Broken Windows All Over
It reminds us of the need to repeat, and repeat, and repeat the same messages. Tornadoes, diseases, and wars are not good for “the economy.” They may be good for hardware stores, doctors, and military contractors, but not for the rest of us. Still, the New York Times couldn’t help but tell us on the front page that “Reconstruction Lifts Economy After Disasters.”
Frederic Bastiat exploded the fallacy long ago. Here’s a modern (and shorter) retelling:
John Paul Stevens, Defender of High-Tech Freedom
I’m saddened to hear of the retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens. Whatever you might say about his jurisprudence in other areas, one place where Justice Stevens really shined was in his defense of high-tech freedom.
Justice Stevens wrote the majority opinion in some of the most important high-tech cases of the last four decades. In other cases, he wrote important (and in some cases prescient) dissents. Through it all, he was a consistent voice for freedom of expression and the freedom to innovate. His accomplishments include:
- Free speech: Justice Stevens wrote the majority decision in ACLU v. Reno, the decision that struck down the infamous Communications Decency Act and clearly established that the First Amendment applies to the Internet. In the 13 years since then, the courts have repeatedly beat back attacks on free speech online. For example, Justice Stevens was in the majority in ACLU v. Ashcroft, the 2004 decision that struck down another attempt to censor the Internet in the name of protecting children.
- Copyright: Justice Stevens wrote the majority opinion in the 1984 case of Sony v. Universal, the case in which the Supreme Court upheld the legality of the VCR by a 5-4 vote. The decision, which today is known as the “Betamax decision” after the Sony VCR brand, made possible the explosion of digital media innovation that followed. When the recording industry tried to stop the introduction of the MP3 player in 1997, the Ninth Circuit cited the Betamax precedent in holding that “space shifting” with your MP3 player is permitted under copyright’s fair use doctrine. The iPod as we know it today probably wouldn’t exist if Sony had lost the Betamax case. Justice Stevens also wrote an important dissent in the 2003 decision of Eldred v. Ashcroft, in which he (like the Cato Institute) argued that the Constitution’s “limited times” provision precluded Congress from retroactively extending copyright terms.
- Patents: The explosion of software patents is one of the biggest threats to innovation in the software industry, and Justice Stevens saw this threat coming almost three decades ago. Stevens wrote the majority decision in the 1978 case of Parker v. Flook, which clearly disallowed patents in the software industry. Three years later, Stevens dissented in the 1981 case of Diamond v. Diehr, which allowed a patent on a software-controlled rubber-curing machine. Although the majority decision didn’t explicitly permit patents on software, Stevens warned that the majority’s muddled decision would effectively open the door to software patents. And he has been proven right. In the three decades that followed, the patent-friendly U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has effectively dismantled limits on software patents. And the result has been a disaster, with high-tech firms being forced to spend large sums on litigation rather than innovation.
So if you enjoy your iPod and your uncensored Internet access, you have Justice Stevens to thank. Best wishes for a long, comfortable, and well-deserved retirement.
A $1.1 Billion Re-Election Campaign. For the Senate.
When Rep. Collin Peterson (D- Minn. and Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee) pronounces that a farm program is too generous, you know you’ve crossed a line.
But that’s what happened recently after Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark), Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman and — oh, hey, how about that? — facing a tough re-election battle in November proposed an extra $1.1 billion in emergency farm aid be added to a jobs/tax/unemployment/kitchen sink bill going through the Senate this week. These extra handouts would flow despite the fact that the 2008 farm bill contained ”reforms” (the so-called ”permanent disaster” program) ostensibly to put an end to politically-motivated ad hoc emergency aid of just the type that Senator Lincoln is pushing now.
For those who can stomach it, this excellent article by Dan Morgan, one of the nation’s best agriculture journalists, contains plenty of background information.
