John Stossel had a great episode last week on government licensed professions. Here is a short segment from the show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4T1YeG_qiE

OK, so the typical statist argument goes, “Do you want your butcher to perform surgery on you?”. Well, maybe. It depends. How many successful operations has he performed in the past? What’s his success rate? How does that compare to his competitor or a certified doctor? This argument that they lay out assumes that we are all driveling idiots, and the government in it’s infinite wisdom is here to protect us. Without the state, we’d hand a knife over to anyone to cut us open.

Professions without government licensing would operate no different than they do with licensing, except they’d have more competition and waste less time, money and energy on stupid government regulations. Ultimately, that would lead to better prices for consumers and more options.

So, what do you do now when you look for say a licensed real estate agent? Do you just go up to some stranger and say “Here’s my keys. Go sell my house.” Of course not, you ask around to people you trust asking who they recommend. Then you may look online to see if they have reviews. A perfect example is Angieslist. I just had my carpets cleaned. Did I just grab a phone book and call a random number to clean my carpets? No, I checked Angieslist, read reviews, and called for a price from those who had the best reviews. This would be no different with any profession, including doctors.

The truth is professions do like to keep out competitors. They don’t want you having the freedom to ask your neighbor who wired up his house himself to help you wire up yours. You must be forced into calling a licensed electrician. Then you must call an inspector to certify your job. Why can’t you use your neighbor? After all, it’s a free country right? Why can’t you call an inspector only if you want to make sure the electrician did his job right. This should be voluntary. Yes, you may sell your house, but the buyer should then pay an inspector to make sure they aren’t buying  a house with electrical problems. This too should be voluntary.

Now, I have nothing against voluntary associations and certifications. If doctors, attorneys or electricians what to set themselves apart from their competition, I have no problem with them forming an association and certifications. Those tell the consumer that they have gone through more training, and they are approved by the association. This is good information, but it should be voluntary. I should be able to choose between someone not a member of the association, who may not have had all the rigorous training but may be cheaper, or the certified member of an association, who I know has gone through a specific training program. I work in computers and this is how it works in our field. I don’t need to be a licensed IT consultant, but if I want to separate myself and increase my opportunities of employment, I go through certain certifications for my area of expertise. This tells potential employers that I’ve gone through certain training and was able to pass the tests that go with it. I’ve demonstrated a certain amount of knowledge. This should be the same of all professions.

The truth is there is not need for licensing. It’s just another way for governments to take you freedom and to prevent competition.

While our government constantly preaches to the Chinese government about freedom of the internet, they are quietly attempting to get control of it themselves.

The president would have the power to safeguard essential federal and private Web resources under draft Senate cybersecurity legislation.

Federal is fine, but what gives the president power over “private Web resources”? This is how they sneak in the ability to take over the internet as a whole. Essential federal and private Web resources pretty much covers everything.

According to an aide familiar with the proposal, the bill includes a mandate for federal agencies to prepare emergency response plans in the event of a massive, nationwide cyberattack.

The president would then have the ability to initiate those network contingency plans to ensure key federal or private services did not go offline during a cyberattack of unprecedented scope, the aide said.

Does anyone have confidence that the government can even pull this off?

Their renewed focus arrives on the heels of two, high-profile cyberattacks last month: A strike on Google, believed to have originated in China, and a separate, more disjointed attack that affected thousands of businesses worldwide.

Rockefeller and Snowe’s forthcoming bill would establish a host of heretofore absent cybersecurity prevention and response measures, an aide close to the process said. The bill will “significantly [raise] the profile of cybersecurity within the federal government,” while incentivizing private companies to do the same, according to the aide.

Oh boy, any time you read “incentivizing” you can pretty much get ready to be robbed. Businesses already have incentives to guard against cyber attacks. Unlike government they are accountable to the bottom line. If the chance of an attack would cost them more than the cost of safe-guarding against an attack, they will take the actions needed. They don’t need government to stick a gun to their head forcing them to do it.

Additionally, it will “promote public awareness” of Internet security issues, while outlining key protections of Americans’ civil liberties on the Web, the aide continued.

Good luck on the civil liberties. The last thing the government cares about is civil liberties.

Privacy groups are nonetheless likely to take some umbrage at Rockefeller and Snowe’s latest effort, an early draft of which leaked late last year.

