Government – Page 73 – artdiamondblog.com

Stimulus Money Sent to the Jailed and the Dead

(p. A8) The Social Security Administration sent about 89,000 stimulus payments of $250 each to dead and incarcerated people–but almost half of them were returned, a new inspector-general’s report found.
. . .
. . . 17,000 payments went to recipients who were in prison at the time the payment was made in May 2009. However, not all of those payments were necessarily against the letter of the law. While lawmakers intended to prevent payments to people in prison, the law included only a provision prohibiting payments to people incarcerated in the three months before the plan was passed–from November 2008 through January 2009.
. . .
. . . : The SSA says that the stimulus package didn’t include a provision allowing it to try to retrieve funds that were mistakenly sent out, so it can’t try to retrieve the rest of the money. Money transferred electronically may be sitting untouched in bank accounts of dead people.
The combined total of the mistaken payments is $22.3 million. About $12 million hasn’t been returned.

For the full story, see:

LOUISE RADNOFSKY. “Stimulus Checks Sent to Dead, Incarcerated.” The Wall Street Journal (Fri., OCTOBER 8, 2010): A8.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the article was dated OCTOBER 7, 2010.)

Wilderness Act Makes Wilderness Inaccessible and Dangerous

(p. A19) ONE day in early 1970, a cross-country skier got lost along the 46-mile Kekekabic Trail, which winds through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northern Minnesota. Unable to make his way out, he died of exposure.

In response, the Forest Service installed markers along the trail. But when, years later, it became time to replace them, the agency refused, claiming that the 1964 Wilderness Act banned signage in the nation’s wilderness areas.
. . .
Over the decades an obvious contradiction has emerged between preservation and access. As the Forest Service, the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management — each of which claims jurisdiction over different wilderness areas — adopted stricter interpretations of the act, they forbade signs, baby strollers, certain climbing tools and carts that hunters use to carry game.
As a result, the agencies have made these supposedly open recreational areas inaccessible and even dangerous, putting themselves in opposition to healthy and environmentally sound human-powered activities, the very thing Congress intended the Wilderness Act to promote.

For the full commentary, see:

TED STROLL. “Aw, Wilderness!.” The New York Times (Fri., August 27, 2010): A19.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the article was dated August 26, 2010.)

Competitors Have “Incentive to Misuse the Government to Obtain an Advantage”

(p. A15) Today’s technology behemoth risks becoming tomorrow’s dinosaur, and competitors sometimes plead for government intervention to obtain what they fail to achieve in the market. As a former head of a competition agency, I offer . . . principles to guide competition policy toward successful innovators.

. . . , be wary of competitor complaints. When a competitor tells government that its rival acts unfairly, the complaint should be viewed with great suspicion. Competitor complaints are driving recent EU investigations into companies that include Qualcomm, Google, Oracle and IBM. Competitors can provide valuable information about marketplace realities, but they have every incentive to misuse the government to obtain an advantage that is otherwise unattainable.
. . .
. . . , don’t create disincentives for innovation. Complaining competitors often want innovators to be forced to share the source of their success, regardless of intellectual property rights. Nothing could be more destructive to the incentives for future innovation than rules that prevent innovators from reaping the full benefits of their work. As a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court said in its 2004 Verizon v. Trinko decision, “[f]irms may acquire monopoly power by establishing an infrastructure that renders them uniquely suited to serve their customers.”

For the full commentary, see:
TIMOTHY J. MURIS. “Antitrust in a High-Tech World; The first rule of regulators should be to be wary of complaints from competitors..” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., August 12, 2010): A15.
(Note: ellipses added.)

Joe Ricketts Stands Tall Against Earmarks

Entrepreneur Joe Ricketts. Source of photo: online version of the Omaha World-Herald article quoted and cited below.

I used to teach an Economics of Technology course in the UNO EMBA program (until a curriculum committee axed the course). As a long-shot I once invited Joe Ricketts to speak to the class. I was surprised that he accepted, and maybe also surprised that he clearly invested some time and thought in his presentation. The class was riveted not only by the story of his own entrepreneurial challenges, but also of his views of the policy issues of the day. I remember his good-natured persistence in arguing with one student who challenged him on his view of the importance of tort-reform.
From his manner, and some of the stories he told, he seemed to be the sort of entrepreneur who exemplified George Gilder’s view that great entrepreneurs have a kind of humility that leaves them open to learning, at least in key areas related to their business goals. By all accounts, Sam Walton was another example. And I heard Charles Koch speak this summer and saw him interact with some of his executives; he also gave the impression of being down-to-earth, and open to learning.
(Of course, then there’s Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison—generalizations on entrepreneurship are hard to come by!)
Ricketts and Koch also share another trait—this one too rare among successful entrepreneurs. They are both willing to invest a considerable part of their hard-earned wealth in order to preserve and protect the institutions of limited government that will make it possible for future entrepreneurs to succeed. In Ricketts’ case, for example:

(p. 7A) WASHINGTON — Joe Ricketts wants to bring down at least one Capitol Hill lawmaker who seeks earmarks so he can get the rest of Congress’ attention.