Earthquakes and Freedom: Chile vs. Haiti
Although some comparisons between Haiti’s 7.0 earthquake in January and Chile’s 8.8 quake this weekend have attributed the massive differences in devastation and lives lost (230,000 vs. some 700 respectively) to different enforcement of building codes and planning, the real reason for Chile’s superior ability to endure the disaster has everything to do with its vastly higher level of economic freedom, reliable rule of law, and the much higher level of prosperity that results. Here are three good articles that make those points:
Bret Stephens on “How Milton Friedman Saved Chile”
John Stossel on “A Tale of Two Quakes”
Anne Applebaum, “Chile and Haiti: A Look at Earthquakes and Politics”
And here’s a piece I wrote on Haiti explaining how economic freedom could have dramatically reduced death and destruction there.
Helping the Haitians
The tragedy unfolding in Haiti has elicited an outpouring of sympathy, and it is hardly surprising that governments and NGOs from all over the globe are mobilizing resources to aid in recovery. Help is flowing to the shattered island: teams trained in rescue operations, emergency medical services, security personnel, and financial aid. This type of assistance will likely continue for some time.
The U.S. military is also involved. Several Navy and Coast Guard vessels shipped out almost immediately. A few thousand Marines are helping to restore order, and more might soon be on the way. Such a ground presence makes sense, provided that the mission is carefully defined, and the long-term expectations are tempered by a dose of humility. The United States has, after all, intervened repeatedly in Haiti, and it remains the poorest country in the hemisphere. One might even conclude that our interventions have contributed to Haiti’s chronic problems, a consideration which should give pause to those calling for the United States to commit to a long-term project to fix the country.
One can make an argument against sending military assets to deal with such crises. A nation’s military is designed and built for one purpose — to defend the nation — and when it is deployed for missions that do not serve that narrow purpose there is a risk that the institutions will be rendered less capable of responding to genuine threats. I question the wisdom of humanitarian intervention on those grounds in my book, The Power Problem, stipulating, among other things, that the U.S. military should be sent abroad only when vital U.S. interests are at stake.
All that said, President Obama’s decision to swiftly deploy U.S. personnel to Haiti is appropriate on at least two grounds. First, sending troops into harm’s way — and usually into the middle of a civil conflict, as we did in the Balkans and in Iraq – is very different from mobilizing our formidable military assets to ameliorate suffering after a natural disaster. The latter types of interventions are less likely to engender the ire of the people on the losing end (and there always are losers). Humanitarian missions are also less likely to arouse the suspicion of neighbors who might question the intervener’s intentions. Indeed, there was a measurable outpouring of support and goodwill toward the United States after the Bush administration deployed U.S. military personnel in and around Indonesia following the horrific tsunami of late 2004. Genuine humanitarian missions, “armed philanthropy” as MIT’s Barry Posen calls it, are likely to be far less costly than armed regime change/nation-building missions that must contend with insurgents intent on taking their country back from the foreign occupier.
Another important consideration is a country’s interests in its respective region. Humanitarian crises, even those whose effects are confined within a particular country’s borders, often pose a national security threat to neighboring states. What has happened in Haiti over the past 48 hours might meet that criteria, but the White House’s immediate motivations seem purely altruistic. My frustration is that the U.S. policy since the end of the Cold War of actively discouraging other countries from defending themselves ensures that they will have little to offer when a similar natural disaster occurs in their own backyard, which means that the U.S. military is expected to act — even when our own interests are not at stake.
But that is a discussion for another time. The scale of the tragedy in nearby Haiti cries out for swift action, and I am pleased to see that many organizations — both public and private — have stepped forward to help. I wish these efforts well.
Health Reform: Blame Mitt
If — and it is still a big “if — Democrats pass a health bill, that bill will owe as much to former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney as to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. In fact, with the so-called “public option” out of the Senate health bill, the final product increasingly looks like the failed Massachusetts experiment. Consider that the final bill will likely include:
- An individual mandate
- A weak employer-mandate
- An Exchange (Connector)
- Middle-class subsidies
- Insurance regulation (already in place in Massachusetts before Romney’s reforms)
As to why this will be a disaster for American taxpayers, workers, and patients, I’ve written about it here, and my colleague Michael Cannon has covered it here and here.
