Meddling with Prices: Supports

Price supports involve the government increasing the price, above market equilibrium, and promising to buy up any extra. Obviously, producers make more, while consumers buy less, and the extra is either given away or otherwise wasted. In the meantime, money is taken from everyone as taxes and given to the producers. In the end, everyone loses except the producers (and the government employees who are paid to buy and waste the excess product).

Minimum wages are a bit different from other price supports. Rather than leading to excess production of labor, it leads to under-utilization of the labor supply, which shows up as unemployment. You might think that the government does not pay people not to work, but it does. There is unemployment insurance, disability, WIC and AFDC. While the recipients of these benefit somewhat, it is labor unions that benefit greatly. Union contracts do not set wages at $X per hour, but rather at "Minimum wage + $Y per hour." So the most recent round of minimum wage increases, from $5.15/hr to $7.25/hr over three years, has resulted in American labor unions getting a $2.10/hr raise, that they did not have to negotiate for.

The biggest losers when it comes to minimum wages are those who are not able to produce more than it costs to employ them. Examples include young blacks, who usually do not get as good an education as young whites; single mothers, who must have more flexibility in their work schedule; and the handicapped, for whom all manner of accomodations must be made, and who may not be able to do physical labor as well. Other losers include those who would otherwise hire these low-productivity workers. They have typically gotten their customers to take the place of such workers, by "offering" the "convenience" of self-service checkouts, drink refills, gasoline pumping and windshield cleaning. Another group that loses out because of minimum wages are those who would prefer to get paid with something other than cash -- minimum wages pretty much prohibit apprenticeship, as an example.

In this series:
Supply, Demand, and Price | Price Caps | Price Supports | Restricting Supply | Excises | Subsidies

Meddling With Prices: Caps

The government may set a price that is artificially low, that is, below what demand would currently cause. Richard Nixon did this, with gasoline, in response to the 1973 oil embargo. Because prices were low, there was no reason to make up for the drop in supply. Also, there was very little reason for people to try to conserve gasoline. The result was that demand greatly outstripped supply, leading to shortages. Then rationing was added, which imposed extra costs on buyer, seller, and the government. Gas lines were a fact of life throughout the 70s as a result of all this meddling. The winners were public officials who claimed "I DID something about the high price of gasoline," people who sold their extra gas rationing coupons, and gas station attendants who took bribes to let people buy when the rationing schemes were against them. The losers were everyone who waited in line for gasoline, and everyone who didn't make and sell more gasoline because the price wasn't high enough.

Rent controls do the same sort of thing. Supply is reduced, while demand is increased. The winners are politicians and people who live in rent-controlled housing. There is a long list of losers. First are the rent-controlled landlords, who cannot raise prices to deal with increases in their costs. Second are their tenants. Because their landlords are making little or no money, they often have to forgo ordinary maintenance and sometimes even vital repairs. Third are developers, who don't bother to develop new housing because the rents will be held below what they'd need to make their money back and a living. Fourth is the city, which doesn't get the property taxes from the properties the developers don't make. But the ones who suffer most are the people who cannot get a home. Some go homeless. Most go to live somewhere else. You get long lists of people waiting for homes instead of long lines waiting for gas, but the basic problems -- shortage and waiting -- are the same. And you get the other typical problem, which is essentially a black market. In the case of housing, this is a giant up-front fee charged by the landlord in order to finalize a lease.

In this series:
Supply, Demand, and Price | Price Caps | Price Supports | Restricting Supply | Excises | Subsidies

Obama's Gag Order

If there's anything that tells me ObamaCare is a really, really bad idea, it's this:

President Forbids Insurance Companies to Tell Their Customers What Changes ObamaCare Would Bring

EDIT:

Check out this article as well. The money quote:

As if to drive the point home, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a gag order this week telling all private companies participating in the Medicare Advantage program to shut up. Violators would face fines and jail time. Forget the First Amendment.

The gag order was issued after Humana Corp. sent a letter to its policyholders who participate in Medicare Advantage telling them the facts about Obamacare’s effect on the program. The companies were ordered “to end immediately all such mailings to beneficiaries and to remove any related materials directed to Medicare enrollees from your website.”

The bureaucrats added this blunt threat: “Please be advised that we take this matter very seriously and, based upon the findings of our investigation, will pursue compliance and enforcement actions. ….”

Those, my friends, are the words of soft tyranny. How much longer before it becomes a hard tyranny?

Reforms that increase liberty, freedom, choice, and options from the Cato Institute.