When early reports predicted the cybersecurity measure would allow the president to “declare a cybersecurity emergency,” online privacy groups said they felt that would endow the White House with overly ambiguous and far-reaching powers to regulate the Internet.

It is unclear when Rockefeller and Snowe will finish their legislation. And the ongoing debate over healthcare reform, financial regulatory reform, jobs bills and education fixes could postpone action on the floor for many months.

I’d say let’s hope it never reaches the floor, but considering the other bills before it, I’m not sure it would be much worse.

Both lawmakers heavily emphasized the need for such a bill during a Senate Commerce Committee cybersecurity hearing on Wednesday.

“Too much is at stake for us to pretend that today’s outdated cybersecurity policies are up to the task of protecting our nation and economic infrastructure,” Rockefeller said. “We have to do better and that means it will take a level of coordination and sophistication to outmatch our adversaries and minimize this enormous threat.”

via Cybersecurity bill to give president new emergency powers – The Hill’s Hillicon Valley.

The only cybersecurity policies that might be outdated are the ones guarding federal computers. That is just more proof of the idiocy of government. Private enterprises on the other hand are not outdated and the highly sensitive businesses take it upon themselves to hire the experts needed and purchase the systems needed to properly security their networks.

As far as government goes, if this truly is just to secure the federal computers under a cyberattack, why do we even need legislation? Shouldn’t the government already be taking action on their own networks through current budgets? I’m sure we don’t require separate legislation to secure our military arsenals. That security is already part of the military arsenal budget itself. Also, wouldn’t the President already have power to declare an emergency over the federal networks?

It would appear that the President and the government already have all the power that they need…well unless they want the power to take control of the entire internet. Let’s not sugar coat this as The Hill and the Senators trying to pass this bill are. The government is pushing legislation for one thing only. They are pushing it to get control over “private Web resources”, the very resources that are already secured by private businesses themselves.

The government cannot be trusted with a power like this. They want to “secure” the internet to make sure if there is ever a challenge to their power from the people, they could cut off communication between those people. It is not to protect us from the boogieman overseas as they always claim it to be. It is to prevent us from ever challenging our government.

Interesting that this would show up just days after my privatizing 911 post. If you watch the video or even if you read the post at Hot Air, everyone seems to think this has to be a government service that is provided for “free”.  Of course the news piece focuses on a retired gentlemen who is on a fixed income, because he probably depends on another crappy government program, social security.

My guess would be that the city is doing this knowing that people will be up an arms. There are probably 100s of other places to cut, but those are probably places voters don’t care about. They need the voters to get up in arms to raise taxes or to get the federal government to cough up more money. Ultimately though, this probably isn’t a bad idea. It shows people that government really does have a cost. Imagine if you had to pay one time fees for all government services. How quickly would the waste be  drained out of the system?

Saying that people shouldn’t or can’t pay $300 for a 911 call, which is probably used to save someone’s life, should tell us how bad our country has become. Who in their right mind wouldn’t spend $300 to save their life or someone else’s life? My only question would be why aren’t they having private sector companies competing for this business. If they are going to make people pay, at least let them have service from people who care about their jobs and a business who cares about their customers.

If we are ever as a nation are going to get back to the free market and back to any semblance of what the founders envisioned, we must realize that nothing the government “gives” us is free, and nothing the government does is more efficient than what the free market can deliver.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmDH8UzgnZ4

via Hot Air.

Well, it looks like private roads are going to be an ongoing brain fart here. You can read previous posts on the subject here and here.  Almost every time I get in the car and deal with the frustrations of driving, I can’t help to wonder what private roads would be like.

Yesterday, we were coming to a light by our house, and I usually go straight through the light and avoid the main road, because the main road always has traffic backed up. Of course, there are signs now on the road I normally take saying the road will be closed beginning next week. This is all too typical where I live. Of course, there is no incentive for permanently fixing roads. That would cost government jobs and union votes.

Anyway, of course with my recent posts on private roads, I had to ask myself would this be treated differently with private roads? To delve into this question, let’s just say the roads are toll roads, since that is the what most people think of when it comes to private roads. Now if all roads were toll roads, it would be crazy to think there would be actual toll booths. People would take ages to get anywhere. So, for sake of discussion, we are going to assume there is some type of monitoring technology using either GPS or radio frequency for the toll road charges.