The founder and former CEO of what is now TD Ameritrade has started a new organization called Taxpayers Against Earmarks, which will seek to highlight what he describes as the evils of legislators setting aside money for pet projects back home.
. . .
Ricketts said that while some earmarks support worthy projects, he is against them all because the process is flawed. He compared those who support earmarks to addicts and criminals.
“I’m sure that all over the country there are people that like earmarks and people come to defend earmarks, and those are the people that are on the dope,” he said.
Ricketts said those who seek earmarks are asking legislators to spend other people’s money for their purposes.
“That’s theft,” he said. “As Tom Coburn says, that’s intergenerational theft. So those people that like earmarks, you can consider thieves.”
. . .
Ricketts said . . . the process encourages lawmakers to throw their support behind other spending bills to gain other lawmakers’ support for their earmarks.
“A lot of elected officials like the earmarks, but they’ve never had anybody like me or anybody else push back. … So now the scales are going to balance a little bit,” he said. “I’m going to spend as many years and as many dollars as it takes to be successful.”

For the full story, see:
Joseph Morton. “Joe Ricketts Will Put Up Big Bucks to Fight Earmarks.” Omaha World-Herald (Friday, October 1, 2010): 7A.
(Note: all ellipses added, except for the last one which was in the original.)
(Note: the online version of the article has the title “Joe Ricketts will help fight earmarks.”)

“I Just Love Economics”

Paul Ryan. Source of photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. 16) Your once-quiet life as a congressman from Wisconsin was forever altered at the House Republican retreat in Baltimore last month, when President Obama singled you out as a “pretty sincere guy” and gave a shout-out to your “Road Map for America’s Future 2.0,” your plan to balance the federal budget.
He brought up my plan and I thought for a moment, Wow, this could be a sincere olive branch.

As the ranking Republican member of the House Budget Committee, you are seen within your party as a policy wonk.
I’ve been working on the federal budget most of my adult life, which is kind of a pretty sad thing to admit to. I just love economics.
Your “Road Map,” we should explain, is a somewhat alarming document that proposes, in 600-plus pages, erasing the federal deficit by radically restricting the government’s role in social programs like Social Security and Medicare. The president described it as “a serious proposal.”
Right. And then the next day his budget director starts ripping me and then the day after that the entire Democratic National Committee political machine starts launching demagogic attacks on me and my plan. So when you hear the word “bipartisanship” come from the president and then you see his political machine get in full-force attack mode, it comes across as very insincere.

For the full interview, see:
DEBORAH SOLOMON. “Questions for Paul Ryan; The Big Cheese.” The New York Times, Magazine Section (Sun., February 21, 2010): 16.
(Note: bold in original versions, to indicate questions by Deborah Solomon.)
(Note: the online version of the article is dated February 19, 2010.)

The Dirt on Government Detergent Laws

“Elise Jones has noticed “a white dusty film” on her dishes and attributes it to reduced phosphates in dishwasher detergent.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. 1) Some longtime users were furious.

“My dishes were dirtier than before they were washed,” one wrote last week in the review section of the Web site for the Cascade line of dishwasher detergents. “It was horrible, and I won’t buy it again.”
“This is the worst product ever made for use as a dishwashing detergent!” another consumer wrote.
Like every other major detergent for automatic dishwashers, Procter & Gamble’s Cascade line recently underwent a makeover. Responding to laws that went into effect in 17 states in July, the nation’s detergent makers reformulated their products to reduce what had been the crucial ingredient, phosphates, to just a trace.
. . .
(p. 4) Phosphorus in the form of phosphates suspends particles so they do not stick to dishes and softens water to allow suds to form.
Now that the content in dishwasher detergent has plummeted to 0.5 percent from as high as 8.7 percent, many consumers are just noticing the change in the wash cycle as they run out of the old product.
“Low-phosphate dish detergents are a waste of my money,” said Thena Reynolds, a 55-year-old homemaker from Van Zandt County, Tex., who said she ran her dishwasher twice a day for a family of five. Now she has to do a quick wash of the dishes before she puts them in the dishwasher to make sure they come out clean, she said. “If I’m using more water and detergent, is that saving anything?” Ms. Reynolds said. “There has to be a happy medium somewhere.”
. . .
. . . Jessica Fischburg, a commerce manager in Norwich, Conn., for CleaningProductsWorld.com, which sells janitorial supplies in bulk, said she was not surprised that many of her clients rejected products marketed as environmentally friendly.
“The reality of any green product is that they generally don’t work as well,” she said. “Our customers really don’t like them.”
. . .
. . . in its September issue, Consumer Reports reported that of 24 low- or phosphate-free dishwasher detergents it tested, including those from environmentally friendly product lines that have been on the market for years, none matched the performance of products with phosphates.

