ECONOMICS: Unless they are defended by the government, cartels always break down

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

https://www.garynorth.com/public/17188.cfm

The Economics of Assistant Coaches’ Bribery
Gary North – September 28, 2017

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There is a fundamental rule of economics: unless they are defended by the government, cartels always break down. They can be sustained only by government intervention. The government protects the cartels from members of the cartel who break the rules of the cartel in order to increase market share and thereby increase net income. The government makes cartel-busting a crime. In the case of the movie and also in the case of the latest scandals, net income is really what it is all about.

What we are seeing is the intervention of governments around the country to defend the NCAA’s cartel. If it were not for government intervention to keep coaches from paying full ticket for the valuable services of the best players, major universities would be forced to pay millions of dollars to these players, just as professional sports teams have to pay their players. A free market would prevail.

Top collegiate basketball coaches today are paid multimillion-dollar salaries. The head coaches don’t want to lose this income. In contrast, assistant coaches are not paid huge salaries. They are tempted to do under-the-table deals that are against the financial interests of the NCAA’s cartel. None of the coaches being accused of bribery is a head coach. No head coach is going to risk his $4 million annual salary for penny-ante payoffs to recruit top players.

If we had a free market in college education, there would be no legal restriction on the use of the word “college” or “university” imposed by any state on profit-seeking educational ventures. There would be no government money used to build sports stadiums. There would be open entry. Private college tuition would fall at all but the premier schools. College athletes in the top-ranked sports universities would be paid full ticket.

*** end quote ***

Ignoring for the moment that these alleged “bribery” charges may not — or should not be — considered  accurate, why do we have cartels in sports?

Why are the Taxpayers funding sports stadiums?

Why are the Team Owners (i.e., “State Universities”) allowed to keep “indentured servants” working (i.e., playing games) for them?

Argh!

We need to get the Gooferment out of all of there!

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SURVIVAL: Why don’t we plan for natural disasters?

Tuesday, October 3, 2017

http://news.trust.org/item/20170927215847-o173x

Cash demand soars in Puerto Rico after hurricane hit ATMs, card systems
by Reuters — Wednesday, 27 September 2017 21:52 GMT
By Jonathan Spicer, Robin Respaut and Saqib Iqbal Ahmed

*** begin quote ***

NEW YORK/SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, Sept 27 (Reuters) – Demand for cash in hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico is “extraordinarily high” after power outages knocked out electronic transactions and ATMs but needs were being met for now, a Federal Reserve branch said on Wednesday.

Residents and tourists were counting their dwindling banknotes in the wake of Hurricane Maria, which crippled the electrical grid and communications network, turning the Caribbean island into a largely cash-based economy.

*** end quote ***

Looking away from the immediate string of disasters, why hasn’t the “wise and all knowing maters of the Universe” (i.e., Gooferment politicians and bureaucrats) planned for national disasters?

Each time “we” have one, be it wildfires, hurricanes, tornados, floods, it like “we” have never experienced it ever before.

As a retired IT executive, Disaster Recovery was a recognized need. And, while getting proper attention and funding was never easy, it got done. Often the expense was minimized by proper recognition of the relative impact and possible frequency with a dash of innovative architecture.

It seems like the politicians and bureaucrats LOVE disasters (i.e., “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” — Rahm Emanuel)

I mean if “we” had forward thinking Federal and State Gooferments, then wouldn’t we have some “trust funds” set up. Of course, that would require some fiscal discipline. But in Genesis 41:54 (“and the seven years of famine began to come, just as Joseph had said, then there was famine in all the lands, but in all the land of Egypt there was bread”), Pharaoh listened to Joseph and put something away for a “rainy day”.

Why can’t “we”?

Argh!

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Posted by reinkefj

WSJ: Think tank trashes GOP reform without evidence

Monday, October 2, 2017

2017-Oct-02 1216 

FROM BEHIND THE WSJ PAYWALL

Tax Policy Center Propaganda
The media’s go-to think tank trashes GOP reform without evidence.
By The Editorial Board
Oct. 1, 2017 4:26 p.m. ET

*** begin quote ***

Republicans face an uphill battle on tax reform, not least because opponents are willing to invent evidence to stop it. Take Friday’s Tax Policy Center report claiming to be clairvoyant about details of the Republican reform “framework” that haven’t been proposed.