Supply, Demand, and Price

As a schoolboy, I was taught that demand has a direct relationship to price, and that supply has an inverse relationship to price. Chances are very good that you were taught the same. And it's important to know how supply and demand affect price, but that is very far from being the whole story. Price affects supply and demand, as well.

The Laws of Supply, Demand, and Price

• Increases in supply cause downward pressure on price.
• Decreases in supply cause upward pressure on price.
• Increases in demand cause upward pressure on price.
• Decreases in demand cause downward pressure on price.
• Increases in price tend to attract more resources to production.
• Decreases in price tend to divert resources away from production.
• Increases in price tend to reduce demand.
• Decreases in price tend to stimulate demand.

When supply, demand, production, and price are all allowed to affect each other naturally, there is a constant trend towards equilibrium in all of them. Then, the things we want most are taken care of first, and as inexpensively as possible. Almost everything that is produced is bought and used.

This is the core of the free market system. Prices are allowed to move freely, so people know what use of their resources will bring them the most money. And, all other things being equal, that is what they do. It all works really well until somebody (that is, the government) starts meddling with prices.

EDIT: this really was too much to do at once. I have decided to break the giant wall of text into several posts.

In this series:
Supply, Demand, and Price | Price Caps | Price Supports | Restricting Supply | Excises | Subsidies

Health Care Reform

I believe that the health care reforms being suggested are very, very bad. I have formed a deep and powerful mistrust of any government-run institution. For starters, there's Papa Ben's blanket statement that a bureaucracy cannot provide what is most needed, which is love. Further:

"Bureaucratic Rule of Two: Removal of an activity from the private to the public sector will double its unit cost of production." -- Thomas Borcherding, BUDGETS AND BUREAUCRATS: THE SOURCES OF GOVERNMENT GROWTH

I found this article thanks to a combox post over on Father Longenecker's blog. The author, David Goldhill, does an excellent job of explaining why our health care system is so dysfunctional.

A synopsis, if you think it's too long to read, boils down to the King of Id's Golden Rule: Who has the gold, makes the rules. We are not the ones who provide the gold, so we do not make the rules. Medicare, Medicaid, your HMO, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and other insurers are the ones who make the rules. And they make those rules, whether they mean to or not, to benefit themselves. Any benefit we receive is almost an accidental by-product.

I may not agree completely with Goldhill's proposed solutions; I have not yet given them enough thought. But I think he has his pinpointed the systemic root of the problems that most strongly draw our attention.

Global Warming and the Culture of Death

I've said before that anthropogenic global warming is touted primarily to increase the power of the government, by and for the culture of death. Chuck Colson seems to agree:

As I have said before on BreakPoint, for this kind of environmentalism, the problem is people. “Nature” can only thrive if human beings are diminished. It’s why a new study by the London School of Economics, revealingly entitled “Fewer Emitters, Lower Emissions, Less Cost,” concludes that contraception is the most cost-effective way to reduce global warming.

Pray for Reform

via Catholic Exchange.

Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life has asked that we pray that health care reform actually support human dignity, rather than being an offense against it. See this page on the Priests for Life site; in addition to praying for health care reform, you can offer up your rosaries for the conversion of President Obama. If you use facebook (I don't), you can also use the Facebook Page of his cause.

Obama's Health Care "Reform"

Everything that needs to be said about what we will get if this abomination becomes law has been said here. I'm going to include the headlines from Britain, which has long had the sort of health care that President Obama proposes. Just replace NHS or NICE with HHS, and you'll get the idea.

• Cancer doctors do not tell patients about drugs which could prolong lives


• Patients forced to live in agony after NHS refuses to pay for painkilling injections


• A million failed asylum seekers (illegal immigrants) will get free NHS care in human rights U-turn


• Ruling "denies treatment to 100,000 Alzheimer's patients"


• Transsexuals win right to sex swap on NHS


• Patients risk going blind as NHS refuses treatment


• NHS targets 'may have lead to 1,200 deaths' in Mid-Staffordshire


• Patients with suspected cancer forced to wait so NHS targets can be hit


• Hospital chairman quits over dangerous targets


• Patients forced to wait hours in ambulances parked outside A&E departments


• NICE could deny drugs to stomach patients


• NHS staff face the sack if they discuss religion with patients


• 11 serious errors a day in NHS surgery


• War hero refused treatment by NHS


• Cancer patient Linda O'Boyle dies after NHS ends free care over "top up"


• Drug addicts get priority access to swine flu vaccine


• Row as terminally ill woman given bed in hospital bathroom


• NHS staff "no longer asked if they would be treated in own hospital"


• Beat the NHS queue with a medical trip to Malaysia

These headlines are the tip of the iceberg. There are hundreds more just like them with very real people and very real lives behind each.