Now, if you are a company who operates the toll roads, do you want your roads closed? This road that I take to save time would not be making the owner money if he closed it for repairs. Maybe he owns the main road too. That is my other option, but he would still end up losing business because people may reroute completely considering they avoided the main road in the first place before additional traffic was put on it.

Maybe a competitor sees an area along the main road that would be better suited for traffic than the road that is closing down temporarily. Wouldn’t this be a great time to open a new road and get a boost in initial business from the drivers that normally took the closed road. Maybe those drivers never go back to the previous road when it re-opens, and you are not able to compete.

What I am getting at here is the profit motive would drive business to minimize the inconvenience on drivers. It also might entice a smaller outfit to get in the business of building side roads to capitalize on the drivers who want to avoid the traffic of main roads.

Another issue that drives me nuts around my house is they have torn up the main road to lay fiber (I believe that’s what it was), and they half assed the filling in. The road feels like you are out four wheeling. Now, if your business depended on tolls, would you let your road be like that? How many people, who take care of their cars, avoid that road, and how much money would be lost if that road was private?

OK. Second thing that prompted random thoughts about private roads was Popular Science magazine. We went to the in-laws house for lunch, and I took my magazines to catch up on reading them. What the heck, right? So, the one article is about how to renovate America’s infrastructure. The article talks about all these new technologies for roads, bridges, etc. You can read it here. There is some very cool technology such as cars reporting potholes, self healing roads, and roads the de-ice themselves (would be huge right now where I live).

So, we already spend a fortune under the government system, and we never get new technology. If you had self-healing roads and roads that de-ice themselves, you’d lose union jobs. So, it would appear that all these technologies would find their way into our road systems much faster under a private road system, because they would increase profits and improve a road operators competitive advantage.

Also, the chances that it would take new technology this long to be developed and implemented would be slim to none. Technology of road systems would constantly be updating and changing. I could see private interstates partnering with carriers to market their roads as having the best cellular access for your long trips. There is no doubt there would be private road operators and other service companies partnering up to make your driving experience better.

As I said, these were just some ideas that came to mind while out driving this weekend. I’m sure I’ll have more as time goes on.

I don’t think I’ve shaken my head as much reading an article as I have reading this Wall Street Journal article. I literally almost had to stop reading, thinking of all the busybodies who think their big ideas should be imposed through “incentives” and ultimately at gun point.

This spring, city contractors will fan out across this well-to-do college town to unscrew light bulbs in thousands of homes and replace them with more energy-efficient models, at taxpayer expense.

City officials never dreamed they’d have to play nanny when they set out in 2006 to make Boulder a role model in the fight against global warming. The cause seemed like a natural fit in a place where residents tend to be politically liberal and passionate about the great outdoors.

Instead, as Congress considers how to encourage Americans to conserve more energy, Boulder stands as a cautionary tale about the limits of good intentions.

Lol, “City officials never dreamed they’d have to play nanny….”. Isn’t setting out to be a role model being a nanny in the first place? You are trying to force all your citizens to abide by some vision that they would not have otherwise chosen for themselves.

Also, I’d love to know what the carbon footprint of all these city contractors fanning out to unscrew light bulbs is compared to the light bulbs they are unscrewing. If it’s like any other liberal idea, it’s probably worse.

“What we’ve found is that for the vast majority of people, it’s exceedingly difficult to get them to do much of anything,” says Kevin Doran, a senior research fellow at the University of Colorado at Boulder. ….

But Boulder has found that financial incentives and an intense publicity campaign aren’t enough to spur most homeowners to action, even in a city so environmentally conscious that the college football stadium won’t sell potato chips because the packaging isn’t recyclable.

Can someone tell Mr. Doran that free people will do what is in their best interest based on what they believe is in their best interest. The government doesn’t need to “get them to do” anything.

You have to love the logic here. I can just see the bureaucrats now, “How can we not get our vision implemented? I mean I told the vendors we can’t sell potato chips because of the packaging. You would think with people accepting that, they would open their wallets and doors up to contractors so we can be a role model. Now how are we going to get ourselves on the news and get Obama to talk about us?”

Since 2006, Boulder has subsidized about 750 home energy audits. Even after the subsidy, the audits cost each homeowner up to $200, so only the most committed signed up. Still, follow-up surveys found half didn’t implement even the simplest recommendations, despite incentives such as discounts on energy-efficient bulbs and rebates for attic insulation.