The Tax Policy Center is a joint project of the left-leaning Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute that the media routinely labels “nonpartisan.” Its record of hostility to any GOP tax reform that cuts tax rates shows the opposite. And the latest evidence of bias is its willingness to jump to conclusions about the GOP plan before crucial details are known.

*** end quote ***

I “love” how the Leftists can “invent” evidence for the stuff that they oppose.

Argh!

# – # – # – # – #  2017-Oct-02 @ 12:18  

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RANT: HRC demonstrates she, and the D’s, are tone deaf

Monday, October 2, 2017

2017-Oct-02 1058

The LV tragedy is not the time for politics when the dead are unburied.

http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/02/democrats-immediately-call-for-gun-control-after-las-vegas-shooting/

*** begin quote ***

Congressional Democrats chose not to wait for all the facts to come in before immediately pushing for increased gun control measures following the Las Vegas shooting Sunday night that left 50 people dead and more than 400 injured.

*** and ***

Twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton attacked the National Rifle Association (NRA).
“Our grief isn’t enough. We can and must put politics aside, stand up to the NRA, and work together to try to stop this from happening again,” Clinton wrote.

*** end quote ***

ALSO

The media is reporting it was “machine guns”. But I’m not sure that is accurate.

Argh!

At least it was not a “ISIS attack”. If that’s any saving grace.

I wonder if this was some type of “false flag” event. The guy they are naming as the shooter has no reported gun background, hunting, and|or no military training. That’s odd. Very very strange. 

Argh!

Dona Nobis Pacem

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RANT: This captures why I won’t fly

Monday, October 2, 2017

https://www.nbcnews.com/specials/airplane-mode

Airplane Mode
Elbow-to-elbow seating, oversized comfort pets, midcabin standoffs — and passengers armed with their smartphones. A new era in air travel has some Americans tweeting mad.
By JAMES RAINEY SEP 26, 2017

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WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME someone told you they loved flying? Or even said they liked it? Or that they couldn’t wait to get back in the air?

In the spring and summer of America’s flying discontent, it’s likely your anxiety began to mount long before reaching the jetway. You felt nickeled and dimed by charges for everything: extra leg room, a snack, a thin blanket, an advance seat assignment. If you weren’t blindsided by a tumultuous curbside check-in, you might have stumbled over new complexities at a security checkpoint (Coming soon: mandatory screening, in separate security bins, of almost ALL electronic devices!) or arrived at your gate to find there was nowhere to sit.

*** end quote ***

This story struck a chord with me.

The last time I flew for pleasure I went first class. I figured it was my last trip to Las Vegas. Who knew it would be my last airplane trip.

I saw the “great unwashed” in the back of the plane and the sheer discomfort they were in.

From time to time, I read the horror stories. 

No way I’d do that again.

I’d like to visit friends, but it has to be by car.

I think of John Madden, who never flew, as a new “patron saint”.

Ahh, the good old days. Gone for good.

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CLOUD: PLAXO bites the dust

Sunday, October 1, 2017

Dear Plaxo User,

After 15 years of helping customers enrich their address books, we regret to announce that we will be shutting down the Plaxo service at the end of the day on December 31, 2017.

We will begin purging user data on January 1, 2018. If you would like to export your address book data, please do so before that date. Instructions for how to export your data are available here.

Thank you for subscribing to Plaxo. We appreciate the support you have given us over the years and we wish you all the best.

– The Plaxo Team

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GOVEROTRAGEOUS: 73 Percent of World’s Dictatorships? Seriously!

Sunday, October 1, 2017

2017-Oct-01

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/42020-us-provides-military-assistance-to-73-percent-of-world-s-dictatorships

US Provides Military Assistance to 73 Percent of World’s Dictatorships
Saturday, September 23, 2017 — By Rich Whitney, Truthout | News Analysis

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For decades, the American people have been repeatedly told by their government and corporate-run media that acts of war ordered by their president have been largely motivated by the need to counter acts of aggression or oppression by “evil dictators.” We were told we had to invade Iraq because Saddam Hussein was an evil dictator. We had to bomb Libya because Muammar Gaddafi was an evil dictator, bent on unleashing a “bloodbath” on his own people. Today, of course, we are told that we should support insurgents in Syria because Bashar al-Assad is an evil dictator, and we must repeatedly rattle our sabers at North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and Russia’s Vladimir Putin because they, too, are evil dictators.

