TSA , VA, ObamaCare, SandersCare; Gov.Com: Economically They’re The Same

Economy, Government, Healthcare, Homeland Security, Political Economy, Private Property, The State

To the economically literate: It’s your obligation to know by now—especially if you read this space—that nothing the head of the Transportation Security Administration and Homeland Security can say or do will change the fact of “long waits at the nation’s airports” this summer and any other peak travel time.

Lines—overload, undersupply, malfunction—are a function of a government system, whose incentives were explained in “Why Government ‘Care’ Will Never, Ever Work,” and elsewhere:

Since it “manages” money not its own, government has no real incentive to conserve resources, ensure a job is properly done, or deliver on its promises. Entrusted with the administration of assets you don’t own, have no stake in; on behalf of people you don’t know and who have no real recourse against your mismanagement—how long before your on-the-job performance mirrors that of the government? …

… A monopolist, moreover, doesn’t have to please consumers, because he has them cornered. Therefore, in a politburo, political decisions trounce considerations that would win out in the market place. Consider: HealthCare.gov was coded with the goal of harvesting sensitive information from applicants while concealing rip-off prices from them. Why would the Central Planning Board (aka the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in charge of Obamcare) care that such coding has created a hacker’s dream, when their wet dream is to share data culled through HealthCare.gov with the IRS, the DHS, the TSA, on and on?

Like the communist elite, the Congress elite seldom subjects itself to the same health care or the same laws as the people. Unsurprisingly—and by legislative sleight of hand—lawmakers have used their privileged positions to pass laws exempting themselves and their lackeys from liability. “Governmental immunity” is designed to “stop people from suing the government and government employees and officials in many cases.”

With taxpayers ponying up for any … slip … and responsibility collectivized—fear of being fired or penalized is non-existent among the ruling class. Government failure will never see the closing of a government agency, or the firing of nasty, inefficient, over-paid, affirmatively appointed official.

I hope you are able to generalize from healthcare.gov to TSA.gov, to VA.gov and beyond.

Economically, the incentive structure is the same in the TSA , ObamaCare, SandersCare, Gov.Com.

The nationalization of airports by BUSH II was first explored in “WHOSE PROPERTY IS IT ANYWAY?” (June 5, 2002). Read it. Teach it.

Paul Ryan, Another Guy Who Never Built A Thing

Conservatism, Democracy, Donald Trump, Elections, Republicans

“Paul Ryan, Another Guy Who Never Built A Thing” is the current column, now on The Unz Review, America’s smartest webzine. An excerpt:

As of May 7, the outgoing neoconservative priestly cast had raised its game. Since Donald Trump has effectively clinched the Republican Party’s nomination, based on his America First platform, they had an ultimatum for him: Stop your nonsense and we’ll take you back.

If Trump quits denouncing George Bush and his Good War, and starts to blame only Barack Obama for Iraq—said commentator-cum-soldier-cum-global crusader Pete Hegseth to an exultant Gretchen Carlson at the Fox News Channel—all would be forgiven. Recall, Trump called Bush a liar and went on to win South Carolina … and Nevada. He continues to denounce the “made by Bush” Iraq war.

But now that Trump has won the nomination, the losing neoconservatives are insisting he get real, renounce the winning plank and perjure himself to The People.

Well, of course. To the losers belong the spoils. …

… Read the rest. “Paul Ryan, Another Guy Who Never Built A Thing” is the current column, now on The Unz Review, America’s smartest webzine.

UPDATED (6/9/016): Cathy Young’s Blood Libel* Against Ann Coulter

Ann Coulter, Anti-Semitism, IMMIGRATION, Israel, Judaism & Jews, Reason

I’m Jewish, with all the baggage that entails (truncated family tree, etc.). But according to Cathy Young’s poorly reasoned and badly written hodgepodge, “Ann Coulter’s Anti-Semitism Runs Deeper Than You Know,” I, too, would qualify as anti-Semitic for questioning liberal Jews (that includes practically ALL so-called conservatives): They insist that while Palestinians have no right of return to Israel (agreed); the world has a “global Right of Return to the US.”

As I put it in “American Rabbis For Israel First” (August 8, 2014):

Ask any left-liberal American Jew if he supports a “Right of Return” to Israel proper for every self-styled Palestinian refugee, and he’ll likely recoil: “Are you meshuga? Never! That’s a euphemism for Israel’s demise.” The very thing he rejects for Israel, the liberal Jew is inclined to champion for America: a global right of return to the US for citizens of the world.

In “American Rabbis For Israel First” and, before that, on October 1 2010, in “Mass Immigration ‘End Of Days’ Scenario,” I suggested the apparently anti-Semitic (because logical?) notion that “mass immigration into America be looked at as a global ‘right of return'”:

Friends of Israel in America are unequivocal in standing up for that country’s right to retain its Jewish identity. What would become of that identity if all self-styled Arab refugees were to be granted the so-called right of return? Hatched by Israel’s enemies, this scheme will see millions of such refugees granted the right to immigrate to Israel proper, where they will overwhelm the Jewish majority. Friends of Israel know that Jews must remain numerically preponderant in the Jewish state if the prosperous, progressive nature of the country and its liberal institutions is to endure.

Think of mass immigration into America as a global “right of return.”

Now Young accuses Ms. Coulter of the thought crime for which I’ve long been guilty, too, because Ann wrote the following in Adios (2015):

The Young woman is foolish. She needs to show that for Ann to want for the US what Israel has claimed for itself through law is anti-Semitic. Young has not proven or argued this convincingly. The Young woman’s libel has no foundation in reason and argument.

Can Cathy Young, moreover, truly claim that Albion’s Seed founded this Christian country, America, with the view that it may one day happily become majority Muslim or Jewish or Buddhist; African, Asian or Arabian? Rubbish.

*****
* Cathy Young would probably decree it anti-Semitic to turn the term “blood libel” on its head and use it to denote defamation against a generally philo-Semitic Christian.

UPDATE (6/9): America is for the world, but Israel is allowed to stay civilized. Oy!

Media’s ‘Dah’ Moment On Election 2016 And Demographics

Donald Trump, Elections, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Race

NPR (May 10, 2016): “… there is also the potential that this fall’s presidential battlegrounds could be re-sorted — pitting white, working-class voters, whom Trump is appealing to, against Latino voters, who appear to be in Clinton’s corner. Traditional ways of thinking about the map should and will be challenged.”

Wow. A year on, and the penny may be dropping.

And: “… at this point, polling is almost irrelevant. The cases have not been litigated yet; the campaigns have not been waged; neither candidate has even officially crossed the magic number to win his or her respective primaries yet.”

The Wrong-All-The-Time Media is “rethinking.” Does this mean slow Nate Silver will begin to ask why his numbers fit his hypothesis, but do not comport with reality? There’s another “genius.”