About 75 businesses got free audits; they made so few changes that they collectively saved just one-fifth of the energy auditors estimated they were wasting.

Hey, you didn’t waste enough money yet. Let’s waste some more. How about we give free light bulbs and labor to change them at tax payer expense. Then when we followup and we find that people bought cheaper, less efficient bulbs to replace our free bulbs, we’ll sit around and postulate how we can force them to buy only our green bulbs. Maybe you can have a green inspector stop buy once a month to check!

“We still have a long way to go,” says Paul Sheldon, a consultant who advises the city on conservation. Residents “should be driving high-efficiency vehicles, and they’re not. They should be carpooling, and they’re not.” And yes, he adds, they should be changing their own light bulbs—and they’re not.

Eh boy. Paul Sheldon must have been endowed by our creator to decide what we all should be doing. Darn idiots in Boulder should listen to Paul Sheldon. I’m sure he has a degree in government planning or at least saw “An Inconvenient Truth”.

In 2006, Boulder voters approved the nation’s first “carbon tax,” now $21 a year per household, to fund energy-conservation programs. The city took out print ads, bought radio time, sent email alerts and promoted the campaign in city newsletters.

But Boulder’s carbon emissions edged down less than 1% from 2006 through 2008, the most recent data available.

By the end of 2008, emissions here were 27% higher than 1990 levels. That’s a worse showing than the U.S. as a whole, where emissions rose 15% during that period, according to the Department of Energy.

More proof of Quinn’s first law, that liberalism always generates the exact opposite of it’s stated intent. While Quinn says liberalism, I think you can pretty much apply it to all government action. After wasting all that money, they did worse than the rest of the US.

In Freakonomics, the author talks about how parents were routinely a little late picking their kids up from a day care. In order to discourage this, the day care implemented a small fine (forget the exact amount). After the fine was implemented, tardiness by parents increased substantially. The moral of the story was that parents assumed by paying the fine, they were paying for the service, so they did not see a problem with being late. This is probably the same thing in Boulder. In pursuit of being a role model and being the first to tax their citizens for living (carbon tax), their citizens probably assumed that because they were paying their tax, they were already doing their part. Why change your behavior. By the looks of it, they even increased their carbon output assuming they were offsetting it with their carbon tax.

OK, here it comes. Here comes the gun!

City officials are frustrated—and contemplating more forceful steps. (Here it is!)

The City Council will soon consider mandating (Here it is again!) energy-efficiency upgrades to many apartments and businesses. The proposals under review would be among the most aggressive in the nation, requiring up to $4,000 a rental unit in new appliances, windows and other improvements. Owners of commercial property could face far larger tabs.

The goal: to spur $650 million in private investment in efficiencies over the next three years. (Sounds so nice doesn’t it?)

“Everyone needs to do something,” says Councilman Matthew Appelbaum.

I’m not sure if I can make it through this post. Reading this article the second time is torture. Ok, I’ll keep going. So what is there solution?

In the program, dubbed “Two Techs in a Truck,” as many as 15 energy-efficiency teams will go door-to-door. They’ll ask home and business owners for permission to caulk windows, change bulbs and install low-flow showerheads and programmable thermostats—all at taxpayer expense. The techs will set up clothes racks in laundry rooms as a reminder to use the dryer less often. They’ll even pop into the garage and inflate tires to the optimum pressure for fuel efficiency.

If they spot the need for bigger projects, such as insulation or a new furnace, the techs will help homeowners make appointments and apply for rebates.

Really? They are going to have idiots going door to door intimidating people into doing what they want.  Ok, that’s enough. I can’t continue. Click over to the Wall Street Journal and read the rest if you can stomach it. There is nothing worse than a government idiot with an idea!

via Boulder Struggles With Energy Conservation – WSJ.com.

The other day I posted a blog about the free market providing roads, police and fire services. You can read it here. While on my way to work this morning, I got to thinking about the roads again. Where I live, we just got a couple feet of snow, and we have more coming today. It has been 4 days since the snow came, but I still had a heck of a time getting to work. Half the roads are still covered, and now the snow is packed down and turning to ice. I’m not talking about side roads here. I’m talking about the main roads.

