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February 2008
Is Capitalism Failing the Poor?
The Institute for Policy Innovation’s Dr. Merrill Matthews says Bill Gates thinks so, but he’s wrong.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has a message for the world: Capitalism isn’t working, at least for the poorest countries.
Gates wants big business to focus on meeting the needs and solving the problems of the world’s poorest.
But capitalism hasn’t failed the poor; their governments have. There are plenty of entrepreneurs among the poor who would create jobs and wealth if government corruption, cronyism and regulations would get out of the way.
Take India and China. They were economic basket cases until their governments implemented economic reform and the rule of law. Now instead of basket cases, they’re becoming breadbaskets.
Bill Gates is wrong. Read More...
 Capitalism |
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Further thoughts on the topic of ISP liability and immunity in the sphere of copyright management:
Bill Rosenblatt of DRMWatch contrasts approaches to ISP responsibility for users' copyright infringement in the U.S. and Germany.
And this article offers a more general framework within which to examine the question of whether, and when, ISPs should be liable for negligence or otherwise, with brief commentary on the copyright issue: Hylton, Keith N., "Property Rules, Liability Rules, and Immunity: An Application to Cyberspace" (July 31, 2006). Boston Univ. School of Law Working Paper No. 06-19 Available at SSRN.
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Andrew Noyes wrote last week of
a leaked proposal that calls for those suspected of downloading illegitimate movies or music to get an initial warning e-mail, followed by a suspension for a second offense, then a termination of their service contract for a third offense. .. Other coverage here.Similar proposals have been floated elsewhere.
Now, I suspect a large part of the reason that these proposals are moving is simply to bring ISPs to the bargaining table, which their current largely immune status gives them no reason to do. Read More...
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You Do the Math (and You Won’t Like It)
We don’t really know yet how much taxpayers will have to cough up for Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to fulfill their promise to get every American covered with health insurance. But it’s possible to do some back-of-the-envelope calculations.
And it appears, well, let’s just say it won’t be cheap.
Both candidates say they would let the uninsured (anyone, actually) join the program that covers some 8 million federal employees and retirees and their dependents—or something similar— known as the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP).
While lots of private sector health insurers offer coverage under the FEHBP, one of the most popular is the Blue Cross Blue Shield “Standard Family” plan, which costs $1,028 a month, or $12,336 for this year.
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The ultraliberalism of Sen. Barack Obama is demonstrated by his legislative proposal now before the U.S. Senate, entitled “The Global Poverty Act.” The bill commits U.S. taxpayers to the goal of the 2000 United Nations Millenium Summit to reduce world poverty by 2015. This includes “the elimination of extreme global poverty” and “reducing by one half the proportion of people worldwide…who live on less than $1 per day.” The legislation would commit the U.S. to spending 0.7% of GDP for this goal, which would increase our foreign aid by $65 billion per year. That would amount to over a quarter trillion in increased foreign aid during one term of a Barack Obama Presidency.
Former Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs heads the Millenium Project for the UN, which is to spearhead this new global war on poverty. Sachs is now arguing for a new, UN sponsored, global tax for U.S. taxpayers and others to fund the new worldwide handouts.
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In a letter to the editor published in the Washington Times today, IPI senior fellow George Pieler and International Affaris Forum editor-in-chief Jens Laurson point out that just because the North Korean government has agreed to broadcast the New York Philharmonic’s concert in Pyongyang, that doesn’t mean most Koreans will get a chance to watch.
“There are an estimated quarter- to half-million TV sets in North Korea, with the privileged, party-line-toeing upper bureaucratic echelons likely the favored to have access to TV. To truly reach as many North Koreans as possible, the New York Philharmonic concert would have to be broadcast on North Korean national radio, which reaches anywhere up to 4 million people.”
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Larry Lessig has decided not to run for Congress.
Too bad, at least from my perspective.
My guess is Lessig would be involved somehow in a possible Obama administration. Read More...
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Several longish comments, observations and opinions from the FCC's hearing on broadband industry network management practices at Harvard University in Boston on Monday:
- About 100 people showed up too late to get into the room, and "too late" was an hour before the start of the event. Anticipating a crowd, I showed up about 90 minutes early, and got one of the few remaining seats in the room. It was clear from the applause that both Free Press and Comcast had gotten their crowds out.
- It seemed to me that Kevin Martin had already made up his mind before he arrived at the hearing. It was clear to me from Martin's questions and demeanor that he has no patience for Comcast or their arguments. The entire day, there was only one speaker who was cut off, and that was when Kevin Martin pointedly cut off Comcast's Executive Vice President David Cohen. Martin also insisted on a particular line of inquiry several times, which indicates that it is compelling, at least to him. He kept asking people whether applications like Bit Torrent allow people to consume "more bandwidth than they are paying for." Read More...
