The Framing of an Oyster Farm – Drake’s Bay Oyster Company from A Visual Record on Vimeo.
Tag Archives: War on Commerce
Milton Friedman on Auto-Safety
1) The young ideologue in the video is NOT Michael Moore.
2) I love Friedman’s courage and logic. You can see why he became influential. Almost makes me forgive him for helping establish income tax withholding.
“Raisin” Hell at the Supreme Court
Tis the season to give thanks. And for the last 80 years, the federal government has required raisin producers to “give thanks” for the privilege of selling their raisins nationally by requiring them to fork over up to half of their raisins – for free. A lawsuit raising a constitutional challenge to the program has now made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The case is Horne v. Department of Agriculture.
The program, operated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has a rather Orwellian-sounding name – the “Raisin Marketing Order.” In a nutshell, under this program, every year, as a condition for “letting” farmers sell their raisin crops in interstate commerce, the federal government has taken up to 47% of the farmers’ raisins – often for no payment at all, or below the cost of producing the raisins. The program has its origins in Great Depression efforts to fix the prices of agricultural crops.
(Read more)
Book Review of “Water For Sale” by Fredrik Segerfeldt
For my complete collection of my book reviews, please visit my Youtube Channel or RomansBookReport.com
Hurricane Sandy and Gas Lines
The Post Hurricane Sandy Gas Crisis
But then came the unnatural disaster in the form of the government’s response. This is where the real catastrophe begins.
Check out the mess in New Jersey. The New York Times reports that “widespread gas shortages stirred fears among residents and disrupted some rescue and emergency services as the New York region struggled to return to a semblance of normalcy after being ravaged by Hurricane Sandy.”
. . . .
Gov. Christie himself has made it clear: “We will not hesitate to impose the strictest penalties on profiteers who, in direct violation of our consumer protection laws, seek to capitalize on the misfortune of others in the midst of a crisis and recovery period.”
Even more absurdly, “The state had set gas prices at $3.59 on the highways last week,” reports the Times.
It’s serious. Last year, merchants paid huge fines for raising prices more than 10% in an emergency. This means that they cannot respond to changes in supply and demand. A disabled price system means chaos. When the price is too low, producers drop out and consumers overutilize. Scarce resources are not being replenished, and those that exist are being irrationally squandered.
That’s why price ceilings mean shortages. Gas shortages cause social disasters. We are seeing this in real-time in New Jersey. It’s a man-made disaster caused by stupid government officials, elected officials, and bureaucrats.
(Read more)
Why do cars all look the same? (hint: G_____ment)
Administration plans 100,000 new highway deaths
It’s wonderful what the government can accomplish with a little gentle arm-twisting, especially after it’s set an example by seizing control of General Motors and turning over part ownership to the unions, as their reward for driving the car-maker to the brink of bankruptcy in the first place.
On Aug. 28, for instance, the Obama administration announced a final “agreement” with auto makers which by 2025 will increase the cost of an average new car by $3,000 to $4,800.
Even better, the flimsier, lighter-weight cars that manufacturers just “agreed” to build (at a time when their biggest profits come from pickups) will result in thousands of additional highway deaths per year, and tens of thousands more serious injuries. (Read more)
The Restoration and the Navigation Acts 1660-1663
ish imports and exports from England were limited to English ships alone. As part of the Restoration compromise, Charles II continued to gratify the London merchants and passed a series of Navigation Acts in 1660–63. Part of the commissioners’ instructions, indeed, was to see to the enforcement of these acts.
The new Navigation Acts drastically restricted and monopolized American colonial trade, to the detriment of the colonies.
The Navigation Act of 1660–61
1. restricted all colonial trade to “English” ships (English and American), that is, ships built, owned, and manned by Englishmen;
2. excluded all foreign merchants from American trade; and
3. required that certain enumerated colonial articles be exported only to England and English colonies.
We have already seen the havoc caused in the Southern colonies by tobacco being made one of the enumerated goods. Among the others were sugar, cotton wool, and various dyes. The second important Navigation Act was the Staple Act of 1663, which provided that all goods exported from Europe to America must first land in England. Only a few colonial imports were exempt from this prohibition: salt, servants, various provisions from Scotland, and wine from Madeira and the Azores.
The Staple Act meant that English ships and merchants would monopolize exports to America, while English manufacturers selling to America would be privileged by extra taxes being levied at English ports on foreign exports to the colonies. The enumerated-articles provision ensured that these staples would be exported only by English merchants and in English ships. (Read more)
Peter Schiff’s 2nd Presidental debate analysis
Democrats: Pro-Choice on Abortion. Anti-Choice on everything else.