So, this got me thinking. How would this be treated differently if the roads were private? Well, as far as technology, let’s just say everything is the same, which if roads were private all these years, there would be much more advanced technology. I am assuming the same technology, but there would be different incentives. If you own a road, and you earn income from tolls or some other mechanism that is pay for use, you would make sure those roads were quickly cleared. If they weren’t, you’d lose money. How would you charge a toll if no one can drive on your road? Your entire business model depends on people driving on your road. You would have to get the roads cleared quickly, or suffer huge losses.

Government on the other hand doesn’t really have any great incentive to get the roads cleared. Yeah, they get around to it, but what’s the rush. They may have angry constituents, but by the time election day rolls around, that’s water under the bridge. They need a reason to justify their expanding budgets, so they can’t ignore the issue completely. On the other hand, if they take longer to clean the roads, they can say they needed more help. Then they have more reason for bigger budgets and more employees.

Again, just some thoughts I had on my way into work. This is by no means meant to be a great argument for private roads. Most people can’t comprehend how the private sector could provide roads and then bill for them, so we just stick with the crappy government system where they use road bills to rob us blind and give handouts to their buddies and union supporters.

Lewrockwell.com has a fascinating post today (actually a chapter from a book) about how the market could better handle defense from foreign agression than government. As I said in my post the other day, defense whether domestic with police or foreign with military, can be defended as a government role, because government’s role is supposed to be defending individual liberty and protecting us from coercion.

While I think it is hard for most people to believe that the free market can provide policing and military defence (even I questioned military), this post makes a great argument for the free market. As I was reading, lights were going off in my head as to downfalls of government defense and the benefits to the people of it being handled in the free market. Here are some highlights. I highly recommend reading the entire post. Whether you agree or disagree, it is fascinating.

Many people ask, “But how in the world could a laissez-faire society deal with aggression by foreign nations, since it would have no government to protect it?” Behind this question are two unrealized assumptions: first, that government is some sort of extra-societal entity with resources of its own – resources which can only be tapped for defense by the action of government – and, second, that government does, in fact, defend its citizens.

In reality, government must draw all its resources from the society over which it rules. When a governmentally controlled society takes defensive action against an aggression by a foreign power, where does it get the resources necessary to take that action? The men who fight are private individuals, usually conscripted into government service. The armaments are produced by private individuals working at their jobs. The money to pay for these armaments and the pittance doled out to the conscripts, as well as the money to pay the salaries of that small minority comprising the other members of the armed forces, is confiscated from private individuals by means of taxation.

Government’s only contribution is to organize the whole effort by the use of force – the force of the draft, taxation, and other, more minor coercions, such as rationing, wage and price ceilings, travel restrictions, etc. So, to maintain that government is necessary to defend a society from foreign aggression is to maintain that it is necessary to use domestic aggression against the citizens in order to protect them from foreign aggression.

In spite of the obvious immorality of forcing men to protect themselves against force, some people still maintain that a coerced defense is more efficient than a willing one and is, therefore, permissible or even necessary in an emergency situation such as war. A brief examination will show the fallacy of this variation of the moral/practical dichotomy.

The success of any endeavor, including war, depends on the amount of thought and effort put into it by those involved. Under the pressure of force, a man may be induced to put forth a great deal of effort and even a little thought, but his reluctant, fear-driven exertions can’t compare in efficiency and productivity with the ambitious and tireless efforts of a free man striving to accomplish something he really wants to get done. The man who works enthusiastically not only works more efficiently, he also uses his mind to discover new and better ways of reaching the goal, and such innovation is the key to success.

Furthermore, a system of force is always wasteful of resources, because the more unwilling is the victim of the force, the more energy must be diverted to keeping him in line and the less is left to accomplish the task. Men who are forced to do what they don’t want to (or not to do what they do want to) are amazingly good at devising devious and complicated ways to cheat on the system which enslaves them. This is why even the most totalitarian of governments find that they cannot wage war without huge propaganda efforts aimed at convincing their own people of the justice and necessity of the war.

Throughout history, people have been talked into submitting to the tyrannies of their governments because, they were told, their government was vitally necessary to protect them from the even more terrible depredations of other governments. The governments, having put over this bit of propaganda, then proceeded to cajole and coerce their citizens into protecting them!

Governments never defend their citizens; they can’t. What they do is make the citizens defend them, usually after their stupid and imperialistic policies have aggravated or threatened another government to the point of armed conflict. Governmental protection against foreign aggression is a myth (but a myth which, sad to say, most people actually believe in).

