interest in buying, the other has an interest in selling; and thus their union is founded on their mutual necessities.”

If Mr. Montesquieu is correct that trade promotes peace, then protectionism – a retreat from open trade – raises the chances of war.

Plenty of empirical evidence confirms the wisdom of Montesquieu’s insight: Trade does indeed promote peace.

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I Reject Your Notion of “Self-Interest”

Posted on by hkmead
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-Hannah Mead, MCPP intern, 2008

One awesome thing about the blogosphere is how courteous bloggers are. I’m not talking about posts or comments — these can of course get nasty. But the proliferation of such kind behavior as citing HTs, putting (pdf) after a link and giving spoiler warnings is pretty universal. And it’s pretty nice.

Do bloggers do this simply because they want more readers and so want to be as reader-friendly as possible? Maybe, but I doubt this is the sum of it. Because of peer pressure? Probably not, since that pressure would simply be in the form of losing readership. Do they include these courtesies because they consider readers to be part of their own community and so extend kindness to them? Perhaps — it’s either this or the last option: Because they themselves have suffered the intense frustrating of unknowingly clicking on a pdf link and waiting forever for Acrobat to open, and so want to spare everyone that pain?

I think the last two are the most plausible — which means bloggers are not acting in what some people would claim is their self-interest, since the poster does not stand to personally benefit from these courtesies.  Though some consider this to be irrational action, I think it’s perfectly reasonable. After all, “It’s nice to be nice.”

This brings me to the ultimate point: The concept of self-interest is of limited usefulness — it either dismisses genuine altruism or inherently encompasses all human action. Nice people are either irrational, manipulative, guilty or simply caring. I reject the first two outright. And though many have insisted that my altruism is motivated by a sense of guilt, I know that it’s not. Which leaves the last option. Most people like to do some nice things for themselves and some things for others — this is, I am sometimes told, in their “self-interest” since they like to do so. Which would mean self-interest is completely tautological: Anything I do is by definition in my self-interest. So where does that get us?

Deposit on Water Bottles in MI’s Future?

Posted on by lmruhland
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Possibly, if the Michigan United Conservation Clubs have anything to say about it.

“The same group that pushed for Michigan to become the first state to require deposits on pop bottles wants to expand the law to add deposits to water bottles, and they hope to get it done by the end of the month.

“The Michigan United Conservation Clubs kicked off an initiative today to convince the legislature to add a 10-cent deposit for water bottles. More than 1.1 billion were thrown away in Michigan in 2005, according to the container Recycling Institute.”

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