This is part of the larger, usually unquestioned mainstream corporate media narrative that the US leads the “Western democracies” in a global struggle to combat terrorism and totalitarianism and promote democracy.

I set out to answer a simple question: Is it true? Does the US government actually oppose dictatorships and champion democracy around the world, as we are repeatedly told?

The truth is not easy to find, but federal sources do provide an answer: No. According to Freedom House’s rating system of political rights around the world, there were 49 nations in the world, as of 2015, that can be fairly categorized as “dictatorships.” As of fiscal year 2015, the last year for which we have publicly available data, the federal government of the United States had been providing military assistance to 36 of them, courtesy of your tax dollars. The United States currently supports over 73 percent of the world’s dictatorships!

*** end quote ***

Does this upset anyone else?

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GOVEROTRAGEOUS: Florida Power and Light keeps it’s “customers” in the dark

Saturday, September 30, 2017

2017-Sep-30

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-18/florida-you-cant-use-your-own-solar-panels-crisis

In Florida, You Can’t Use Your Own Solar Panels In A Crisis
by Tyler Durden — Sep 18, 2017 10:05 PM
Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog

*** begin quote ***

When it comes to the U.S. economy, the “con” part offers the best description of the current relationship between business, government and the preyed upon consumer.

The way things work in early 21st century America is large businesses bribe politicians in a variety of ways at both the local and federal level, and the end result is laws that are designed to increase corporate profits at the expense of the wellbeing and freedom of the American public. Politicians end up with financial war chests to run their next campaign, while bureaucrats see a lucrative opportunity to swing through the ever spinning revolving door should they play ball with lobbyists and their patrons.

*** and ***

FPL and its parent company, NextEra Energy, have for years heavily influenced state and local politics through donations, making billions in profits each year ($1.7 billion alone in 2016) thanks to favorable state laws that are sometimes literally written by the power company’s own lobbyists.

FPL’s lobbying wing has fought hard against letting Floridians power their own homes with solar panels. Thanks to power-company rules, it’s impossible across Florida to simply buy a solar panel and power your individual home with it. You are instead legally mandated to connect your panels to your local electric grid.

More egregious, FPL mandates that if the power goes out, your solar-power system must power down along with the rest of the grid, robbing potentially needy people of power during major outages.

*** end quote ***

Once again, we find that Gooferment intervention in the free market makes the consumer / rate payer / taxpayer worse off by permitting Crony Capitalism to influence the political process.

Wonder if Tesla’s home power offering will “magically” be equally unacceptable!

Argh!

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IOS: iOS 11’s Most Obnoxious Features

Friday, September 29, 2017

Image credit: iOS 11 brings a lot of new and exciting features to the iPhone and iPad. It also brings a lot of pretty annoying ones. Like most new operating systems, iOS 11 has had a few hiccups during its first full week out on the town, including a bug that made it impossible for Microsoft Exchange users to send or receive emails using their iPhones.

Source: iOS 11’s Most Obnoxious Features

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And, they have screwed up the PODCAST feature that played all the “unplayed” podcasts.

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POLITICAL: How to get politics out of taxation or Gooferment “theft”

Friday, September 29, 2017

2017-Oct-06

FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL “The 10-Point”

*** begin quote ***

Responding to yesterday’s question on the GOP tax proposals, Bob Jones of New Jersey said: “Let’s stop using the tax code to encourage certain behaviors. Get rid of all tax deductions and preferences. That means the same rate for corporate income, personal income and capital gains, and no deductions for anything, including charitable contributions, mortgage interest or solar panels. Then set the rate to balance the budget, and they’re done. Simple.” Jim Miner of Michigan commented: “Unemployment is low, inflation is low and growth is now steady and sustainable instead of the boom-and-bust cycles of the past. Exactly what problem is this tax cut supposed to fix?” And Mark Pankin of Virginia asked: “The logic behind doing away with the deduction for state and local taxes is that taxpayers in low-tax states should not subsidize those in high-tax states. Shouldn’t the same logic apply to the mortgage interest deduction? Why should taxpayers without mortgages subsidize those who have them?”

*** end quote ***

As a little L libertarian, I believe that “taxes are theft”. Pure and simple.

In order to get to a truly free market economy I liked Bob Jones of New Jersey idea. Same rate and just balance the budget. 

Then we can move the fight to reducing the size and scope of Gooferment.

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