Make no mistake: If we don’t sink this Obamacare Titanic before it sets sail, we become the headline.

We needn't speculate. History is our crystal ball.

Also, some quotes regarding the nature of all legislative "reforms":

"The reformers say you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. But it's always someone else's eggs that get broken -- not the reformers'. And somehow the omelet never materializes." -- Harry Browne, LP Presidential Candidate in 1996 and 2000

Every attempt to add amendments that would require Congress and/or Federal employees to use the same system as is implemented by these bills has been defeated.

Dupont's Laws of Legislation:

Three: The titles of bills are often have little to nothing to do with their content.

Corollaries:

1. When the bill's title contains "emergency," it is often in the writer's imagination.
2. When the bill's title contains "reform," it is often to protect a vested interest.
3. When the bill's title contains "service," it is often self-serving.
4. When the bill's title contains "relief," it is often an additional burden on the taxpayer.
5. When the bill's title contains "special," it is usually something that shouldn't (and otherwise wouldn't) pass.

Four: Sometimes the best law is no law at all. Not all ills are susceptible to correction by legislation.

Have I made it clear, yet, that I consider the proposals currently being considered in Congress would make very, very, very bad laws?

On the Reality of Gun Control

found this series of forum threads over at Art of Manliness:

Confessions of an AntiGunner, Part 1
Confessions of an AntiGunner, Part 2
Confessions of an AntiGunner, Part 3
Confessions of an AntiGunner, Part 4

I recommend them to all.

Cap and Trade

From Catholic Exchange, a remarkably simple and useful explanation of Cap and Trade. The real kicker line, in my opinion, is this:

Indeed, from an economic standpoint, the C&T bill should be titled the “Raise the Cost of Living and Ship Jobs Overseas Act of 2009.”

More Blogrollin'

I may not have made this clear, but The Art of Manliness is a blog. Brett McKay recently posted a video that I've just found:



Proper use of knots is a very handy skill, and I am very grateful for the knowledge imparted to me in my youth. I grew up sailing. I had the idea that I knew all about knots -- how to tie them, and what each was used for. And, indeed, my knowledge is on par with many Cub Scouts. But the Taut Line and Sheet Bend are new to me. I sort of knew about the clove hitch, but it had never been properly explained before. The other four knots are the square, the two half hitch, the bowline, and the figure eight.

I urge you to get some line and practice any of these that are not familiar to you.

Independence Day

Declaration of Independence

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.— That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. ...

Read the entire document from link #10 on this page. Print a copy and read it at your family's celebrations.

Salute goes to Chuck Colson.

Gay Adoption

Here's something our Cultural Elites will bury as deeply as they can, because it reveals how powerfully they are bound and allied to the Culture of Death. Don't read it unless you have a strong stomach.

Our cultural and political elites serve Moloch. This is just another example of them sacrificing children to the Culture of Death. Allowing homosexuals to adopt children is one more stream of children being led to the altar.

More Blogrollin'

I need to mention a couple more blogs: Dr. Sanity, who documents psychological defense mechanisms at work in the media (something to pay attention to; it's worthless to debate somebody in the throes of narcissistic rage or an affect storm, and so very valuable to recognize those conditions), and neo-neocon, whose series, "A Mind is a Difficult Thing to Change," has absolutely riveted me.

More Blogrollin'

I wandered through Anita Moore's V for Victory blog today; it's one I like but do not frequently read. She linked to a post about Life In Hell.

The similarities to Matt Groenig's indie comic strip are sobering. I'm glad I stopped seeing it after I left university.

The Wrath of Khan

For those who forget, Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan is the one where Spock dies. His dying words:

"The Needs of the Many Outweigh The Needs of the Few, Or the One."

That's collectivism in a nutshell, isn't it? But where does it lead us?

We, the many, need health care. Doesn't our need for healthcare outweigh the needs of the few who provide it? Doesn't that mean we should be able to force them to give it to us?

We, the many, need education for our children. Doesn't our need for their education outweigh the needs of the few who provide it? So shouldn't we be able to force them to give it to us?

And the same goes for shelter, food, and clothing, doesn't it? Don't the needs of the many who need these things outweigh the needs of the few who make them? Isn't it immoral for them to deny us what we so patently need, just in order to survive?

For each need that we decide to live this way, we're going to find a bunch of the providers will go into some other line of work where they aren't forced into servitude. And the remainder will get horribly squeezed and overworked, so that there isn't enough to go around. And then the government will start rationing to us the things we need, and whether we get what we need will no longer be in our hands. It will instead be in the hands of the few who have political power. And it is just sinful human nature that they will serve their needs first and leave us only with what they don't want or can't get away with keeping for themselves.

