Monthly Archives: March 2009
Protectionism For Green Industries Is Unnecessary [And Bad]
The Economist Free Exchange Blog, responding to this pro-protectionism piece by Joe Weisenthal, half-heartedly suggests that maybe Joe meant that a little infant industry protection for green industries is in order:
I wonder if he is suggesting some sort of infant industry type policy to stimulate domestic manufacturing of more enviromental products. Interesting idea, but infant industry is tricky. The idea is that with time and protection from the global market (through subisdies and tariffs) the domestic country will gain a comparative advantage in that field. Korea pursued this policy with, arguably, some success in the 1950s. But it did not work so well elsewhere. It involves the government hand picking industries that need to be developed, rather than the market. It often leaves consumers paying more for mediocre goods that might not otherwise exist in the global market.
There are two problems trying to compare anything that America will do regarding infant industry protection for green industries with any other nations who have tried protection:
First, the protectionist nation must be an underdog. America engaged in protectionism at the beginning of the industrial revolution to protect itself from Europe, and eventually rose to a dominant place. Because we are now the most technologically advanced, innovating nation on the planet, we need not protect our own industries from those overseas. They’re the ones playing catch-up, and they’re the ones trying to protect their own infant industries against our established industries. Now, there can be a debate over instituting retaliatory trade impediments to counter those protections other less developed countries are enacting (and I’d come down on the side against doing so personally), but there’s no reason to protect ourselves from them.
Second, protecting infant industries is only necessary when you’re protecting them from established industries. There are no established green industries. This is an infant industry worldwide, and on a worldwide basis, we’re in just as strong of a competitive position as any other country. I understand places like Korea enacting a protectionist, when they’re trying to achieve the same sort of efficiencies on heavy industry of more advanced countries. But here, there’s nobody who has figured it out. Infant industry protectionism arguably may be a good way for industries to catch up with mature foreign industries, but in this case there are no mature foreign industries. There’s no catching up to do when we’re all just out of the gates.
Now, this was separate from Weisenthal’s main point, which is that we should use “green protectionism” as a ruse to introduce some rather traditional forms of protectionism. He sees protectionism as an alternative to welfare, because even if we get higher-priced, less-well-made goods in the US, that keeps those US manufacturing workers employed. I suspect he’d be in favor of banning motor-driven plows, too, so that we can go back to high farming employment? Instead, I suggest that we stop trying to limit competition, and actually stop our own impediments to engaging in competition. If we want to win, perhaps we should get out of our own way instead of trying to trip our competitors.
New Jersey To Ban Being Bare “Down There”
New Jersey, already a state even less free than my home of CA (PDF), has decided to tread where others don’t dare, to see if the ladies are bare down there:
Things could get hairy in New Jersey this summer for women who sport revealing bikinis or a little bit less.
The painful Brazilian wax and its intimate derivatives are in danger of being stripped from salon and spa menus if a recent proposal to ban genital waxing is passed by the state’s Board of Cosmetology and Hairstyling.
Cherry Hill salon owner Linda Orsuto said that women would “go ballistic” if the proposal passed. She said that some women would resort to waxing themselves, visiting unlicensed salons or traveling to other states, including Pennsylvania, in a quest to remain bare down there.
“The clients are going to freak,” said Orsuto, who owns 800 West Salon & Spa, on Route 70. “It’s a hot issue, and we’re going to have to do something.”
New Jersey statutes allow waxing of the face, neck, arms, legs and abdomen, but officials say that genital waxing has always been illegal, although not spelled out.
Regardless, almost every salon in South Jersey, from Atlantic City casinos to suburban strip malls, has been breaking the law for years by ridding women, and some men, of their pubic hair for $50 to $60 a session.
Don’t the emanations of penumbras that apply to nearby portion of a woman’s body also apply here? I’ve never figured out where those emanations and penumbras lie, especially when the 9th Amendment would have sufficed to cover that other decision, but I have to think this is similar enough to get a hearing before a very titillated Clarence Thomas.
