| |
|
August 2007
Up Front About Frontline
Reed Hundt never got around to smothering the wireless industry with regulations while he was chairman of the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), and the wireless industry thrived as a result. Unfortunately, now he’s trying to make up for lost time.
Hundt has joined the clamor for so called net neutrality—a proposed new set of restrictions on privately owned communications networks that would restrict their ability to innovate new products and services and manage the flood of new traffic that is moving onto data networks.
Read More...
|
|
|
The legendary neutrality of the Swiss is again on display, this time in the WTO.
Early on, the Swiss Government coordinated closely with the United States Government. and other IP demandeurs against China in the pending TRIPS copyright enforcement suit. However, while the EC, Japan and Mexico have joined the United State’s ongoing formal consultations with China, the Swiss are nowhere to be found now that the case has been filed and is moving forward.
Read More...
|
|
|
Barry Aarons’ letter to the editor appears today in USA Today in response to an article published August 23, “Handcuffs Chafe Wireless Users.”
In "More Government Regulation Stifles Wireless Programs," while consumers complain about restrictive “handcuffs” on their wireless handsets based on wireless provider services, Aarons reminds them:
…The return on the investments made by the network providers such as AT&T, Sprint and Alltel is what enables the dynamic research, development and deployment of future wireless service.
Competition, not regulation, will determine advances in the wireless market, says Aarons.
Read More...
|
|
|
Do We Need a Tax Increase to Fix the Bridges?
Dr. Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovations says not until we fix congressional spending.
The tragic collapse of a Minneapolis bridge has some members of Congress suggesting a tax increase to fund a massive evaluation and repair of America’s infrastructure.
But according to Citizens Against Government Waste, Congress has filled the current transportation bill with $123 million for 285 unnecessary projects in the Senate version alone.
That includes:
- $700,000 for blight removal along Route 1 in Maryland.
- $200,000 for wi-fi service in Albany, New York.
- $200,000 for the Post Office Museum in Las Vegas.
Maybe Las Vegas tourists are demanding more cultural attractions.
Before Con Read More...
 Do We Need a Tax Increase to Fix the Bridges? |
|
|
Here (below my diatribe) is an outstanding essay by Gary North on the fraudulent Fed and inflation. Please note, while I agree with North's overall thrust, I do however disagree with him in two major areas:
1. I believe he allows his theology/ideology to blind him to the real benefits of debt. That doesn't mean I don't agree with him that debt, especially consumer debt, can be catastrophic for people; take it from someone who knows. Moreover, I believe it is ironic he doesn't seem to comprehend that his fear/distaste of debt results not so much from the drawbacks of debt itself (unless one simply views it as biblically wrong) but rather from the way debt is incurred and aggregates systemically in the current system, which he correctly describes as a "debt-money economy."
Read More...
|
|
|
Is there any sense to the hysterical meltdown in the credit markets? What has been happening is nothing less than a run on the credit system.
It all started in the subprime mortgage market. Do the facts there justify the hysteria? Subprime lending is 9% of the $10.4 trillion mortgage market. Call it a trillion. About 18% of those mortgages are more than 30 days past due. Not all of those mortgages will go into foreclosure. Some people will sell their homes. Some will find a way to refinance. Some will dig out of their holes one way or another, either a new source of family income, taking on a renter, elimination of some financial hole draining them, finding a way to refinance.
If just 25% of the delinquents find a way out through such means, that would leave 13.5% of subprimes going into foreclosure. Some are suggesting in the media that over 50% in the subprime market could suffer foreclosure. Read More...
|
|
|
In the recent immigration debate, some alleged that talk radio was running the country. But now we can see who really runs the country: pollsters.
Nothing has caused movement in Washington like a recent poll that showed 84% of Americans believe humans are contributing to climate change, with 78% saying we should do something “right away”. Among Republicans, 60% agree.
As a result, Washington magnates are scrambling to develop plans to increase utility bills by 50% or more, and to shut down new production of electricity. Legislation to address global warming always has one thing in common: imposing substantial suffering on most of the public.