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Allan Meltzer takes a welcome and needed look at the reality behind the facile “explanations” for the current sub-prime-induced financial-market crisis, which are being widely promoted by the popular media and self-interested politicians looking for another “hook” on which to hang legislation for which they can take credit. Meltzer concludes that:
Ironically, most of the buyers and sellers were graduates of elite business schools. Better than most, they should have known enough to avoid making loans with no down payments to borrowers who had few assets and poor credit records. The reason they didn’t is that their incentive structure encouraged them to ignore the quality of what they sold and bought. Read More...
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The latest oped by IPI senior fellow George Pieler and IAF editor-in-chief Jens Laurson is featured today on the FEER Forum, an online publication from the editors of The Far Eastern Economic Review.
The oped entitled, “Serenading a Dictator” discusses the up-coming controversial debut of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in North Korea.
An excerpt:
When the New York Philharmonic accepted an invitation from the North Korean Government to perform at the East Pyongyang Grand Theatre, commentary either praised the move as a savvy act of cultural diplomacy or condemned it as a public relations ploy for one of the world’s worst tyrants.
When the United States’ first orchestra takes the stage on Feb. 26, playing to a hall packed with the Politburo’s elite, it will likely be the latter.
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Larry Lessig is making noises about running for Congress.
In fact, he's not just making noises. He's doing a virtual strip-tease.
This fits entirely with what I have observed about Lessig's personality: He has always seen himself as a savior and visionary, and people with egos of that size frequently end up taking a run at elected office. Plus, he's got an echo chamber of fellow-travelers who will beg him to save the Universe by running for Congress.
As I have written before, Larry assumes that, because he hasn't been able to get his CopyLeft agenda through Congress or through the courts, the system must be corrupt.
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Distracted Driving or Distracted Policy?
Ask any police officer in any state, county or city in America and they will tell you that they have the authority to pull over any driver who is driving erratically. Failure to control your vehicle, weaving between lanes, driving too much below the posted speed and, of course, speeding, are just a handful of erratic driving behaviors that will get you pulled over and ticketed.
And it really doesn’t matter what caused the erratic driving behavior–bad driving is bad driving. Period.
So why is it that all over America state legislators have apparently surmised that the number one culprit for erratic driving behavior is–you guessed it–your cell phone!
Take Arizona, for example, where no less than four separate bills have been introduced vilifying cell phone usage as public driving enemy number one.
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IPI’s sound recording piracy study is cited today in a new article appearing in the Canadian newspapers Ottawa Citzen and Calgary Herald.
Reporter Vito Pilieci writes, “Canadian songwriters are proposing a type of web levy in exchange for free ‘illegal’ music,” but adds that not every track pirated would necessarily be purchased otherwise, citing economist Steve Siwek’s replacement ratio:
However, not every person downloading music illegally would buy that music if given the chance. Read More...
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Do You Want to Be in Pictures?
Dr. Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation says in Great Britain, you don’t have a choice.
Smile—you’re on government camera! At least if you’re in Great Britain.
According to the Dallas Morning News, Great Britain has 4.2 million closed-circuit cameras monitoring the public. I just returned from there and the cameras are everywhere. The average person is caught on camera up to 300 times a day. Moreover:
- The country has set up a snitch line for people to report others who are breaking a new, no-smoking ban in public places.
- And Great Britain’s DNA database includes anyone ever arrested for anything, a total of 3.9 million samples—the largest number per person in the world.
But it’s funny. Even though government officials were monitoring me all the time, somehow I didn’t feel safer. Read More...
Do You Want to Be in Pictures? |
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Stuart Butler of the Heritage Foundation and Maya MacGuineas of the New Century Foundation presented on Capitol Hill yesterday a paper they have co-authored that proposes a complete reformulation of our nation’s entitlement programs. Unfortunately, their reformulations are more likely to stifle entitlement reform than to promote it.
Butler and MacGuineas argue that sweeping changes in our nation’s entitlement programs are necessary because the costs of these programs are projected to explode in the next 30 years, causing the size of the Federal government to explode along with them. In this, they are quite right.
They propose to replace our current programs with a new system of individual mandates requiring individuals to save and buy insurance for a wide range of contingencies. These include retirement, unemployment, health insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, long term care insurance, and others. Read More...
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In the Wisconsin campaign, Democratic candidate for president Barack Obama said that he was "the only candidate in the race that had consistently opposed NAFTA."
