Category Archives: Big government is the problem

FAA Proposes to Murder 100 People Per Year

If you are anything like millions of other Americans you have bought something over the Internet. A world of wares is there for us to browse at just the click of a mouse and tap of a keyboard. And although it is in some respects virtually the same process we (or our parents for the younger among us) engaged in when we browsed print catalogs not that many years ago, it is also a vast improvement over that older, static, process. Information is updated in real time. We can make buying decisions based on the reviews and feedback of other consumers. We can instantly compare prices and options among several vendors. In short, the Internet has not simply repackaged an old process in some techy guise; it has made a material improvement that has added value (that is, time) to all of our lives.

However, one aspect of the ordering process has not changed in over 170 years (Tiffany’s Blue Book, published in 1845 was the first mail-order catalogue in the US) and that is the delivery process. Yes, it has gotten faster (with the advent of air delivery) but the core process is the same: the order changes hands multiple times from human to human as it moves through the delivery pipeline. To be fair, this process is far more enviable than the alternative of picking up the order yourself. In fact one of the rarely noted benefits of bulk delivery is the prevention of accidental death. If every person who has ever ordered something had to go and pick the order up themselves the cost in time and hence productivity is incalculable. But the cost in lives would be calculable to a degree, given the fact that for a certain number of miles driven there will be a certain number of motor vehicle fatalities. All things being equal, without delivery, more people would certainly have died.

Today, after 170 years following one delivery model we are on the cusp of switching to a new delivery model: the drone. Amazon.com has been experimenting with what they call “Prime Air”, that is, direct delivery of your Amazon order, by drone, to your doorstep within hours of placing the order. Amazing! Forget Marty McFly’s 2015 hover board – this is even cooler! But, you knew there was a “but” coming, the FAA will have none of that.  Last week they proposed a new set of regulations for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) (that only apply to private business naturally; we can’t have these rules standing in the way of government users). Among some of the more onerous rules that would all but quash Amazon’s plans include: “The operator must remain within visual line of sight of the drone” and “They can only operate in the daylight and under 500 feet”. These proposed regulations are driven more by fear of the unknown than by any rational concern over safety. It’s like they never got the point of the old college essay primer: “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are made for.” Hint: the point is to let the ship sail so that its potential may be realized.

If these proposed rules are implemented there will be an unseen cost, one that I’m surprised a supposedly “must save lives” utilitarian-mindset entity like the FAA is apparently oblivious to. Were drone delivery of packages permitted it would save roughly 100 lives per year in the United States alone due to the decreased mileage of delivery vehicles (based on my own estimates, see gregmorin.com). And that is only for Amazon deliveries. When other companies begin to deploy the same technology the potential for saving lives only rises further.

Internet commerce, that is, the free market, through its endeavoring to improve our lives has also managed to save many of them. Let’s not forget that lesson as we look toward the future.

Dumbed down

The President recently announced his plan to destroy the community college system. It is really a clever plan. In Trojan horse-esque fashion it cloaks the seeds of destruction in an appealing wrapper. Step 1: identify a non-frivolous economic good and declare it to be “free” for all. Step 2: step back and watch prices soar while quality plummets in a vain effort to keep up with exploding demand. Sound familiar? Healthcare. 4-year College education. The President is clearly an environmentalist; how else to explain his effort to recycle this garbage.

By guaranteeing full payment of tuition only for students maintaining at least a 2.5 GPA, this scheme will not incentivize students to work harder, but rather for teachers to inflate grades. Or rather, students may believe they will have to work harder, but it is far easier to inflate a grade than to study, thus grades will quickly reach that floor long before the efforts of increased studying are needed. Once that happens the value of a 2-year degree will be depreciated. There is no way for a prospective employer to distinguish between a graduate that really did learn the material vs. one who is the product of either inflated grades or a “dumbing down” of the curricula.