For the full story, see:
MIREYA NAVARRO. “Cleaner for the Environment, But the Dishes? Not So Shiny.” The New York Times, First Section (Sun., September 19, 2010): 1 & 4.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the article was dated September 18, 2010, and had the title “Cleaner for the Environment, Not for the Dishes.”)

Obamacare Is Increasing Health Costs

Source of graph: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

(p. A7) The health-care overhaul enacted last spring won’t significantly change national health spending over the next decade compared with projections before the law was passed, according to government figures released Thursday.

The report by federal number-crunchers casts fresh doubt on Democrats’ argument that the health-care law would curb the sharp increase in costs over the long term, the second setback this week for one of the party’s biggest legislative achievements.
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that insurance companies have proposed rate increases ranging from 1% to 9% nationwide that they attribute specifically to new health-law coverage mandates.

For the full story, see:
JANET ADAMY. “Health Outlays Still Seen Rising .” The Wall Street Journal (Thurs., SEPTEMBER 9, 2010): A7.
(Note: the online version of the graph has the date SEPTEMBER 8, 2010.)

Budgetless California Legislature Votes to Create “Motorcycle Awareness Month”

(p. A1) SACRAMENTO, Calif.–On the brink of insolvency, California may have to pay its bills with IOUs soon. A budget was due three months ago, and the legislature hasn’t passed one.

The lawmakers can, however, point to a list of other achievements this year. Awaiting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s signature, for example, is a bill that would bar the state from filming cows in New Zealand. It’s the fruit of five committee votes and eight legislative analyses.
California lawmakers also voted to form a lobster commission. They created “Motorcycle Awareness Month,” not to mention a “Cuss Free Week.”

For the full story, see:
STU WOO. “There’s No Budget, but California Is All Over the Foreign-Cow Issue; As Deficit Looms, Lawmakers Promulgate ‘Cuss Free Week,’ Defend the State Rock.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., SEPTEMBER 28, 2010): A1 & A18.

French Utopian Planned Community Goes Up in Flames

“The planned neighborhood Villeneuve, in Grenoble, has slowly degraded into a poor district before it finally burst into flames three weeks ago, with a mob setting nearly 100 cars on fire.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. A7) GRENOBLE, France — A utopian dream of a new urban community, built here in the 1970s, had slowly degraded into a poor neighborhood plagued by aimless youths before it finally burst into flames three weeks ago.

After Karim Boudouda, a 27-year-old of North African descent, and some of his friends had robbed a casino, he was killed in an exchange of automatic gunfire with the police. The next night, Villeneuve, a carefully planned neighborhood of Grenoble in eastern France, exploded. A mob set nearly 100 cars on fire, wrecked a tram car and burned an annex of city hall.
. . .
Villeneuve, or “new city,” emerged directly out of the social unrest of the May 1968 student uprising.
People committed to social change, from here as well as from Paris and other cities, came to create a largely self-contained neighborhood of apartment buildings, parks, schools, and health and local services in this city of 160,000 people, at the spectacular juncture of two rivers and three mountain ranges at the foot of the French Alps.

For the full story, see:

STEVEN ERLANGER. “Grenoble Journal; Utopian Dream Becomes Battleground in France.” The New York Times (Mon., August 9, 2010): A7.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the review is dated August 8, 2010.)

Government Import Quotas Increase Price of Sugar in U.S.

Source of graph: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

(p. A1) The gap between what Americans and the rest of the world pay for sugar has reached its widest level in at least a decade, breathing new life into the battle over import quotas that prop up the price of the sweet stuff in the U.S.

For years, U.S. prices have been artificially inflated by import restrictions designed to protect American farmers. That has kept the price well above the global market.
But in recent days, the difference between the two has ballooned, giving new impetus to U.S. sugar processors and confectioners to step up their long campaign to pressure the government to increase import limits.
Attention to sugar prices, and the dwindling supply of sugar left in U.S. warehouses, has intensified in the lead up to April 1, after which the U.S. Department of Agriculture can review and change the import quotas, which now stand at 1.3 million metric tons.
Sugar users have long been vocal critics of the quotas but have failed to convince the government to change the limits. The quota has remained unchanged since it was first imposed in 1990, except for two temporary increases after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and a major refinery explosion in 2008.

For the full story, see:
CAROLYN CUI. “Price Gap Puts Spice in Sugar-Quota Fight.” The Wall Street Journal (Mon., MARCH 15, 2010): A1 & A20.