Athletes Quit Britain to Avoid Taxes
Usain Bolt Just Says No to UK’s Taxes on Non-Resident Athletes
Athletes competing in the United Kingdom have their earnings on endorsement deals taxed by Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs, the British tax collector. How did the London Games manage to attract some of the world’s best athletes anyway? With an exemption on that tax, of course. Thus Usain Bolt, who hadn’t competed in England for three years, appeared at the Olympics but says he’s not coming back until the tax laws are loosened. And he’s not the only one. Via The Telegraph:
In 2010 Bolt pulled out of the Aviva London Grand Prix because of his stance on UK tax, instead deciding to compete in Paris – for which he was paid $250,000.
His agent, Ricky Simms, said at the time that British tax law “has kept a lot of the big stars in other sports away from Britain”.
Tennis star Rafa Nadal pulled out of this year’s Aegon Championship at Queen’s Club due to the UK’s tax demands. He opted to compete in the Gerry Weber Open at Halle in Germany, where he received a reported £750,000.
“The truth is, in the UK you have a big regime for tax, it’s not about the money for playing,” Nadal said last year. “They [HMRC] take from the sponsors, f
New York Politicians Set to Ruin Engergy Drinks
New York’s attorney general is investigating whether the multibillion-dollar energy-drink industry is deceiving consumers with misstatements about the ingredients and health value of its products.
Eric T. Schneiderman issued subpoenas in July to PepsiCo Inc., PEP -0.07% maker of AMP, Monster Beverage Corp., MNST -0.92% and Living Essentials LLC, maker of 5-hour Energy drink, according to a person familiar with the matter. The subpoenas asked for information on the companies’ marketing and advertising practices. (Read more)
Doctors becoming Slaves in Massachusetts, as Obamacare will do nationally
In Massachusetts they eventually came to the conclusion that Washington will come to if President Obama is re-elected: that the only way to rein in health costs would be to assert government control over doctors and hospitals. Forget about those greedy health insurance companies. Now, it’s time to place government’s “boot” on the neck of the providers.
Under the new law, all Massachusetts doctors, hospitals, and other providers must register with a new state bureaucracy as a condition of licensure. Yes, if you are any kind of health care provider in Massachusetts, you now belong to the state- that is, if you want to actually earn a living in your field. The new “state bureaucracy,” not unlike the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) in ObamaCare, will have a lot to say about what providers do each day as it tracks and reports their financial performance, price and cost patterns, state-sanctioned quality measures, market share, and other statistics.
As WSJ indicates:
…Massachusetts takes 360-degree surveillance and converts it into a panopticon prison. An 11-member board known as the Health Policy Commission will use the data to set and enforce rules to ensure that total Massachusetts health spending, public and private, grows no more than projected gross state product through 2017, and 0.5 percentage points lower thereafter. (And Paul Ryan’s Medicare projections are unrealistic?)
According to the new law, no registered provider is permitted to make “any material change to its operations or governance structure,” without the commission’s approval. In addition, the commission has the authority to rewrite the terms of provider contracts with insurers as well as payment levels and methods if they are “deemed to be excessive,” to police providers who exceed benchmarks, and demand “performance improvement plans” of those providers found to be spending too much money on patient care. Providers who consistently spend above the authorized amount on patient care can be fined $500,000 for disobeying the rules of the commission, an amount that the uber-liberals of the state believe to be a mere pittance of a penalty. (Read more)
Consumer Product Safety Commission Banning … Toy Magnets?
Buckyballs and Buckycubes are collections of small, powerful, round or cubic rare earth magnets which can be used to form all sorts of shapes or squeezed to relieve stress. Indeed, some children and even a few teens have been injured when they have swallowed multiple balls. However, the desk toys are marketed exclusively to adults and come with labels warning against ingestion and insisting they be kept out of children’s reach.
More than two million sets of these toys have been sold worldwide since they went on the market in 2009; there have been less than two dozen incidents.
After more than two years of working with the Consumer Product Safety Commission — by issuing a voluntary recall, changing the warning labels, and producing a safety video — Maxfield & Oberton has been told the CPSC is banning the product because it is “inherently dangerous” and “serves no useful purpose.”
Why not serving a “useful purpose” is a legitimate criterion, they don’t say. Most desk toys — say, a New York Yankees Mr. Potato Head — serve little useful purpose. As for being “inherently dangerous,” at least 140 children are killed each year riding bicycles, and more than 275,000 end up in the emergency room. (Read more)
***
See the company’s funny appeal for help: Save our balls