Government – Page 108 – artdiamondblog.com

UNO Protects Students from Cupcakes (Whether They Want to Be Protected, or Not)

Many years ago, I went along with a group of Exec MBA students to Germany. Among them was Bill Swanson. Bill had a sense of humor.

At some point in the trip, I spilled ketchup on my tie. Bill’s response was that normally a ruined tie would be sad, but given my tie, the ketchup was an improvement.

Yes, Bill has a sense of humor; so I’m hoping the story below is a joke.

That’s what I hope, but what I fear is that the story below is one more example of the inefficient, sometimes painful (like when an 8th grader can’t take aspirin to middle school), and sometimes funny, things that we are driven to do to protect ourselves from being sued, in an economy where congress has empowered personal injury lawyers to frequently sue for huge and unpredictable compensatory and punitive damages. (When Joe Ricketts, Ameritrade founder, spoke to my Exec MBA class a few years ago, he said that the biggest threat facing the U.S. economy was the proliferation of tort law suits.)

So it’s either a bad joke; or (most likely) it’s UNO protecting itself against every potential law suit; or it’s a third, and worse, alternative—which would be if the story below is to be taken at face value.

In that case we would have to conclude that some UNO staff have nothing better to do with their time than to paternalistically ‘protect’ young adults from a minuscule risk of illness from freely choosing to purchase and eat cupcakes being sold by fellow students to raise money for good causes.

Here is an excerpt from the page one, lead story, of the Sat., Oct. 6, 2007, Omaha World-Herald:

(p. 1A) Guns. Drugs. Bake sales.

What do these things have in common?

All have been banned at the University of Nebraska at Omaha campus.

Citing safety and health concerns, UNO last week prohibited selling homemade food items at campus fundraisers.

Officials said the prevalence of serious food allergies and the potential for contaminated food — either by accident or deliberately — led UNO to adopt the policy, which then drew complaints from student groups.

"The primary issue is the health of the students and the safety of the students," said Bill Swanson, assistant to the vice chancellor in the Career Exploration and Outreach Office.

No one on the UNO campus has reported problems with contaminated food purchased at a bake sale, Swanson said.

But there have been incidents around the country, he said, and those were enough to prompt a discussion among officials.

The decision has come under fire from students who say the restriction cuts off small student (p. 2A) groups from their primary fundraising source.

The Public Relations Student Society of America traditionally held bake sales once a month to raise money for national conferences, local business luncheons and volunteer work, said the group’s president, Katie Dowd.

The group raised about $1,500 a year hawking homemade baked goods donated by members.

"It’s a big blow to us," said Dowd, who called the potential for food contamination from her group’s offerings "very unlikely."

For the full story, see:

ELIZABETH AHLIN. "Goodies ban half-baked, UNO students say." Omaha World-Herald (Saturday, October 6, 2007): 1A & 2A.

A Toast to the Feisty Old Lady Entrepreneur Who Fought the Government, and Won

(p. B10) When Virginia-based vintner Juanita Swedenburg discovered Prohibition-vintage laws prevented her from mailing cases of wine to customers in New York, she decided to make a federal case of it.

"I was furious, never so cross, as cross as I can get," Ms. Swedenburg told the Washington Post in April 2005. A month later, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Swedenburg v. Kelly that a New York law preventing wine sales across state lines was unconstitutional.

. . .

To Ms. Swedenburg, it was a matter of principle, not peddling more vino, says her son, Marc Swedenburg. She shut down her mail-order business when she filed suit in 2000, to ensure she wasn’t violating the law. The family winery still does very little mail-order sales.

Ms. Swedenburg’s day before the nation’s high court was set in motion in the early 1990s, when lawyer Clint Bolick of the Institute for Justice, a Washington D.C.-based libertarian law firm, stopped by her Middleburg, Va., tasting room. There, he discovered "a chardonnay with the toastiest nose I can remember," Mr. Bolick wrote in his book "David’s Hammer" (2007), which includes Ms. Swedenburg’s story in an anthology of David vs. Goliath tales. Mr. Bolick and Ms. Swedenburg got to talking, he writes, "When I told her that, among other things, I challenged regulatory barriers to entrepreneurship, she exclaimed, ‘Have I got a regulation for you!’ "

. . .