This debate needs to take into account the fact that global warming policy will not just mean higher prices. It means that some will have to do without, consuming less electricity, less gas for their car, less driving. That will be the poor, working people, and the middle class. Read More...
|
|
|
Well, the Washington Post column by William H. Gross is truly disgusting; enough to make you lose your lunch . The only thing Mr. Gross hasn't done is connect the sub-prime meltdown to run-away global warming, but wait'll next week.
You've got to hand it to these Wall Street jokers, they actually manage to keep a straight face in arguing for a bailout of the banks in the name of oppressed borrowers. Why is it a bail out of the banks if you're passing out taxpayers' money to borrowers? Who do you think those oppressed borrowers flush with government handouts ("fiscal policy" -- ha, ha, ha, ha) are going to pay all that found money to -- the mortgage holders -- the banks -- and who does that shelter -- the MUTUAL FUNDS, hedge funds and private equity funds that hold these mortgages in packages of derivatives. Read More...
|
|
|
In his August 16, 2007 Washington Post column, "Folly and the Fed", George Will opined, "The Federal Reserve's proper mission is not to produce a particular rate of economic growth or unemployment, or to cure injuries to certain sectors of the economy. It is to preserve the currency as a store of value — to contain inflation." About the Fed's "proper" role, Will is correct, assuming, that is, the Fed is to exist in the first place.
However, as Milton Friedman reminded us, "Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon," by which he meant inflation is not spontaneously generated by the operation of free markets (economies do not spontaneously grow "too fast" and "overheat"); it is created by the government's printing too much money. Friedman's observation reveals a paradox that clarifies the dangerous superfluousness of the Fed. Read More...
|
|
|
The father of Quantum Electrodynamics and physics Nobel laureate Richard Feynman always claimed that no one, including himself, really understood the weird theory of quantum mechanics, and anyone who claimed to simply did not understand the problem:
“What I am going to tell you about is what we teach our physics students in the third or fourth year of graduate school...It is my task to convince you not to turn away because you don't understand it. You see my physics students don't understand it…That is because I don't understand it. Nobody does.”
Richard P. Feynman, Nobel Lecture, “QED, The Strange Theory of Light and Matter,” 1966
By the same token, anyone who claims to understand modern financial engineering (derivatives, etc.—) likewise doesn’t understand the problem, which is that the so-called “sub-prime mortgage” meltdown is just the latest manifestation—the symptom—of the chronic inflation that is the inevitable by-product of a fiat currency under the control of a central bank, i.e., the Fed. Read More...
|
|
|
IPI Research Fellow and economist Larry Hunter appears in the State Journal-Register of Springfield, IL this week, explaining why price controls on the health care industry don’t work.
An excerpt: Sens. Clinton and Obama are only two of the many politicians who fail to see the consequences of ill-conceived government regulations in response to the rising cost of health care. “Harnessing the free market” on prescription drugs may make for good campaign copy, but its byproducts are real. Few economists doubt that price controls would lead to higher prices and rationing and also would discourage research spending on new life-saving and life-extending medications. Visit the State Journal-Register for the full text of the article. Read More...
|
|
|
Moral Hazards to Taxpayers and to Our Culture
We’re hearing a lot about “moral hazard” in the news these days.
In policy terms, “moral hazard” is a situation when laws or policies encourage people to engage in risky behavior, knowing they will be insulated from bearing the full cost of their bad decisions.
It creates a moral hazard, for instance, for the government to bail out investors who invested in high-risk instruments, such as subprime mortgages, when their investments go down the tubes. This practice encourages people to engage in more risky behavior than they otherwise would if they anticipated that they would have to bear the full risk themselves.
Read More...
|
|
|
On the idea of labor competition, Germany’s center-left and center-right parties switch roles, says IPI’s George Pieler along with Jens Laurson in an oped featured today in The American.
