Don't Newsletter on Me (2/8/21)
Articles from AIER, Quillette, FFF, FEE, The Wall Street Journal, The American Conservative, and AntiWar.com.
These are in no particular order.
The Only Way To Win Is Not To Play
The American Institute of Economic Research (AIER)
Ignoring one another is a peaceful way of coexisting; Not interacting is a viable solution unless we’re forced to do so through a one-size-fits-all political process. Playing the political game makes it worse, and the collapse of personal grand narratives have let politics substitute for every other desire we have.
We could decentralize political power, have people self-select into what sort of governance and/or people they wish to live with, and we can peacefully separate instead of violently combat one another. After the year we’ve had ‒ Trump, Trump, Anger, Pandemic, Lockdown, BLM, Election, Coup ‒ does anyone still think that living apart from one another is such a bad idea?
Did the BLM Protests Against the Police Lead to the 2020 Spike in Homicides?
Quillette
The numbers speak for themselves. The ideas advanced by Black Lives Matter may be popular and “woke,” but they are also very often the worst possible policies for those of us who actually want to preserve black, and other, American lives.
National School Choice Week Is Not About Freedom
The Future of Freedom Foundation (FFF)
In the area of education, the only genuine libertarian position is one in which there is a separation of school and state, just as our ancestors separated church and state. Education is a purely peaceful activity. People have the fundamental, God-given right to determine the best educational vehicle for their children, just as they have the correlative right to determine the best religious (or non-religious) path for their children.
Non-Profit Hospitals Are Making a Killing
The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)
The annual cost of health care for the average American family hovers around $20,000. Premiums increase yearly, and this is a primary driver of why real wages for average Americans don’t seem to improve. Meanwhile, the CEO of non-profit Banner Health, based out of Arizona, raked in $21.6 million last year. Nearly half of the CEOs of America’s leading non-profit health systems made more than $2.5 million. Only eight of the 82 executives of non-profit companies earned less than $1 million.
These sorts of salaries amid the backdrop of struggling families would make even the most loyal believers in the free market pause—except this isn’t capitalism. This isn’t the market at work. It’s crony capitalism with the exploitation of market-related inefficiencies and rent-seeking behavior.
The problem is moral hazard in an administrative state.
Smoking’s Long Decline Is Over
The Wall Street Journal
This article is behind a paywall. This is the important part.
Before the pandemic, U.S. cigarette unit sales had been falling at an accelerating rate, hitting 5.5% in 2019, as smokers quit or switched to alternatives like e-cigarettes. The pandemic put the brakes on that slide. In 2020, the U.S. cigarette industry’s unit sales were flat compared to the previous year, according to data released Thursday by Marlboro maker Altria Group Inc.
People had more opportunities to smoke because they spent more time at home and had more money to spend on cigarettes because they spent less on gas, travel and entertainment, Altria said. They drank more liquor, too, buoying spirits makers.
At the same time, some e-cigarette users turned back to combustible cigarettes because of increased e-cigarette taxes, bans on flavored vaping products and confusion about the health effects of vaping, consumers and industry officials say.
Did Market Failures Require A Lockdown Response?
The American Institute of Economic Research (AIER)
As we have seen in this pandemic, misunderstanding the Coasian discussion of market failure has deadly consequences. If the same mistakes are repeated in climate change, the body count could be in the millions. Alas, I have no answer. But economists and policymakers must ask the question: what are people actually doing in the status quo to manage the harm? We may find that what, on its face, appears to be a failure is actually preferable to the reasonable and feasible alternatives.
Our Oligarchs’ Crisis Of Confidence
The American Conservative
That’s one of the key takeaways here: these people are far too desperate to be as nefarious as we might think. The more outrageous aspects of the last few months—from Twitter censorship to post-election whiplash—may be best understood not as the first flashes of an ascendant tyranny, but as a flurry of idiotic moves by an elite who clearly have much less faith in their hold on power than we do.
Why Chick-fil-A Is so Much More Efficient (and Friendlier) Than Government
The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)
Think about it for a moment. Why is your service at Chick-fil-A, Home Depot, or the local Toyota dealer so different from your visit to the DMV or the Post Office? It’s not because nice people go into customer service and ornery or unhelpful people go into bureaucracy.
The answer comes down to a single word: incentives. The absence of market forces means there is really no compelling incentive for the DMV to improve efficiency (or smile when you come through the door). As I pointed out earlier, we’ve pretty much come to expect bureaucracies to be slow and cold.
The Myanmar Coup: A Lesson for Americans
The Future of Freedom Foundation (FFF)
Like the United States, Myanmar is a national-security state, which is a totalitarian form of governmental structure consisting of a vast, powerful, and permanent military-intelligence establishment. Even though the people of Myanmar would prefer a civilian limited-government form of governmental structure, they cannot get it. That’s because the military-intelligence establishment is simply too powerful. If people even suggest that it should be dismantled in favor of a limited-government democratic republic, they are put down through arrest, torture, and even execution. The Myanmar people simply lack the ability — the armaments — to resist the omnipotent power of the national-security establishment.
Companies Are Preparing to Cut Jobs and Automate if Biden Gets $15 Minimum Wage Hike, Reporting Shows
The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)
Well, labor is a product like any other. If the cost of soda was artificially mandated at $10 per can by the government, the simple fact is that consumers would buy less of it. When employers are legally forced to pay more for labor than it is worth in the market, they naturally and inevitably do the same.
The Decline and Fall of the American Empire
AntiWar.com
Americans were not always so ignorant of the imperial nature of their country’s ambitions. George Washington described New York as "the seat of an empire," and his military campaign against British forces there as the "pathway to empire." New Yorkers eagerly embraced their state’s identity as the Empire State, which is still enshrined in the Empire State Building and on New York State license plates.
Mike
Bonus! In the last few weeks I have really tried to dive into the crypto space. To learn about it, and to start investing. If you have any tips or recourses please let me know!
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I found this crypto start up called Pi Network that lets you mine their currency from your phone just by clicking a button once every 24 hours. You can’t pull it out yet, and I don’t believe it has a dollar value currently, but it might eventually. It’s free and takes zero effort so why not give it a try. Here is their white paper.
In order to sign up, you have to use an invite code, so please go ahead and use mine. DontStatistOnMe
You can also find me on MeWe! Mike Lastname with the same doggo icon. Let me know in the comments if you can’t find me.
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