Ms. Swedenburg expressed regret that her husband didn’t see her constitutional arguments prevail. "He never made fun of me for doing something as foolish as this. Some men would say, ‘What are you getting into all this foolishness for?’ Not him," she told the Washington Post. "He would always be very quiet when I’d go off on my rampage about the situation." The decision in her favor was rendered on May 16, 2005, the first anniversary of his death. Ms. Swedenburg was still bouncing around on her tractor days before her death at age 82 on June 9 in Middleburg.

For the full story, see:

STEPHEN MILLER. "REMEMBRANCES; Juanita Swedenburg (1925 – 2007); Passionate Winemaker Won Fight To Sell Product Across State Lines." The Wall Street Journal (Sat., June 16, 2007): A6.

(Note: ellipses added.)

The reference for the Bolick book, is:

Bolick, Clint. David’s Hammer: The Case for an Activist Judiciary. Washington D.C.: Cato Institute, 2007.

Source of book image: http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/12270000/12274961.jpg

Government Subsidies Support Wealthy Golfers

Wealthy greeting card executive Mike Keiser created and owns the Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, which caters to wealthy corporate executives who fly to the course in small private corporate jets. Source of the photo: online version of the NYT article cited below.

(p. C1) BANDON, Ore. — Mike Keiser, who made a fortune selling greeting cards on recycled paper, turned this remote spot on the southern Oregon coast into a golfing mecca that attracts wealthy people in private jets from around the world.

To many in this hard-luck town of 3,000, Mr. Keiser is an economic hero. Work became scarce after the timber and fishing industries collapsed a quarter-century ago, and his Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, a few miles north of town, has created 325 full-time jobs, plus hundreds more part-time jobs. Mr. Keiser earns millions of dollars in profits each year.

But beneath this model of enterprise, largely hidden subsidies from airline passengers, state-lottery players, taxpayers and company shareholders support the benefits that the owner, workers and visitors at Bandon Dunes enjoy.

Airline passengers and lottery players are paying for a $31 million airport expansion to serve the 5,000 business jets that arrive each year, filled almost entirely with golfers. Many of them are executives of publicly traded companies flying at a small fraction of the real cost of their trips; taxpayers and shareholders bear nearly all of these costs.

Much controversy swirls around the subsidies and tax exemptions state and local governments offer expressly to attract businesses to a community. But far less attention has been focused on the many kinds of indirect favors that are showered on places like Bandon Dunes through government policies (p. C6) that influence the flow of money from the public to private interests and often serve to reinforce benefits for those who are already successful.

. . .

No official tally of business subsidies exists, but in separate studies Peter S. Fisher of the University of Iowa and Kenneth F. Thomas of the University of Missouri estimated that state and local subsidies aimed at creating jobs total about $50 billion annually. More subtle subsidies like those that benefit Bandon Dunes are not counted in those figures and may be even larger.

Such government subsidies have been challenged as inefficient by a broad spectrum of critics, from the libertarian Cato Institute and the conservative Heritage Foundation to liberal groups like Good Jobs First.

To be sure, said Martin S. Feldstein, a Harvard University economics professor and a former chief economic adviser to President Ronald Reagan, some government subsidies can be beneficial for society.

“A subsidy for flu vaccines is good,” he said, “because if you are vaccinated I am less likely to get flu by contagion.” But job subsidies are a drag on the economy, he added, “unless the local gain exceeds the loss in the rest of the nation.”

For the full story, see:

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON. "Assisting the Good Life." The New York Times (Fri., June 15, 2007): C1 & C6.

(Note: ellipses added.)

A few of the roughly 5,000 business jets that carry executive golfers to the public airport, built and expanded partly with fees from middle-class airline travelers. Source of the photo: online version of the NYT article cited above.

Latin America Discourages Entrepreneurs

Source of table: online version of the WSJ article cited below.