Government can’t defend its citizens, and it is foolish and sacrificial for the citizens to defend a coercive monopoly which not only enslaves them but makes a practice of provoking conflicts with other coercive monopolies – i.e., with other governments.

Morally, no man may be prevented from defending himself and his values, nor may he be forced to defend them if he doesn’t want to do so.

If some of the people in an area feel that one of their neighbors is not “carrying his fair share of the defense burden,” they are free to use rational persuasion to attempt to convince him that it would be in his interest to assume his own responsibility of self-defense. They may not, however, extort his compliance by any use or threat of force…even if they are clearly in the majority. Nor would it be practical for them to do so. A man who is coerced into defending his neighbors against a foreign aggressor may decide to spend part of his efforts on defending himself against his coercive neighbors instead.

In a laissez-faire society, defense against foreign aggression would be offered for sale on the free market, just as would any other type of defense. Because of the close natural connection between insurance companies and defense agencies, it would probably be most feasible to sell defense against foreign aggression in the form of insurance policies. That is, insurance companies would sell policies agreeing to protect their insureds against foreign aggression and to indemnify them for losses resulting from such aggression (the contract to be void, of course, if the insured provoked the conflict by his own aggressive actions). The insurance companies would see to it that whatever defenses were necessary to prevent the losses were provided, and they would make sure that a very efficient job of defense was done, since any losses would cost them large sums of money.

A major portion of the cost of defense against foreign aggression in a laissez-faire society would be borne originally by business and industry, as owners of industrial plants obviously have a much greater investment to defend than do owners of little houses in suburbia. If there were any real threat of aggression by a foreign power, businessmen would all be strongly motivated to buy insurance against that aggression, for the same reason that they buy fire insurance, even though they could save money in the short run by not doing so.

An interesting result of this fact is that the cost of defense would ultimately tend to be spread among the whole population, since defense costs, along with overhead and other such costs, would have to be included in the prices paid for goods by consumers. So, the concern that “free riders” might get along without paying for their own defense by parasitically depending on the defenses paid for by their neighbors is groundless. It is based on a misconception of how the free-market system would operate.

Foreign Aggression by Morris and Linda Tannehill.

The one part that really struck out at me was paying for defense like an insurance policy. As I stated the other day, insurance companies could provide fire services to their subscribers instead of having it handled through government and taxation. Insurance companies have the incentive to minimize their outlays, so they will are motivated to get fires are put out quickly and make steps to minimize the chances of having fires. The less fires they have, the higher their profits. On the other hand, the more fires (or other services delegated to a fire dept.) the bigger the department comes, and the bigger their budgets become. This is the goal of a government organization. Anyways, they explained how insurance could address defense in a similar manner.

While insurance companies have been demonized in our media and government, they provide valuable services when government isn’t involved. I don’t hear too many people complaining about their evil life and home owner insurance companies. Instead they complain about health insurance companies who are heavily regulated and where government accounts for 50% of all expenditures.

While I haven’t worked through all the details of whether I think this could work or not, here are some of the first thoughts that came to mind when I read this:

1. Insurance companies would not want war. It would cost them too much money. Since their contract is to defend their client, they would pursue diplomacy better than a government would who gets more money and control if there is a war.

2. Insurance companies in looking to reduce the chances of expensive reconstruction costs, would invest heavily in defensive measures that would dissuade agression. Instead of going out looking for dragons to slay, they would do what the people(clients) want, which is to be defended only. Most people do not want their government going out starting wars.

3. While the defense agencies might be incentized to have wars in order to grow, insurance companies, who would be the client or owner of the defense agency has the exact opposite incentive. Because of that, the insurance company would keep the defense agency in check. If the defense agency was stirring up trouble in order to get more business, they would lose the largest clients, insurance companies. Instead their incentive would be to develop lower cost technologies and to become more efficient. That would increase their profits without the need for increased warfare.

Again, this is just off the top of my head as I’m reading this myself, so I may be missing some incentives and some possible downfalls. I’d love to hear thoughts from everyone else.

This is from a lecture Tom Woods gave about his book, Meltdown. Tom is an awesome presenter and makes boring topics entertaining. By the end of the lecture, you will understand exactly who caused the mortgage meltdown, the financial crisis and our current recession.

This is a Youtube playlist, so the next part will automatically start. It’s a little over an hour for the full lecture.