Gee, thanks, Mitt.
Tom Ridge on the Bush Administration’s War on Terror
Former congressman, governor, and secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Tom Ridge is a long-time GOP loyalist. But he apparently doesn’t have good things to say about the Bush administration on its vaunted war on terrorism.
A new report on his upcoming book warns:
Tom Ridge, the first head of the 9/11-inspired Department of Homeland Security, wasn’t keen on writing a tell-all. But in The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege…and How We Can Be Safe Again, out September 1, Ridge says he wants to shake “public complacency” over security.
And to do that, well, he needs to tell all. Especially about the infighting he saw that frustrated his attempts to build a smooth-running department. Among the headlines promoted by publisher Thomas Dunne Books: Ridge was never invited to sit in on National Security Council meetings; was “blindsided” by the FBI in morning Oval Office meetings because the agency withheld critical information from him; found his urgings to block Michael Brown from being named head of the emergency agency blamed for the Hurricane Katrina disaster ignored; and was pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush’s re-election, something he saw as politically motivated and worth resigning over.
This confirms widespread suspicion that the Bush administration’s terrorism initiatives were highly political. It also undercuts the claim that we should trust government to protect us by sacrificing our liberties and giving trustworthy public servants greater discretion.
Cherry Picking Climate Catastrophes: Response to Conor Clarke, Part II
Conor Clarke at The Atlantic blog, raised several issues with my study, “What to Do About Climate Change,” which Cato published last year.
One of Conor Clarke’s comments was that my analysis did not extend beyond the 21st century. He found this problematic because, as Conor put it, climate change would extend beyond 2100, and even if GDP is higher in 2100 with unfettered global warming than without, it’s not obvious that this GDP would continue to be higher “in the year 2200 or 2300 or 3758”. I addressed this portion of his argument in Part I of my response. Here I will address the second part of this argument, that “the possibility of ‘catastrophic’ climate change events — those with low probability but extremely high cost — becomes real after 2100.”
The examples of potentially catastrophic events that could be caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas induced global warming (AGW) that have been offered to date (e.g., melting of the Greenland or West Antarctic Ice Sheets, or the shutdown of the thermohaline circulation) contain a few drops of plausibility submerged in oceans of speculation. There are no scientifically justified estimates of the probability of their occurrence by any given date. Nor are there scientifically justified estimates of the magnitude of damages such events might cause, not just in biophysical terms but also in socioeconomic terms. Therefore, to call these events “low probability” — as Mr. Clarke does — is a misnomer. They are more appropriately termed as plausible but highly speculative events.
Consider, for example, the potential collapse of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS). According to the IPCC’s WG I Summary for Policy Makers (p. 17), “If a negative surface mass balance were sustained for millennia, that would lead to virtually complete elimination of the Greenland Ice Sheet and a resulting contribution to sea level rise of about 7 m” (emphasis added). Presumably the same applies to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
But what is the probability that a negative surface mass balance can, in fact, be sustained for millennia, particularly after considering the amount of fossil fuels that can be economically extracted and the likelihood that other energy sources will not displace fossil fuels in the interim? [Remember we are told that peak oil is nigh, that renewables are almost competitive with fossil fuels, and that wind, solar and biofuels will soon pay for themselves.]
Second, for an event to be classified as a catastrophe, it should occur relatively quickly precluding efforts by man or nature to adapt or otherwise deal with it. But if it occurs over millennia, as the IPCC says, or even centuries, that gives humanity ample time to adjust, albeit at a socioeconomic cost. But it need not be prohibitively dangerous to life, limb or property if: (1) the total amount of sea level rise (SLR) and, perhaps more importantly, the rate of SLR can be predicted with some confidence, as seems likely in the next few decades considering the resources being expended on such research; (2) the rate of SLR is slow relative to how fast populations can strengthen coastal defenses and/or relocate; and (3) there are no insurmountable barriers to migration.