Suffering from a lack of skilled workers, German policymakers have begun to re-evaluate a law prohibiting the free movement of laborers from new EU member states until 2009.
Read More...
|
|
|
Explaining why Mitt Romney would be more successful in reforming health care as president than he was as governor of Massachusetts, Romney economic advisor Glenn Hubbard (former Bush Council of Economic Advisers Chairman) said:
"Massachusetts didn't have the federal tax code to play with."
Oh boy, so much for principled, comprehensive tax reform. It's pretty depressing when one of the Republican front runners is being advised to "play with" the federal tax code as a machine for social engineering.
And what exactly does Hubbard advise Romney to do about health-care per se? The best way to answer that question is to look at what he proposed in a book co-authored with John Cogan and Daniel Kessler ( Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise: Five Steps to a Better Health Care System, Read More...
|
|
|
What’s the harm of a little college fun? All-night cross-country drives for Spring Break, campus pranks, Saturdays spent dressed in college garb cheering on the team, and rampant theft of music via illegal downloading…where’s the harm?
Few seem to stop and consider the moral dimension of illegally downloading (stealing) music and often rationalize their behavior believing that “no one gets hurt.” Often what the rationalizing person means is that no one except rock stars and industry execs are hurt…or so they believe.
The reality is that rampant global piracy of recorded music has cost the U.S. $12.5 billion in economic output and 71,060 jobs annually.
Read More...
|
|
|
Just back from a few days in Aspen at the PFF Aspen Summit tech policy conference, so I'm way behind on a bunch of stuff, especially related to our study this week on the impact of music piracy on the U.S. economy.
I hope to get caught up over the next couple of days, dealing with objections and characterizations of our study. But I just had to share this one.
Today I get an email from someone who self-identifies as a member of the "Pirate Party of Utah."
His complaint is that IPI isn't objective on the subject of music piracy.
Now, let me get this straight: Someone who self-identifies as a member of the Pirate Party of Utah is complaining that WE aren't objective on the topic of piracy?
You can't make stuff like this up.
More later. Read More...
|
|
|
At Least Universal Health Care Is Free, Right?
The Institute for Policy Innovation’s Dr. Merrill Matthews says, it won’t be in Wisconsin.
You want universal health care? Then look to Wisconsin.
The state’s Democratically controlled Senate has passed a bill to provide health insurance to every Wisconsinite under age 65.
Filmmaker Michael Moore claims universal coverage is free, but in Wisconsin it’s estimated to cost $15.2 billion. The Wall Street Journal says that’s $3 billion more than the state currently collects in all income, sales and corporate income taxes.
But at least everyone has the same coverage, right?
No. It looks like the state teachers will be exempted from the plan. And you can expect even more of the well-connected to flee.
Read More...
At Least Universal Health Care Is Free, Right? |
|
|
In a new oped today from IPI economist and tax expert Dr. Lawrence Hunter, it seems as though Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama care more about stumping than making an effort to promote good economic policy.
Read More...
|
|
|
IPI Senior Fellows George Pieler and Dr. Larry Hunter have done it again on the issue of insurance regulation reform, their latest work featured today in a leading business daily.
Check out their new oped on Forbes.com discussing the need for U.S. insurers and legislators to pursue insurance reform dialogue like their European and Japanese counterparts in “Insurance Reform: There But Not Here.”
The authors emphasize the need for insurance regulators to undergo review and reform the insurance market, all in an effort to streamline and therefore enhance the U.S. market’s competitiveness on the global playing field.
Read More...
|
|
|
Tonight, at the closing dinner of the PFF Aspen Summit, the speaker was Eric Schmidt, Chairman and CEO of Google.
Schmidt gave a frankly unimaginative speech, though it is always a great opportunity to hear the Chairman of a major tech company talking to a tech and policy crowd.
Surprisingly (or perhaps not surprisingly), during Schmidt's speech he said nothing about intellectual property, and he stressed repeatedly the important responsibility of tech companies to do everything possible to preserve the critical freedom of speech.
