Winston Churchill suggests two ways to drive down an economy: “We contend that for a nation to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.” and “If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for Read more…
Did you know that in the 1930s raisin producers had to give a portion of their harvest to the government with the feds deciding what portion of the crop every producer had to turn over and what price they would get?
Neither did I.
Did you know that program is still in place today, 80 some odd years later?
Neither did I.
Did you know that in the 2002-2003 season (more…)
A: Yes.
How the Taxman Cleared the Dance Floor in the Wall Street Journal explains a 30% excise tax on any venue that served food and had dancing did in two-thirds of the very popular dance clubs. Passed in 1944, the so-called ‘cabaret tax’ was intended to hit those filthy rich people who dined and danced in fancy places.
Eric Felton explains shortly after the tax was passed, the Bureau of Internal Revenue provided a very broad definition of what places the tax applied. It covered anyplace that served food and dancing with live singing. Those were an extremely popular form of entertainment during and after WWII.
The entire industry of dining and dancing was devastated: (more…)
The sinking of the Titanic is usually blamed on that careless, horrible Captain Smith and the greedy capitalist shipowner who didn’t want the expense or inconvenience or clutter of enough lifeboats. Rarely discussed is the role of the regulators in the tragedy.
Chris Berg points out in his Wall Street Journal article a year ago, The Real Reason for the Tragedy of the Titanic, that the regulators, the British Board of Trade, required all boats over 10,000 metric tons to have 16 lifeboats. It didn’t matter how many passengers were on board. Just put 16 lifeboats on.
Was the Titanic in compliance? Yes. (more…)
In North Carolina it is.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5EixDJ25Lc&feature=player_embedded]
When a government picks one industry over another and gives the favored one special treatment, it is called Crony Capitalism.
That is the same description used when a government goes after one industry for breaking the law and turns a blind eye to another industry doing the same thing.
That is exactly what federal policy the California AG are doing about migratory birds and protected raptors that are killed by the so-called ‘clean energy’ industry.
…check out the wisdom of politicians and regulators evidenced before the last crisis.
(cross-posted from my other blog, Outrun Change.)
Read The Housing Bubble and the Limits of Human Knowledge , by Alex Pollock.
The fallacy in play today is that the regulators who didn’t see our current financial crisis coming (or helped facilitate it) are now wise & bright enough that they will be able to detect any future crisis far enough in advance to prevent them. It’s quite obvious that is the operating concept driving laws and regulations for several years now.
John Cochrane makes this point in his article Limited clairvoyance: (more…)
That’s the title of an article from AgainstCronyCapitalism.org – We Need More Capitalism, Not Less. More Freedom. Not Less.
From the article:
Never forget, the financial crisis which we are suffering through is not the creation of capitalism. It is not the creation of a free market. It isn’t because businessmen were too free in their dealings that everything fell apart the way it did.
The financial crisis was and is a failure of central planning.