(p. A18) Economist Joseph Schumpeter (1883-1950) may be best known for his innovative work showing the link between entrepreneurial discovery and economic progress.

But as Carl Schramm, president of the Kauffman Foundation of Entrepreneurship has pointed out, Schumpeter’s insights about risk-takers didn’t make him an optimist.

In a speech last year to European finance ministers in Vienna, Mr. Schramm explained Schumpeter’s fears: He "worried that entrepreneurial capitalism would not flourish because the bureaucracies of modern government and big corporations would dampen innovation — the process of ‘creative destruction’ would be too ungovernable for a modern, Keynesian-regulated economy to tolerate." As a result, Mr. Schramm said, Schumpeter thought that "the importance of entrepreneurs would fade over time as capitalism sought predictability from governments who would plan economic activity as well as order social benefits."

Mr. Schramm’s comments caught my attention because they so accurately describe Latin America. There the entrepreneur has been all but run out of town by the bureaucracies that Schumpeter feared. Growth has suffered accordingly.

The World Bank’s annual "Doing Business" survey, released last week, demonstrates the point. The 2008 survey, which evaluates the regulatory climate for entrepreneurs in 178 countries, finds that Latin America and the Caribbean was the slowest reforming region this year and that it "is falling further behind other regions in the pace" of reform.

. . .

The most important lesson for Latin America from the World Bank’s report is that its competitors around the world are working to unleash entrepreneurial spirits, and doing nothing is not an option. As Mr. Schramm told his Vienna audience, "Schumpeter saw what a century of evidence would prove: Socialism has not sustained economic growth." Now, if only more Latin American policy makers would catch on.

For the full commentary, see:

MARY ANASTASIA O’GRADY. "THE AMERICAS; No Room for Entrepreneurs." The Wall Street Journal (Mon., October 8, 2007): A18.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

Suing the Pants Off Private Enterprise: Illustrating the Case for Tort Reform

The Dry Cleaners that was sued for $67.3 million dollars, to compensate a Washington, D.C. judge for a lost pair of pants. Source of the photo: online version of the NYT article cited below.

WASHINGTON, June 12 — Roy L. Pearson Jr. wanted to dress sharply for his new job as an administrative law judge here. So when his neighborhood dry cleaner misplaced a pair of expensive pants he had planned to wear his first week on the bench, Judge Pearson was annoyed.

So annoyed that he sued — for $67.3 million.

The case of the judge’s pants, which opened for trial in a packed courtroom here on Tuesday, has been lampooned on talk radio and in the blogosphere as an example of American legal excess. And it has spurred complaints to the District of Columbia Bar and city officials from national tort reform and trial lawyer groups worried about its effect on public trust in the legal system.

“I don’t know of any other cases that have been quite this ridiculous,” said Paul Rothstein, a professor of law at Georgetown University.

. . .

“You are not a we, you are an I,” Judge Bartnoff said in one of several testy exchanges with Judge Pearson, 57, who is representing himself. “You are seeking damages on your own behalf, and that is all.”

Later, while recounting the day he says the cleaners tried to pass off a cheaper pair of pants as his, Judge Pearson began to cry, asking for a break and dabbing tears as he left the courtroom.

For the full story, see:

ARIEL SABAR and SUEVON LEE. "Judge Tries Suing Pants Off Dry Cleaners." The New York Times (Weds., June 13, 2007): A13.

The Korean immigrant owners of the dry cleaners who were being sued for $67.3 million dollars. Source of the photo: online version of the NYT article cited below.

Mugabe Driven by Quest for Power, More than from Paranoia, or Marxism: More on Why Africa is Poor

No one outside of Mr. Mugabe’s inner circle, of course, can say with certainty why he has pursued policies since 2000 that have produced economic and social bedlam. For his part, Mr. Mugabe says Zimbabwe’s chaos is the product of a Western plot to reassert colonial rule, while he is simply taking steps to fight that off.

Among many outside that circle, however, the growing conviction is that Zimbabwe’s descent is neither the result of paranoia nor the product of Mr. Mugabe’s longstanding belief in Marxist economic theory. Instead, they say, Zimbabwe is fast becoming a kleptocracy, and the government’s seemingly inexplicable policies are in fact preserving and expanding it.

