NEWJERSEY: Repeal the 17th Amendment; like alcohol prohibiition and the “war on some drugs” it was just a mistake

Wednesday, November 22, 2023

https://savejersey.com/2023/11/is-this-really-the-best-we-can-do/

Is this really the best we can do?
November 16, 2023 Matt Rooney Election 2024 0

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Direct election of U.S. senators wasn’t always the case; it was viewed as a necessary reform. One infamous instance in the late 19th century involved our immediate neighbor to the south (Delaware) lacking representation in the U.S. Senate for two whole years owing to an epic impasse in its state legislature. Reformers believed, perhaps understandably, that the people would produce better results than the bosses and their hand-chosen state representatives.

The law of unintended consequences had other ideas. Cory Booker is no Daniel Webster, folks, as if you needed me to tell you!

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A crook, an evil queen and an empty suit (who donated his suit to the Smithsonian).

Is this the best we can do? Really?

Even for New Jersey, notorious for making questionable electoral choices, this primary constitutes a new low. We’re slumming it and it shows in the results.

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Time to get out the Constitutional Eraser and repeal a bunch of “amendments” the 16th, 17th, 25th, 26th, and 27th.

While we are at it, time to enact  term limits on ALL elective federal offices to ZERO consecutive terms in the same office.  And, let’s put some teeth in the 9th and 10th!

Argh!

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VOCABULARY: The Streisand Effect

Sunday, March 20, 2022

https://www.mindbounce.com/trivia/the-phenomenon-wherein-trying-to-hide-information-makes-it-more-public-is-known-as/

TRIVIA
Hard

The Phenomenon Wherein Trying To Hide Information Makes It More Public Is Known As?

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Back in 2002, photographer Kenneth Adelman undertook a massive project wherein he photographed the California coastline in a series of 12,000 photographs. The purpose of the exercise was to document coastal erosion for the California Coastal Records Project, a government-sanctioned project focused on preserving the state’s massive coastline.

*** and ***

In 2003, when it came to the singer’s attention that her home was displayed on the CCRP’s website, her lawyers drafted a lawsuit and sued the photographer, the site displaying the images (Pictopia.com), and even the server company hosting the actual files (Layer42). The total damages sought were for $50,000,000.

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Two years later in 2005, Mike Masnick, CEO and founder of the Techdirt blog, immortalized the whole affair when he wrote:

How long is it going to take before lawyers realize that the simple act of trying to repress something they don’t like online is likely to make it so that something that most people would never, ever see (like a photo of a urinal in some random beach resort) is now seen by many more people? Let’s call it the Streisand Effect.

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An interesting addition to the genre of Unintended Consequences?

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GOVEROTRAGEOUS: Let the “free market” operate; you can’t manipulate people

Saturday, August 26, 2017

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-park-services-botched-bottle-ban-1503616147?mod=djemMER

OPINION REVIEW & OUTLOOK
The Park Service’s Botched Bottle Ban
Obama’s behavioral economists must have been on vacation.
By The Editorial Board
Aug. 24, 2017 7:09 p.m. ET

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Vacationers can now buy bottled water in national parks, after the Trump Administration this month ended an Obama-era policy that sought to reduce plastic waste. Environmentalists responded with predictable outrage, but reversing the ban is healthier and greener.

*** and ***

The teachable moment turns out to be a lesson in the law of unintended consequences.

Appeared in the August 25, 2017, print edition.

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The “free market” is a slippery thing. It’s like water. It finds its own level.

Argh!

Only Gooferment politicians and bureaucrats think they can “outsmart” the consumer.

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RANT: “Rent Control” is the Gooferment using force and fraud on the Free Market

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

https://www.quora.com/Real-Estate-in-New-York-City/Without-rent-control-would-anyone-outside-of-the-top-1-be-left-in-Manhattan

Real Estate in New York City: Without rent control, would anyone outside of the top 1% be left in Manhattan?

Trey Clark
Trey Clark, Founder, http://www.RealtyShares.com

Rent Control actually increases market rents by removing at-market rental stock from a given city/area.

I live in San Francisco, where roughly 80% of the rental units are subject to rent control. Rents here have spiked approximately 15% in the last 18 months.

Here’s the dynamic: people with below market rents stay in those apartments, because they don’t want to pay market rates. Thus those units tend to stay out off the market. When demand increases, as has happened here in the last 18 months due to increased start-up hiring, there is a reduced inventory of units to absorb that demand. Market rents spike.

The same holds for Manhattan, though I’m not sure as large a share of the apartment stock is rent controlled/regulated. If rent control was removed, market rents would drop, though average rent paid would likely go up (no more renters paying below rents far below market).

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Like most Gooferment actions, it has intended and Unintended Consequences!

The use of force or fraud is always immoral, as well as ineffective and inefficient.

It enriches the politicians and bureaucrats who can extract “tribute” and must be “kowtowed” to. Graft, kickbacks, corruption, bribery, and extortion are all the direct observable effects of “rent control”!

It’s ineffective because it actually raises the rents that poor people must pay. 

It’s inefficient because it incentivizes the wrong behavior. Old pensioners “lock up” large apartments that they don’t “need” and have to heat ’n’ cool the larger space 

Anytime the Gooferment institutes “price controls”, the Free Market is distorted. 

The Free Market’s “invisible hand” allows the maximum happiness and minimum unhappiness without the use of force or fraud. 

The Free Market allows peaceful exchanges that benefit everyone.

Argh!

Seems so simple.

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INTERESTING: Unintended consequences

Monday, June 2, 2014

I was in the Turnpike bar and I heard the owner describe why they did away with running a tab.

The smoking ban!

They’d have people run a tab and, then say they were going out for a smoke, never to come back.

An interesting application of the “Law of Unintended Consequences”

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