Obama's campaign has already distributed mass mailings critical of Clinton on the issue in Ohio. "Bad trade deals like NAFTA hit Ohio harder than most states. Only Barack Obama consistently opposed NAFTA," it said.
When I heard this, I thought "Wait a minute--the debate over NAFTA took place in 1992 and 1993. What high office did Barack Obama hold back in '92-'93 that he had to take a position on NAFTA? What job did Obama have that required him to wrestle with all the complicated issues of the NAFTA debate?"
What was Obama doing in '92-'93 during the NAFTA debate?
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"What I try to do every day is figure out how to help somebody. . . But you can try to help somebody every single day. And I’ve tried to do that as a public servant, as an activist, and now as a senator, and that’s what I will do as president.” (Hillary Clinton presidential ad)
Call us old fashioned. Or maybe call us Constitutionalists. But we can’t for the life of us figure out why or when the presidency morphed into the Salvation Army.
The president of the United States is the leader of the free world, not the leader of a charity. The Commander-in-Chief, not Mother Teresa. The one trying to grow the economy, not grow economic dependency.
When he was running for president, Bill Clinton liked to say “I feel your pain”: apparently his wife thinks she feels everyone’s pain.
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In the last several presidential campaign cycles, the state of Texas (where IPI's offices are located) has pretty much been neglected. We watched the campaign coverage in other states on television, but then we looked around and barely saw any sign of the campaign around us. Very few signs and billboards, few TV and radio commercials.
The reasons are clear. Texas' primary is ususally scheduled fairly late, so the primary races are typically decided before they ever get to Texas. And, in the general election, Texas is assumed to go Republican, so Texas gets neglected by both parties.
We normally don't hear many radio or TV ads--we don't even see much in the way of yard signs and bumper stickers.
But not so during this campaign primary season. Suddenly, beginning this week, we are hearing radio commercials for both Obama and Clinton, and television commercials as well.
Based on only my individual observations, Obama is running significantly more radio and TV ads in Texas than Hillary is--but that might just be the N. Texas area where I am (Dallas, Ft. Worth). It's possible that in other areas of the state Hillary is running more ads. Read More...
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In case you’ve forgotten recently why not so long ago many conservatives could not abide Senator John McCain, read the transcript of George Stephanopoulos’s interview with him Sunday on This Week with George Stephanopoulos.
When asked, what would differentiate a McCain Administration from that of George W. Bush, the first thing out of the Senator’s mouth was “global warming.”
STEPHANOPOULOS: “Both Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama are basically saying, ‘Vote for John McCain, you're voting for a third Bush term.’”
MCCAIN: “We will wage this campaign on profound and significant philosophical difference. . .How am I different? Climate change. Climate change is an issue.”
Not only does the Senator embrace the dubious evidence of man-made global warming as scientifically sound and settled, he also reveals a remarkable misunderstanding of the basic precepts of economics when he talks about the issue. The heir presumptive to the Republican presidential nomination told Stephanopoulos that capping and trading carbon emissions would actually be beneficial economically—a new profit center for American business, as it were: Read More...
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A perspective from the IPI Center for Technology Freedom was featured this week in Washington Internet Daily’s article, “Networks Defend Traffic Management Practices." Internet Daily cited the following statement from IPI’s Wednesday press release, “FCC Must Allow Private Companies to Manage Their Own Networks”:
"Management is a necessary part of the efficient and effective function of any network, whether that is for electricity, water or broadband," said the Institute for Policy Innovation. "Broadband networks are managed for myriad reasons -- faster Internet connections, efficient data delivery, fighting spam, preventing phishing," IPI said.
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Canada Policy Counsel Jacob Glick asked on the Google Public Policy Blog, "What is a "balanced approach" to copyright reform?" and answered himself noting:
"We view copyright balance as finding ways for copyright holders to receive fair compensation, encouraging them to create new amazing songs, movies, and software, while allowing consumers and businesses the right to use, enjoy, make fun of, mash-up, experiment, play around with, and otherwise innovate with those same copyrighted works...
The [Business Coalition's] proposed package of reforms includes, among other things, expanding Canada's fair dealing provisions – permitting commonly accepted uses of copyrighted works including: parody, mash-ups, time-shifting and place-shifting. Read More...
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The February 26 debut of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in Pyongyang is most likely a “PR coup for one of the world’s worst tyrants,” rather than “savvy cultural diplomacy,” write George Pieler and Jens Laurson today in the Washington Times.
In their new oped, “Despot Serenade,” the authors describe how the orchestra, being given a rare opportunity to display the American ideals of liberty to a suppressed nation, have opted instead for security in the capital of North Korea.