. . .

Mr. Mugabe’s government declares currency trading illegal, but regularly dumps vast stacks of new bills on the black market, still wrapped in plastic, to raise foreign exchange for its own needs, business leaders and economists say.

The nation’s extraordinary hyperinflation, last pegged by analysts at 10,000 percent a year, is an economic disaster that, by all accounts, the government needs to address. Yet after it ordered merchants in July to slash their prices, cadres of policemen and soldiers moved into shops to enforce the new controls, scoop up bargains and give friends and political heavyweights preferential access to cheap goods.

. . .

Mr. Mugabe’s 25-bedroom mansion in Borrowdale, the gated high-end suburb of Harare, the capital, is the locus of a boomlet that has spawned luxury homes for government and party officials. (Mr. Mugabe said his mansion was built with goods and labor donated by foreign governments.)

Mr. Mugabe arrived to open Zimbabwe’s Parliament this month in a Rolls-Royce. Equally telling, the legislature’s parking lot was crammed with luxury cars.

Such riches have been accompanied by a steep decline in living standards for just about everyone else. The death rate for Zimbabweans under the age of 5 grew by 65 percent from 1990 to 2005, even as the rate for the world’s poorest nations dropped. Average life expectancy here is among the world’s lowest, according to the United Nations.

For the full commentary, see:

MICHAEL WINES. "News Analysis; Zimbabwe’s Chaos: The Powerful Thrive." The New York Times (Fri., August 3, 2007): A8.

(Note: ellipses added.)

The Case for Patent Law Reform

The author of the commentary quoted below is the head lawyer for Intel. I believe that the evidence is strong that patents can provide strong incentives for innovation. But the devil is in the details. I have not studied the Patent Reform Act of 2007, so I am not sure whether, overall, it is an improvement over the current rules. But the case for reform is strong, and the topic is one that highly deserves further research.

(p. A15) The U.S. patent system is beginning to show its age; outpaced by the swift evolution of technology and commerce, it increasingly favors speculators over innovators, impeding innovation and economic growth. Fortunately, the bipartisan "Patent Reform Act of 2007," introduced in both the House and Senate, would improve the process for granting patents, and rebalance court rules and procedures to ensure fair treatment when patents wind up in litigation. The Senate Judiciary Committee will take up S.1145 today.

Congress needs to pass this bill, during this session, as the need for reform is clear. Nationwide, the number of patent lawsuits nearly tripled between 1991 and 2004, and the number of cases between 2001 and 2005 grew nearly 20%. Until 1990, only one patent damages award exceeded $100 million; more than 10 judgments and settlements were entered in the last five years, and at least four topped $500 million. One recent decision topped $1.5 billion.

The number of questionable, loosely defined patents, moreover, is rising. One company holds patents that it claims broadly cover current technologies that allow people to make phone calls over the Internet. Another has staked a claim on streaming video over the Internet generally and has pursued colleges for royalties on their distance-learning programs. In 2002, a five-year-old boy patented a method of swinging on a swing.

Unfortunately, under current law, parties that want to innovate in areas covered by questionable patents have only two options, both of them bad: an ineffective, rarely used re-examination process, or litigation — the average cost of which is, by some estimates, $4.5 million. This impedes innovation, as the FTC noted: "One firm’s questionable patent may lead its competitor to forgo R&D in the areas that the patent improperly covers."

For the full commentary, see:

BRUCE SEWELL. "Patent Nonsense." The Wall Street Journal (Thurs., July 12, 2007): A15.

Think “Passports” When You Hear a Call to Grow the Government

In an earlier blog entry, I expressed my own personal outrage at the passport debacle.

HOUSTON, June 6 — With government phone lines jammed by record numbers of passport-seekers, Veronica Alvarez and three anxious friends hoping to travel to Cancun next week showed up at the federal building here on Wednesday at 3 a.m.

There were 11 people in line ahead of them.