Once the administrators realize they can raise tuition each year at a rate vastly exceeding the rate of inflation (because the normal feedback of the customer opting to not purchase a too expensive good vanishes), those administrators in turn will make sure the professors understand their salaries depend on maintaining a certain enrolled student count. Of course the blame for skyrocketing tuition will be that the increased student load requires expansion of services (politely ignoring the economic axiom that individual prices tend to fall as volume goes up, not the other way around). That this will happen is not mere opinion or conjecture, but history: 4-year college tuition has risen at over 3x the rate of inflation since 1978.

The odd thing about this proposal is that community college tuition is already very inexpensive. Typically government only wants to make things “free” after they have meddled in the market long enough to drive prices upward. But the states and local communities already subsidize community colleges in order to keep prices low. The fact that tuition is charged at all is a function of the inability of local government to run their own printing press as well as more direct voter feedback on taxes.

It seems like the President is answering a question no one was asking. How much of a barrier can tuition be – there are already millions paying for it now. And even though the barrier is low, it is important to have some sort of barrier, if only to separate the serious from the unserious student. The President’s proposal mistakes a speed bump for a retaining wall and seeks to eliminate even that minimal level of self-selection. The people already attending have proven that they contain the seeds of success. They made the hard choices and saved their money in order to achieve a better life for themselves.

A secondary, and more sinister, effect of removing that self-selection barrier is it will transform the serious student into a less serious one. No longer is their money on the line, no longer is there pressure to perform lest they waste their hard-saved cash. Humans perform best under pressure, and if you remove that pressure you remove the motivation to perform at one’s peak. So, by removing the pressure of being out of pocket for the tuition, this policy will foster the learning style of the perpetual procrastinator. “So what if I do poorly, I can try again and again, and again” (at least until that GPA dips to a 2.5, that is, a practically failing D-).

I’m not suggesting this drop off in motivation will happen to everyone attending community college. What I am saying is that in aggregate this will be the outcome more often than not. There is a reason there are no private charities that indiscriminately fund adult tuition – it’s a bad idea from a utilitarian standpoint – it harms the individual receiving it and by extension the society in which that individual lives

Not Neutrality, Part 3

Last week’s article on Net Neutrality focused primarily on what not to do. Net Neutrality shares an ideological pedigree with every other government backed “solution” intended to solve the problem fostered by government itself. The solution to the (mostly) unfounded fears of Net Neutrality advocates is more competition, not more government one-size-fits-all programs. The only way to get more competition is to reign in government’s ability to restrict it.

The overriding problem is structural. The world we live in is the result of decades of misguided policies and government induced market distortions. Like some perverse game of pick up sticks, this state backed structure retains its form no matter how many pieces are removed, impervious to all “reform.” The state has wrought a Gordian knot so intractable the only solution is to cut it.

At the ground floor of this structure are local municipalities that grant utility providers exclusive monopoly privileges in exchange for the fig leaf of “oversight”. If an outside Internet Service Provider (ISP) wishes to enter that market they have no choice but to negotiate either with the municipality itself or its pet public utility for access to “public” infrastructure such as utility poles or underground conduit. The fees charged for such access can double the cost of the entire project, turning an economically viable endeavor into one that is hopelessly unprofitable and results in the ISP throwing up their hands in disgust and walking away. This encourages either no service or monopoly service. Just as a sperm cell induces a protective response in the egg it fertilizes, so too does the first ISP in a region use the powers of its municipal host to keep out all would be competitors. For example, they may negotiate a contract that requires the municipality or public utility charge any future competitors much higher rates for access or a guarantee of exclusive access, thus effectively securing their monopoly position. In at least 20 states so far some ISPs have pushed for legislation that blocks municipalities from competing as ISPs themselves. Such legislation is typically cloaked in the rhetoric of “saving jobs” to pass the sniff test of public opinion. Not that “municipalizing” an industry is ever a good idea, but to the extent that it is possible for this to occur without the use of any taxes, subsidies or eminent domain, there is theoretically no ethical issue with such competition. Although I would seriously question whether such tax-free competition is possible, the easiest way to test that is to remove the power of taxation and eminent domain, not create a rat’s nest of exceptions and restrictions.