A man who went by the internet handle of Bear once said something on this which I think is very pertinent:

"As an ethical individual, I may decide to yield my rights for the good of the majority, but that decision should be mine, not the majority's."

The Global Warming Hoax

from Catholic Exchange:

And how do you propose to regulate the earth’s temperature when as much as 3/4 of the variability is due to variations in solar activity, with the remaining 1/4 due to changes in the earth’s orbit, axis, and albedo (reflectivity)? This truly is “mission impossible.” Mankind can no more regulate earth’s temperature than the tides.

Even if the “greenhouse effect” were greater than it actually is, the EPA and Congress would be powerless to alter it for several reasons:

1. Human activity (according to NASA data) accounts for less than 4 percent of global CO2 emissions.

2. CO2 itself accounts for only 10 or 20 percent of the greenhouse effect. (This discloses the capricious nature of EPA’s decision to classify CO2 as a pollutant, for if CO2 is a pollutant because it is a greenhouse gas, then the most common greenhouse gas of all—water vapor, which accounts for almost 3/4 of the atmosphere’s greenhouse effect—should be regulated, too. The EPA isn’t going after water vapor, of course, because then everyone would realize how absurd climate-control regulation really is.)

3. Even if Americans were to eliminate their CO2 emissions completely, total human emissions of CO2 would still increase as billions of people around the world continue to develop economically.

The actual motivation behind the global warming scare is power, pure and simple. If one can demand that energy production be reduced, one can, in essence, demand that those of us who are not poor become so, and that the poor die earlier and more frequently.

In other words, it is the culture of death, all over again.

George Tiller

May God, the Infinitely Merciful, have mercy on his soul, and grant him salvation, if he was not too prideful to accept it.

The Western Confucian has the very finest analysis of what is important about Tiller's death I have seen yet:

Pro-life leaders are already falling over themselves to exclaim, “We are peaceful! We deplore this violence!”

Of course we are peaceful; that is why this horrific shooting in a church has immediately garnered national attention. It is precisely because we are peaceful that Dr. Tiller’s killing sticks out like a huge wart on an otherwise flawless complexion. If abortionists were gunned down every week, it would gather no more attention than crack dealers who are gunned down every week by fellow drug dealers.

Another Abuse Scandal

From the New York Times. Salute to Catholic Analysis. All emphasis is my own.

It exposes for the first time the scope of the problem in Ireland, as well as how the government and the church colluded in perpetuating an abusive system. The revelations have also had the effect of stripping the Catholic Church, which once set the agenda in Ireland, of much of its moral authority and political power.

The report singles out Ireland’s Department of Education, meant to regulate the schools, for running “toothless” inspections that overlooked glaring problems and deferred to church authority.

The report is based in part on old church records of unreported abuse cases and in part on the anonymous testimony of 1,060 former students from a variety of 216 mostly church-run institutions, including reformatories and so-called industrial schools, set up to tend to neglected, orphaned or abandoned children.

Most of the former students are now 50 to 80 years old.

Some 30,000 children were sent to such places over six decades, the report says, often against their families’ wishes and because of pressure from powerful local priests. They were sent because their families could not afford to care for them, because their mothers had committed adultery or given birth out of wedlock, or because one or both of their parents was ill, drunken or abusive. They were also sent because of petty crime, like stealing food, or because they had missed school.

Many of the former students said that they had not learned their own identities until decades later. They also said that their parents had unsuccessfully tried to reclaim them from the state.

The problem I see here, that the Times reporter does not, is this: that government and Church collaborated. I've said before that the Establishment Clause of the Constitution is far less to protect us from theocracy than it is to protect the independence of the Church from the State. Christ's power is made perfect in weakness. It's appropriate for the Church to protect her doctrines and conscience from the State as much as she can. But that sort of political power is a far, far thing from seeking the state's favors, and I can readily believe that these workhouses, orphanages and reformatories got money from the government in return for keeping children.

This sort of abuse, particularly the sexual element of it, makes Theology of the Body ever more important. I find myself in agreement with those who claim it is the neccessary and moral response to both Victorian repression and the libertinism of the so-called "sexual revolution."

More on Hatred

It's not enough to note that Carrie Prejean is now better-known than she would have been as Miss America; she also has new opportunities. She can be one of the foremost spokesmen for Defense of Marriage Activists worldwide, probably for as long as she likes, particularly given how charitable she has been in her response to Mr. Hilton. Solid formation on the Church's doctrines regarding same-sex attraction can only help, as they are far more nuanced and compassionate than the Church is ever given credit for being.