An excerpt:
After the New York Philharmonic accepted an invitation from the North Korean government to perform at the East Pyongyang Grand Theater, a flurry of commentary condemned and praised the move. Was this savvy cultural diplomacy, or merely a PR coup for one of the world's worst tyrants?
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According to a new oped featured on Forbes.com today by Peter Ferrara, in order to create another economic boom, Washington should focus on the “basic incentives determining saving, investment, innovation, entrepreneurship, business expansion and work,” instead of giving people more money to spend.
In “Let’s Get America Booming Again,” Ferrara describes what long-term economic reforms are needed to revive a robust economy.
An excerpt:
“The stimulus package just signed into law seems to be carefully crafted--to achieve little or nothing. The billions in cash rebates are based on old-fashioned Keynesian economics, which were discredited 30 years ago. The government will first be taking those billions out of the economy by borrowing it. Read More...
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Insurance, as a public policy topic, suddenly seems to be everywhere. The House held field hearings in Florida to promote its already-passed (still pending in the Senate) national catastrophic backup program, a Florida-inspired initiative to get US taxpayers on the hook for large property losses in the wake of, e.g., massive hurricane damage. Florida--at least major elements of its political class--are eager to cushion the state from consumer outrage at not being fully compensated for storm damage in the most recent hurricane cycle (not this past year's, which was pretty quiet). Meanwhile the House Capital Markets Subcommittee reviewed the impact of the so-called subprime crisis on bond insurers and the spillover of the housing market slowdown on insurance. At the same time, the Senate is finally gearing up to look at major insurance reforms like the optional federal charter (OFC), which would let insurers themselves decide if they prefer national regulation, or Read More...
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The fate of this year's patent reform bill in the Senate is still unclear. The controversial legislation includes provisions stipulating how the courts are to determine damages, changes to the re-examination rules and provisions for post-grant review.
Assessing the interests lining up to support or oppose the legislation is much less difficult than figuring out the specific procedures in the bill. Big tech firms generally support the bill. Generally, high-tech ventures in biotech or nanotech, manufacturers such as Corning, pharmaceutical firms and inventors' representatives have opposed it.
Observers grant that the tech and software industries are experiencing a legitimate problem from the status quo, but that solutions proposed to mitigate software’s problems have the consequence of weakening protections crucial to biotech and pharmaceutical companies.
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Are You Willing to Pay More for a Television?
Dr. Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation says you will if the Sierra Club gets its way.
The environmental group the Sierra Club has an idea.
It’s pushing legislation to impose a 1 percent sales tax on televisions and video games. The estimated $4 million in revenue would be used to—surprise!—fund things really important to the Sierra Club. Like hiking and classes about the outdoors.
Sierra claims it wants to stem the growing incidence of childhood obesity and diabetes. But worthy goals don’t justify bad legislation.
It’s part of a growing movement to have the government monitor our health. Others want to ban all smoking or soft drinks. Or force you to exercise or get a physical.
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In an article today in the Dallas Business Journal, reporter Jeff Bounds features a perspective from IPI regarding broadband network management and the net neutrality debate.
An excerpt:
Broadband carriers must be able to try different business models without regulatory interference, the Institute for Policy Innovation said Wednesday in comments filed with the Federal Communications Commission. The Dallas think tank was responding to an inquiry by the FCC into complaints that the cable company Comcast, which serves much of Tarrant and Denton county, actively interferes with file sharing by some of its customers who use the program BitTorrent. Read More...
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Yes, that sounds a little strange, but those deficits may be the only thing that saves us from what we referred to in the 1990s as HillaryCare.
Today, HillaryCare has many iterations, from the Democratic presidential candidates, to reform proposals in Congress, to legislation already passed in Massachusetts and being considered by other states. They all look for ways to impose the heavy hand of government on health care.
But the heavy hand isn’t what’s slowing them down. It’s the cost of the heavy hand.
Take California, for example. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) made a pact with the liberal Speaker of the Assembly Fabian Nunez (D)—never a good sign!—to pass a massive new health care reform plan based on the Massachusetts legislation. But with a lot more new taxes. You might call it Massachusetts on steroids.
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The Iowa Electronic Markets are real-money futures markets in which contract payoffs depend on economic and political events such as elections. In the electoral market, a market participant purchases a candidate contract at the market price, which pays the owner $1.00 after the election if the candidate wins and nothing if he or she loses. The Iowa Electronic Market was started during the 1988 presidential election and since then has established a solid reputation for forecasting election results with considerably greater accuracy than polls. (“It has predicted the outcome of the popular vote with an average prediction error of 1.33 percent. Research has shown that the IEM is about twice as accurate as polls conducted before presidential elections.”)