While commenting on Paul D. Ryan’s op-ed, I was told “The perfect is the enemy of good.” The op-ed was talking about cutting taxes, having tax credits for health care insurance purchases, moving towards medical savings accounts, and other Republican ideas. While I think these ideas are better than Obama’s if I have the false choice of one or the other, they still are based on the premise that government has a role of telling or enticing us into living life the way they believe we should live. This is the problem I see with the Republicans. By saying we should have these other policies and programs, they have already conceded defeat to progressives that government is empowered to tell us how to live. From that point, progressives have already won. The argument then comes down to who has the best policies to force society into the stated policy goal.  Here was the comment and my response.

Lloyd Morton replied: Jason, read the above post, The perfect is the enemy of good.

Jason Vanzin replied: (your comment) Lloyd, saying we should be free from coercion is asking for perfection? It is asking for what is moral. It used to be what this country was based on.

If someone robs my house, and the police know who it is and that he has my stuff, would you say the perfect is the enemy of the good when I say I want it all back? Should the police say, just be happy the robber is giving you your toaster back? That robber sure is a good guy.

Perfect is not the enemy of good. Evil is the enemy of good, and government becomes evil when it moves from protecting liberty to coercion.

Grant Ellis replied: Well said!

Carlos Sierra replied: I wish I’d said that. Well done, Jason Vanzin!

via Paul D. Ryan: A GOP Road Map for America’s Future – WSJ.com.

I must say it was nice to see two people approving my comment, since it is a libertarian comment.

I know this is going to come as a complete shock, but a government panel said that the private companies cannot ferry astronauts into space as safely as government. Geewiz! I cannot believe a government panel would say that government is best.

A key federal aerospace panel warned that NASA could run into serious safety challenges if it relies on private companies to ferry astronauts into space in the near future.

The Obama administration has been devising a plan to outsource a chunk of its manned space program to private companies in order to speed up rocket development, save money and focus federal dollars on longer-term expeditions. But a report released last week by the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, an outside safety watchdog for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, cautioned that the private space companies rely on “unsubstantiated claims” and need to overcome major technical hurdles before they can safely carry astronauts into orbit. It urged NASA to stick with its current government-run manned space ventures, and said that switching to private alternatives now would be “unwise and probably not cost-effective.”

Did I just read that right? Obama, Mr. Socialism himself, planned on outsourcing a chunk of the space program to private companies? Surely, there has to be a payoff in here somewhere?

So the advisory panel said the private sector would rely on “unsubstantiated claims”. Are they telling me government doesn’t do this? You mean like the claim we are going to pay for health care reform by cutting waste out of medicare? How about health care reform will only cost $800 billion? Or maybe we have to bail out our friends on Wall Street to save Main Street?

You have to love the gull this panel has saying that private companies would be “unwise and probably not cost-effective”. Seriously? How many government programs come in under budget? The only thing I don’t like about this is it creates a partnership between government and the private sector. You know what that means. It will be used for political payoffs. No doubt, Jack Murtha already has some favors to return.

But the findings released last week are likely to provide a boost to NASA officials who support keeping nearly all manned space programs in house. In addition, NASA’s largest and longstanding contractors, such as Boeing Corp. and Lockheed Martin Corp., are stepping up efforts to generate White House support against outsourcing more programs. As part of that campaign, they have challenged the safety of the start-up ventures, which are proposing to use rockets that haven’t been fully tested and in some cases, haven’t yet flown.

via NASA Urged Not To Outsource – WSJ.com.

Shocking that NASA officials would want to keep it all in house, and then the real culprits come out. Boeing and Lockheed Martin are pushing to keep it in house. Go figure. Who wants to have to compete? It’s so much easier to rip off the government. It’s definitely easier to grease the palms of a slimeball politician than it is to grease an executive’s palms who’s accountable to the bottom line. Behind almost every government regulation, you find some big business trying to stifle competition.

Did you read that last sentence? It’s a bad thing to propose rockets that haven’t been fully tested and in some cases, haven’t yet flown? Isn’t this how innovation is done? If you only propose things that already exist, you would never move forward. Can you image this panel talking about phone service? Apple is proposing this so-called iPhone that hasn’t been fully tested and hasn’t even made phone calls yet! What a waste. Let me stick with my rotary phone. It’s made tons of phone calls. This is exactly why private businesses should be involved in space. They will innovate!