“We’ve been calling for a week every day,” said Ms. Alvarez, 29, a bank clerk, who joined about 1,200 people who have been besieging the downtown office here daily for word on their passports, some of which were requested in February.

The State Department has acknowledged long delays from “unprecedented demand” after new rules requiring passports for travelers returning from Mexico, Canada and the Caribbean. It expects to announce new measures soon to ease the nationwide crush.

. . .

Much of the spike in applications is attributed to the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which went into effect Jan. 23 and requires passports, merchant mariner documents or frequent-traveler Nexus cards for air travelers returning from Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean and Bermuda. Next January, the requirement is likely to be extended to ship, rail and road travelers.

But somehow, the government seemed caught by surprise when crowds began besieging passport offices this spring.

. . .

“Basically, they’ve taken my money,” said Kevin Owens, 39, an oil industry employee, who sent in an expedited application April 20 and, with a June 14 trip to Jamaica looming, was still passportless. “The whole process is —” he searched for a word — “lacking.”

. . .

A nervous Brianna Pollinger, 35, of suburban Katy, Tex., arrived at the passport office on Tuesday not knowing whether she would be able to leave Friday on a 10-year anniversary trip to Mexico with her husband. But after waiting nearly eight hours, she emerged with a prized blue-covered booklet. Was she mollified? “Oh, no,” she said. “I definitely minded.”

For the full story, see:

RALPH BLUMENTHAL. "Travelers Face Frustrations With Passport Rule Changes." The New York Times (Thurs., June 7, 2007): A20.

(Note: ellipses added.)

Notice how excited those in line seem to be at hearing what passport official Eric Botts ist telling them. Source of photo: online version of the NYT article cited above.

Pyramids Can Take Many Forms: More on Why Africa is Poor

My Wabash economics prof Ben Rogge used to say that rulers have always liked to spend the people’s money to build pyramids intended to proclaim the glory of the ruler. But in modern times the rulers have to be a tad more subtle than the Egyptians, so, for instance, in Brazil they build Brazilia, instead of actual pyramids.

And according to the story below, summarized from the May 2007 IEEE Spectrum, in Africa, they build large dams.

Small dams could help deliver electricity to much of Africa’s population, but since they lack the prestige of larger-scale projects, few of them get built.

. . .

In Uganda, which has plenty of rivers and streams to supply power, Mr. Zachary describes how a small water-power generator, supplied by a small nearby dam, delivers 60 kilowatts of energy to a nearby hospital. The generator would barely be enough to run a single magnetic-resonance imaging machine, a staple in Western hospitals. But it does provide enough power to light the hospital and keep basic equipment running for the 100 nurses and doctors who work there. The entire generation system cost $15,000 to build.

Still, Africa’s leaders are unlikely to abandon their preference for big public works, says Mr. Zachary, since they create thousands of construction jobs and reinforce the political might of the central government.

For the full summary, see:

"Informed Reader; ENERGY; Small Dams Might Help to Electrify Africa." The Wall Street Journal (Tues., May 8, 2007): B10.

(Note: ellipsis added; the original article in IEEE Spectrum is by G. Pascal Zachary.)

How to Protect Against Bad Drugs: “Don’t Take Them”

The FDA’s major problem is not laxity, but zealotry. Its current get-tough view on conflict of interest only aggravates the fundamental flaw in its institutional design. Transfixed on the harms drugs can cause, the FDA remains largely oblivious to the harms they can prevent. Any delay in the use of a successful drug is costly: The delay matters little to the FDA, but a great deal to the thousands who plea for compassionate exemptions to try a drug that has not met with FDA approval. Nor is the FDA sensitive, as individual physicians surely are, to the simple fact that a drug which cannot be tolerated by one person works wonders in another.

. . .

Right now, we all have a simple expedient to protect ourselves against dangerous drugs that make it to the market: Don’t take them. But we have no protection at all when the FDA denies us that choice in the first place. Right now the pace of drug approval is too slow. We don’t need the FDA to slow it up still further.

For the full commentary, see:

Richard A. Epstein. “Drug Crazy.” The Wall Street Journal (Mon., March 26, 2007): A12.

(Note: ellipsis added.)