I thought Schmidt got off easy during the Q and A period. I thought there were any number of tough questions that could and should have been asked, particularly by the PFF crowd.
So I raised my hand several times to ask a question, but also several times thought better of it and lowered my hand. Because I was in the back of the room, it wasn't easy for the fine folks with the microphones to see me.
So here is what I wanted to ask Eric Schmidt tonight: Read More...
|
|
|
IPI has no particular beef with the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA). In fact, I imagine that most IPI employees are, as I am, eager and enthusiastic consumers of the latest consumer electronics.
I'm personally a big fan of the consumer electronics industry, and at least once in my life got to attend their incredible show.
But CEA seems to have a beef with anybody who asserts that intellectual property infringement is a problem, and seems to knee-jerk every time anyone starts talking about piracy. I've never really understood this, because compelling content is a prerequisite for the CE industry. If there isn't compelling content, people aren't going to want to consume it by using the products of the CE industry.
So it seems to me that the CE industry is in a symbiotic relationship with the content industries, and they ought to at least be civil with one another.
Read More...
|
|
|
Today, a brand new study from the Institute for Policy Innovation reports the overall economic damage from global music piracy at a staggering $12.5 billion and a cost of 71,000 jobs per year. Read the study here.
Read More...
|
|
|
I'm in Aspen, Colorado (I know, you hate me now) attending the annual Aspen Summit, which is sponsored by the Progress & Freedom Foundation. If you're not familiar with the Summit, it's a conference on technology policy, digital policy, and innovation.
First speaker this morning was the renouned Harvard economist Dale Jorgenson, who went through a very interesting presentation on the information economy, describing the composition of the "tech bubble," but more importantly, identifying the sources of productivity growth in the economy.
You can get a copy of Dr. Jorgenson's presentation here.
The exciting conclusion (at least to economists) of Jorgenson's presentation was his conclusion that the economy is capable of 2.9% economic growth, long-term.
Now, 2.9% economic growth is not exactly an exciting figure. Read More...
|
|
|
Story in today's Wall Street Journal on how municipal wireless network projects around the country are running 30% or more over budget, and finding that demand from consumers is softer than expected.
That is, of course, because their expectations were akin to expecting that the Sugar Plum Fairy would show up and sprinkle their houses with lemon pixiedust and strawberry gumdrops.
I do not "hate to say 'We told you so'." No, in fact with riotous mirth and glee I say "We told you so."
Economic problems result when people stop thinking of things as goods and begin to think of things as "rights." So long as things are "goods," we recognize that some people value a particular good, while others do not. So we distribute goods through markets. If someone values a particular good, they will be willing to pay for it. If they don't value a particular good, they choose not to pay for it, or at least they buy less of it. Read More...
|
|
|
Read IPI trade expert and Cobden Fellow Doug Bandow’s latest oped in The American Spectator Online.
In this new oped, Bandow makes the case for overseas trade liberalization and stronger IP protection on U.S. pharmaceuticals to ensure the continuation of imperative medical advances.
“Bizarrely, a gaggle of Democratic congressmen has endorsed Thailand's plan to steal American-made drugs,” writes Bandow. “Should governments simply steal from companies medications developed at great cost?”
An excerpt:
Protection of American intellectual property is a vital economic and health issue. Pharmaceuticals save lives. Stealing patents is really stealing the health future of Americans -- who pay a disproportionate share of the globe's pharmaceutical R&D -- and disadvantaged peoples around the world. Read More...
|
|
|
Off of M Street
On a warm Sunday afternoon you will find students, pedestrians and tourists crowding M Street in Georgetown, just blocks from the White House and Capitol Hill. Some will be out shopping, some going to the bars and restaurants and some just to blend into the crowds.
If you decide to turn off of M Street, say on Wisconsin, and walk a couple of blocks north, you’ll find the crowds thinning out pretty quickly, except for a couple of sidewalk vendors.
But it’s not ice cream that’s attracting the crowds two blocks off of M; it’s the purses. Coach knockoffs, Louis Vuitton, Gucci and others.