Although pundits continue to characterize Super Tuesday as a “split decision” between the Read More...
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A House Commerce and Energy Subcommittee chairman has announced that hearings will be held in the spring to examine the “competition and consumer privacy issues raised by mergers of Internet firms.” In other words, by Microsoft’s offer to buy Yahoo.
More spectacle, and little to no value for the public—much like what happened a decade ago at the hands of a Senate committee, which grilled Microsoft about its business practices. That 1998 hearing was prodded not by policy concerns but by Microsoft’s rivals, who lobbied well enough to convince Senate leaders that this was an issue that would get attention.
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I've commented a number of times on news reports of how harmful copyright piracy is on creators in developing countries, and today's installment is a story in Ghana, where piracy is affecting not only musicians, but also is costing the government much-needed revenue.
In Ghana today, original musical works on compact discs (CD) are not patronised because of pirates who flood the market with counterfeit products which they sell at cheap prices to enrich themselves at the expense of the original owners.
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Since most of our elected officials in Washington seem to have played hooky the day the teacher talked about tax policy, we thought we should go back and give them a quick refresher course.
How do we know that most of them missed the class? Because 385 of them voted for the economic stimulus package. The only thing that legislation has stimulated is a race over who can give away the most money. (Don’t even get us started on the Senate’s 80-4 vote!)
So let’s start our class with a quote from a former star student who learned his economic principles well and graduated with highest honors. According to Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ): “As you may know, I was one of only 25 Republicans to vote against the (stimulus) bill. Every American knows that the federal government does not have the money to pay for these rebates. We will have to borrow it. It makes absolutely no sense to me to go give away money we don't have.”
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Don’t be misled by the hype and hysteria over the presidential campaigns; they are much ado about little difference among any of the candidates. Indeed, a good rule of thumb is the greater the hype, the less real difference there is: Two Parties; One Establishment.
No where is this clearer than when it comes to government spending. The fact is Republicans stand for big government; Democrats stand for slightly bigger government.
There are two fundamental forces driving the growth of government. First is the fear-induced national consensus since 9-11 to give government whatever resources politicians demand in the name of national defense, homeland security and public safety. At the federal level, for example, total spending on national defense/homeland security is approaching a trillion dollars a year, approximately one-third of the federal budget.
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Was FDR a Great American President?
The Institute for Policy Innovation’s Dr. Merrill Matthews says one Russian president thinks so.
Liberals love to remember and idolize President Franklin D. Roosevelt as one of America’s greatest presidents.
But Jonah Goldberg, writing for USA Today, points out that there is another huge FDR fan: Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Russian president is increasingly criticized for consolidating his power in Russia, undermining democracy and ignoring civil liberties.
Yet he praises FDR’s efforts to control the economy and sidestep certain Constitutional limits on power, especially in the New Deal. And he’s not alone, Italian Fascist Benito Mussolini once declared of FDR, “America has a dictator.”
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From Cannes comes the latest news of the music industries' growing willingness to give music away and sell advertising instead.
Supposing this trend continues to gain support in future, this is happy news from the perspective of ... who? Is it the answer to the quest for the new business model? Maybe not. Much remains unexplained about the economic underpinnings of this trend.
IP supporters, including myself, have insisted that without an ability to collect from free-riders, content markets will wither. Were we wrong? Is the advertiser supported model the silver bullet (magic!) needed?
The answer is in doubt. Tying (to advertising, to other services) is tricky because of the ease with which ties can be digitally untied...the advertising stripped out or blocked, the product placements morphed, the concert bootlegged. Read More...
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Congratulations to French President Nicholas Sarkozy on his marriage to Carla Bruni today.
It's always good when conservatives* get models.
*"Conservative" here is intended in relative terms, of course. Sarkozy is about as conservative as it gets in France. Read More...
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| Presenting the keynote speech at the Internet Caucus Advisory Committee’s annual State of the Net conference on Wednesday, Rep. Mary Bono Mack cited IPI’s August 2007 study, "The True Impact of Sound Recording Piracy on the U.S. Economy." Discussing principal issues surrounding digital copyright protection, Bono Mack announced: “According to the Institute for Policy Innovation, global music piracy causes $12.5 billion of economic losses every year, 71,060 U.S. jobs lost, a loss of $2.7 billion in workers' earnings, and a loss of $422 million in tax revenues, $291 million in personal income tax and $131 million in lost corporate income and production taxes.” Read More...
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Author: SoundBytes || Location: Lewisville, Texas, USA