Does this mean that all those douchebags wearing their “FBI – Female Body Inspector” t-shirts will now start applying for exactly that job with the state?
I do feel sorry for the husbands and boyfriends of women who are doing it only to be courteous — you’re out of luck. Get ready to hear “sorry, hon, it’s illegal.”
So why the uproar over this? Well, it comes from a likely source:
Orsuto said that the proposal may be the state’s way of diverting a long-established salon procedure “perfected by aestheticians” to the medical community, where hair can be removed via laser treatment by dermatologists.
Follow the lobbying money.
Hat Tip: MichaelW @ QandO
Logic Problems for the Single-Payer Cabal
Believe it or not, Jay Leno is not the biggest clown with that particular last name. No, really, he’s not. That dubious honor instead falls to my State Senator, Mark Leno. Leno’s latest clown move is again introducing a single-payer health care measure that would impact all Californians:
The new version of the bill, SB 810, would provide medical, dental, vision, hospitalization and prescription drug benefits to every California resident and make state government the single payer of all benefit claims. Both employees and employers would be required to contribute to pay for the coverage.
So, in Leno’s California, every person would be dependent on a single agency to get health care. He sidesteps the issue by saying the following:
“It is not socialized medicine. Your doctor doesn’t change. Your hospital doesn’t change. Your clinic doesn’t change. The only thing that changes is who pays for the health care provision.”
That’s wonderful. It really is. I can choose my doctor, my hospital, my clinic, my medical marijuana club, and anything else. But to actually pay them and get anything in return, I have to crawl to a bureaucrat in Sacramento. That sure sounds like socialized medicine to me. However, I don’t just want to argue semantics about what is and isn’t socialized medicine. I want to take a look at how single-payer health care squares with some other sacred cows of the political left.
First, let’s take a trip back to the late 1990s. The fashionable thing among the left was to bitch about the big, evil corporation Microsoft and their monopolistic behavior with their operating system. I don’t dispute that monopolistic behavior is bad, but it must be remembered that this monopoly dealt with bits in a computer and was never complete. The fact that I’m typing this from Mac OS X is proof enough of that.
In comparison, the Leno bill comes off just a bit worse. Where the maligned Microsoft monopoly allowed other OS players in the space, the Leno bill creates a true, iron-clad monopoly. This brings up logic problem number 1: Why is a quasi-monopoly on computer software evil while a real monopoly on medical services is good?
Next, let’s come back to the present day and talk about the death penalty. Even after all the appeals and reexaminations of the evidence, innocent people still wind up on death row. The left, along with libertarians, argue that systems composed of human beings cannot justly hold the power of life and death in their hands.
However, the Leno bill would require that the State of California to hold the power of life and death in its hands in the form of authorizations and declinations of medical care. Here’s logic problem number 2: Why is it unjust for the courts to decide whether criminal defendants should die but just for a bureaucrat to decide whether an innocent person should die?
Finally, let’s visit a topic rarely touched on the pages of the Liberty Papers–abortion. The left argues that it is a woman’s right to choose what to do with her own body. There are legitimate questions about when a life begins, and that’s part of why the debate continues to rage.
The Leno bill places the choice about what happens to my body in the hands of a bureaucracy in Sacramento. This brings us to logic problem number 3: Why is choice for abortion sacrosanct while choice for all other procedures can be sacrificed for the common good?
How can the left support single-payer health care when it seems to go against their own principles? Discuss.
Defining Both Major Parties in Twenty Words or Less
Over at AmSpecBlog, Robert Stacy McCain has launched a contest to see who can best describe the Democratic Party in 20 words or less. Considering that I’m a libertarian, I’m sure my entry won’t win — but here goes anyway: Of the big-government political parties, the Democrats are the ones who favor donkeys over elephants.
I’m wondering how other libertarians might describe the Republican Party, too. My entry for the latter contest is pretty much the same: Of the big-government political parties, the Republicans are the ones who favor elephants over donkeys.
So who has some better definitions of both major parties?
