Monthly Archives: May 2010

Quote Of The Day

Economics, Quote of the Day

Hmm… Title of the post included below:

When bad economic news is good news

Productivity growth slowed from more than 6 percent during the final three quarters of 2009 to 3.6 percent during the first quarter of 2010. Generally, you want productivity growth to be as high as possible, but this is actually good news for the labor market. In the context of the recession, the weirdly high productivity growth meant that scared, overstretched workers were producing much more than they had before the recession, freeing employers from the need to hire new workers to increase their productive capacity. With productivity falling back to earth, employers will actually need to hire new people to keep up with demand, which means, well, hiring new people.

Yes, Ezra… It’s a GREAT thing that these potential employees will go back to producing the same jobs they formerly worked. After all, we wouldn’t want a world where they took NEW jobs producing currently un-invented products that would collectively raise the standard of living in the US. After all, it’s zero-sum, right?

Brad Warbiany
https://thelibertypapers.org/

Eliminate The Liability Cap For Offshore Drilling

Legal, Politics

Commenting on the efforts in Congress to increase the statutory liability cap that oil companies enjoy for damages caused by offshore drilling accidents, John Cole makes this point:

Here’s a revolutionary idea- why don’t we get rid of the limit altogether! If BP or Exxon cuts corners and makes a hash of things, and they cause 60 billion dollars worth of damage, they are on the hook for the whole 60 billion dollars! And if they can’t pay for the whole bill, the company is liquidated, the shareholders get wiped out, and the company ceases to exist.

Why don’t we give that a shot? And don’t tell me it is because no one will then undertake oil drilling. Of course they will! They’ll just pass on the costs to the consumer. And should being really careful and safe cost too much money, then it might just make other forms of energy look cheaper by comparison, and spur investment in those energy types.

So how about it? No more immunity, no more corporate welfare, no more subsidizing industries that don’t even pay a damned penny in taxes in the US anymore.

Cole is coming at this from the left, but I think he’s absolutely right from a free-market perspective.

If a company causes damages to others as a result of their activities — and in the case of something like offshore oil drilling the question of negligence wouldn’t even be an issue because of the inherently dangerous nature of the activity — why should their liability for those damages be capped in any amount ? And how can we really say that we’ve factored in all the costs of any activity when the consequences of the damages it might cause are shielded ?

Lift the cap, make BP pay.

Doug Mataconis
http://www.belowthebeltway.com

This Day in History: 40th Anniversary of the Kent State Massacre

Culture, Draft, Dumbasses and Authoritarians, History, Human Rights, Police Watch, Security, Theory and Ideas

From the Progressive/Left-wing DemocracyNow.org’s coverage:

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the Kent State Shootings. On May 4th, 1970, National Guardsmen opened fire on hundreds of unarmed students at an antiwar rally at Kent State University in Ohio. The guardsmen fired off at least 67 shots in roughly 13 seconds. Four students were killed and nine others wounded.

The events of May 4, 1970 at Kent State were certainly tragic but the notion that the Nation Guardsmen fired at “unarmed” students engaging in peaceful demonstrations is plainly untrue. In fact these “peace” protesters failed to practice what they preached as they set fires, looted, vandalized cars and buildings, and threw rocks and bottles at the police/National Guardsmen who tried to restore order. These anti-war protesters certainly didn’t practice the Libertarian “non-initiation of force” principle as they, like the U.S. government initiated force to attempt to accomplish a political goal.*

However, sending in the National Guard complete with semiautomatic M1 Garand rifles (.30-06 FMJ rounds) with fixed bayonets to suppress these riots seems to be a bit of an overreaction on the part of the governor.** The methods used to suppress these violent protests were very different from the less lethal methods police use today (which some say is a direct result of this event).

Were the National Guardsmen’s deadly actions justified self-defense? A full 40 years later, this is still a subject of great debate.

One thing which isn’t debatable is that this event was tragic and preventable.

» Read more

Stephen Littau
http://fpffressminds.blogspot.com/
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