Read More...
|
|
|
Read Dr. Merrill Matthews' latest oped published today in The Wall Street Journal.
Resident Scholar and health care expert Matthews discusses how government attempts to regulate costs and put price controls on the health care industry only leave society to reap the consequences of an arbitrarily-budgeted, politically-driven system.
“There is not one government-funded health care system that is considered adequately funded by those who have to deal with it,” writes Matthews, referring to nations such as Canada, England and France, often-lauded by universal-health care supporters.
Read More...
|
|
|
China’s Central Committee would be forgiven if it looked with nostalgia on the 1990’s when it could seemingly do no wrong and when Western companies welcomed China in to the WTO (negotiated in the 1990s, effective in 2001), showered the country with foreign direct investment, outsourced manufacturing, and overlooked rampant piracy and counterfeiting.
Even at the level of the U.S. Trade Representative, Ambassador Barshefsky was swept up in what became known as “Beanie-gate” for violating rules on import of (possibly counterfeit) Chinese Beanie Baby toys. For China, those may have been the good old days.
Read More...
|
|
|
Mark Steyn’s column for Monday, August 13 provides an explosive revelation. Global warming preachers have been telling us that 1998 was the hottest year in America on record. 2001 was supposed to be among the Top Ten hottest in America ever. And the surrounding years were supposed to be up there too.
But NASA has recently revised the data published on its website. The hottest year is no longer 1998, but 1934. 2001 is no longer in the Top Ten. Instead four of the top ten hottest years are in the 1930s.
Oddly enough, the corrections arose due to a Canadian citizen named Steve McIntyre of climateaudit.com who studies weather data the way an inveterate old baseball fan studies historical batting averages. His review of the raw data showed that NASA’s translation of the facts contained consistent errors. When he reported his findings to NASA scientists, they conducted a review that showed he was correct.
Read More...
|
|
|
The conservative movement has been adrift for the past several years, in part because it was closely tied to Republicans who claimed to embrace conservative principles about limited government, lower taxes and spending, increased choice in education and health care, and on several other points.
But most Republicans in Congress have abandoned those principles, in deed if not in word. And that abandonment has created a crisis of leadership in conservatism: Who shall stand up for conservative principles in word and deed? And where will they make their stand?
Earmark reform may be the answer.
Read More...
|
|
|
Read Dr. Stephen Baskerville’s latest oped in the Washington Times this week.
Baskerville has declared a war against fathers and marriage by the state. In this piece, he analyzes how every year, state agencies criminalize millions of divorced fathers by first separating them from their children in custodial court cases, then using the arm of law enforcement to dig into their pockets in the name of “child support.”
Baskerville lays out how this money trail leads straight to federal incentives in a backward system conforming to the nefarious model of the Social Security Act’s Title IV-D, where the state “subsidizes family dissolution, for every fatherless child is an additional source of revenue for state governments.”
Read More...
|
|
|
According to a story yesterday in the Latin Business Chronicle, there is plenty of support within Latin America for free trade.
Indeed, a surprising amount of support:
Amazingly, enough, Venezuela is the country with strongest support for free markets. A whopping 72 percent of Venezuelans favor free markets, while only 27 oppose it, according to the survey. That despite the daily attacks against free markets from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his administration.
Brazil, Latin America's largest economy, followed - with 65 percent support for free markets versus 33 percent opposition. Brazil has since 2003 been led by a nominally leftist, Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva, who has generally followed market-friendly economic policies.
Another surprise: Chile came in third in terms of free-market support, with 60 percent support and Read More...
|
|
|
On Monday, August 6th, the Madras High Court dismissed Novartis’ petition, which had challenged the constitutional validity of Section 3(d) of the Indian Third Patent Amendments (2005).
For a detailed outline of technical aspects of the case, Shamnad Basheer has posted his analysis at the Spicy IP blog.