This would be true even had the so-called “tipping point” already been passed and ultimate disintegration of the ice sheet was inevitable, so long as it takes millennia for the disintegration to be realized. In other words, the issue isn’t just whether the tipping point is reached, rather it is how long does it actually take to tip over. Take, for example, if a hand grenade is tossed into a crowded room. Whether this results in tragedy — and the magnitude of that tragedy — depends upon how much time it takes for the grenade to go off, the reaction time of the occupants, and their ability to respond.
Propagandist Change
The Obama administration is taking down the “No Child Left Behind” schoolhouses in front of the U.S. Department of Education. According to Education Secretary Arne Duncan, the name is just too “toxic.” Besides, he’s got his own plan to manipulate the public’s cuteness zone. As the Washington Post reports, “photos of students, from preschool to college age, are going up on 44 ground-floor windows, forming an exhibit that can be seen from outside. There are images of young people reading, attending science class and playing basketball.”
So the propaganda is changing. The disaster that has been federal involvement in education, however, keeps rumbling along. Indeed, it seems poised to get even worse. The Obama folks have been mum about what, exactly, they have planned for reauthorization of the No Child Left…er…Elementary and Secondary Education Act, but the foreshadowing has been ominous: $100 billion in “stimulus” for already cash-drenched American education; loud endorsement of national standards; dangling $350 million to bankroll national (read: federal) tests; and the smothering of DC school choice.
So meet the new propagandist, same as the old propagandist…only, quite possibly, even worse.
Poor Situation Management
Part of controlling the damage from disasters, terrorists attacks, and other national public incidents is controlling public reaction. So it is with the current swine flu “public health emergency.” So far, there have been twenty confirmed cases of swine flu in the United States.
In terms of managing reaction, there’s good and bad in the following quote from this morning’s Washington Post: “‘Clearly we all have individual responsibility for dealing with this situation,’ said deputy national security adviser John O. Brennan.”
The good: Brennan is correct on the merits. Controlling flu is mostly a matter of good hygiene.
The bad: A deputy national security adviser should not give quotes about flu outbreaks to a national newspaper. His title circumscribes his responsibilities, and he conveys wrongly by speaking about the matter that a (still largely potential) swine flu outbreak is a national security event. It is not under any reasonable definition of the phrase “national security.”
Just like the U.S. president shouldn’t be perceived as occupying himself with pirates off the Somali coast – the administration handled that situation well – a national security adviser should not weigh in on an inchoate outbreak of flu.
The result from suggesting that the flu affects national security could be more damage than the outbreak itself: canceled travel, reduced trade and commerce, pulling kids from school, staying home from work. An infantilized country is a weaker country, not a safer one.
In Defense of Gouging
There are lots of things to hate about our current medical system, and all of us have our own favorite things to hate. This is mine: the fact that the system massively overcharges you if you’re uninsured, and they do it just because they can. If you’re uninsured, you’ve got no leverage, no alternatives, no nothing. So you get screwed. It’s like the shopkeepers who charge twenty bucks for a pair of flashlight batteries after hurricanes. Maybe it’s the free market at work, but if so, that’s all the worse for the free market. In the healthcare biz, it just doesn’t work.
I see it’s time to roll up the sleeves.
First, let’s look at price gouging after a hurricane. I admit it — in a free market, that’s precisely what happens. People get charged much higher prices. And I actually don’t mind calling it gouging.
But do you know what happens when a disaster strikes in an unfree market? Forced appropriation by the politically well-connected. Instead of higher prices for everyone, you get free stuff for a privileged few — and nothing, or very little, for everyone else.
Let’s use the proper term here as well: theft. In a free market, you see gouging. In an unfree one, you see theft.
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