MSF and other affiliated NGOs cited the Indian provision in question, known for as “3(d)” for the number of the provision, as essential to promote public health as it creates a higher hurdle for patentability. Read More...
|
|
|
From the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI)
Make no mistake about it, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) bills that recently passed both the U.S. House and Senate are the federal health care version of the adage of the boiled frog!
In that story, you will remember, if a frog is thrown into a pot of boiling water, the frog will jump out. But if it’s put in a pot of tepid water and the heat is slowly turned up to a boil, the frog will ultimately be cooked to death.
In 1993 the Clintons tried to throw the country into a boiling Hillary-care pot, and we all jumped out. Indeed, we jumped so fast that we swept a whole Democratic-led Congress out of power. Read More...
|
|
|
Several news stories are reporting on the complaint by the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that copyright warnings on movies and sports broadcasts are "trampling over consumers' rights to fair use of copyrighted content."
According to the Wall Street Journal's story on August 1st, the CCIA is alleging that the typical copyright warning omits informing consumers as to their fair use rights to the material.
The story quotes a professor at Cardozo School of Law as saying that "the notion of fair use is expanding in the digital age."
Fair Use is a legal doctrine, not an expanding notion
Well, there are plenty of "notions" floating around about a variety of things, but fair use is a legal doctrine, not a notion. Read More...
|
|
|
Several years ago, the federal government decided that analog television signals were taking up too much valuable spectrum, so the feds decided to force TV broadcasters to move their signals to digital by February 17, 2009. Because digital broadcast allows spectrum to be more efficiently used, this would free up large chunks of spectrum to be used for other purposes, such as expanding wireless networks.
It is estimated that there are 20 million soon-to-be-obsolete TV sets in homes where people don't subscribe to either satellite or cable.
On that date, if you are one of those homes and you still trying to pick up TV signals with an analog television, your screen will go dark, or perhaps be tuned to a permanent public service announcement explaining what happened.
Read More...
|
|
|
An FDA panel has decided not to follow a recommendation that GlaxoSmithKline’s diabetes drug Avandia be taken off the U.S. market.
The concern was raised that the drug increased the risk of heart attack in diabetes patients. The review panel apparently agreed with that assessment, but thought it would be “draconian” to remove it completely.
There has been a long-running concern that the FDA’s panel errs on the side of patient safety; it should err on the side of patient choice.
By being overly restrictive, the panel inserts itself in between the doctor-patient relationship and it can remove the last vestige of choice some patients might have. Rather, the panel should be guided by three fundamental principles:
· Do doctors and their patients want access to a particular drug because they are finding it effective?
Read More...
|
|
|
Memo to Susan Schwab, United States Trade Representative:
Susan,
You should overturn the International Trade Commission's ban on the import of wireless handsets containing disputed Qualcomm chips.
You should overturn it now--certainly before the August 6 deadline. Today would be good.
You should overturn it because the ITC's vote was wrong. The Chairman of the ITC himself dissented from the ITC's decision, saying that it was antithetical to the public good. And he was right.
Arguably, the ITC shouldn't even have this authority in the first place. The ITC's authority to ban import of foreign made products is derived from the now-infamous Smoot Hawley Tarriff of 1930, which arguably caused the Great Depression. It's a relic of all that is bad about U.S. trade policy. We've learned those lessons.
Read More...
|
|
|
Check out IPI’s latest op/ed published today in The Hill on the issue of free trade in agricultural goods.
Authors George Pieler and Jens Laurson say European policymakers have developed an unsubstantiated fear with regard to genetically modified food and make the case against the “precautionary” policy which has instituted absolute bans on the products. Pieler and Laurson argue that “there is no practical limit to the application of the precautionary principle,” and that it is “dangerously vague.”
While the authors admonish EU officials to qualitatively assess the risks when it comes to GM foods, they also point out how illogical bans provoked by unfounded phobias could do real damage to the global agricultural market. Read More...
|
|
|
|
|
Home
Author: TechBytes || Location: Lewisville, Texas, USA