To ultimately solve these issues we need fewer, not more laws. We need fewer grants of monopoly privilege for both private and “public” interests. Municipalities should have no rights to grant charters or licenses to any business. This removes the whole notion of “public” utilities. With that antiquated framework swept away, we would witness competition between electric, gas, water, sewage, phone, and Internet providers solve an array of problems that are intractable under the current “public” system. For example, restrictions in Georgia on the generation of solar power, water rationing during drought, and poor and expensive phone service, are all easily solved in a competitive environment. For Internet access one solution could be totally free access but the consumer pays the content provider directly. Or a consumer pays their ISP but there exists an explicit contract where the ISP guarantees maximum speed to all content. Or a million other approaches that neither you nor I can predict. We must dispense with the “should” attitude of “it should work this way or that way.” “Should” implies the necessity of an enforcer to make that “should” a reality. “Could” is more appropriate. It acknowledges the uncertainty of anyone being prescient enough to know what is best. To paraphrase Yoda, “No should! Could or could not, there is no should.”

Competition permits the creative power of millions to come to bear on solving problems. They pursue it in hopes of “winning” the best-solution-lottery that will yield happy paying customers. Municipal monopolies maintain a legacy status quo system by restricting all allowed approaches to just one. If one is knowingly ingesting poison the solution is to not also simultaneously ingest an antidote; the solution is to stop ingesting the poison.

“Muh Ebola outbreak!”

When those who steadfastly believe in the ideal of a free society (i.e. no state) try to convince their brainwashed brethren to imagine a world free of institutionalized violence they are invariably assailed not with counter-arguments but rather with emotionalism or questions. “But without the state, how would X be accomplished?” This typical smug response betrays the interlocutor’s belief in the false choice promoted by the state, namely, that without the state it is not possible to accomplish X, Y, or Z. But a question is not an argument. A question proves nothing other than the questioner’s inability to understand the argument. A lack of understanding does not invalidate an argument any more than understanding it proves its validity. There is no more telling example of this truth than the obvious invalidity of the rejoinder “but who will pick the cotton?” from those that opposed the end of slavery. Apropos the similarity between statism and slavery: this method of argumentation, assaulting your opponent with questions believed to have no answer, is the most common tact against those proposing the end of statism. Without the state: who will build the roads? Who will teach the children? Who will stop the criminals? Who will stop the Ebola outbreaks?

It is this last point that I’d like to address since (a) the first three are absurdly easy to refute and (b) even some libertarians have a hard time answering this one. Let me begin by stating the guiding principle behind any of these thought experiments: if apparently the only way to accomplish something is by initiating violence against a fellow human being then you’re either not very imaginative or it is something that truly should not be done. Incentives and persuasion always trump coercion and violence. So, without further ado, how does one stop the spread of highly infectious diseases in a free society? To find the answer we need look no further than what the state does, albeit rather poorly, today. The answer lies within the principal of private property and the absolute control and discretion of private property owners over the use of their property. The state takes on the presumptive role of being the property owner of all within its borders. Under this presumption of ownership it then exercises its putative rights as property owner, namely control of ingress and egress and movement in that property. The irony of such state control is that the state actually has an incentive to do a poor job when it comes to control of infectious disease. Why is that? Because crises are the perennial excuse for expansion of state power, power that when the crises is over, is never relinquished. That is not to say those in power deliberately try to make it worse, but merely that failure of the state in its stated goals always results in the people rewarding it with more, not less, power.

Within a free society that had full private property rights the property owner (hospital) carries liability insurance and that insurance requires it do everything in its power to not release infected people. If an infected person wanted to leave anyway, they could, but only to the extent surrounding property owners permitted it. In other words, they wouldn’t get very far owing to highly secure fences and private roads. A private road owner would have a mutual contract with the hospital (for their own insurance reasons) to not permit sick individuals to leave without a clean bill of health. Because the state shields hospitals from this type of liability and the state owns all the roads and the state itself has no liability many people like this fall through the cracks today. In a private system there are many more people involved (insurance, hospital, road company, surrounding property owners) and this ensures a more granular level of control that minimizes “crack fall through”.

What we have today is a total structural problem in how society is organized. This is why there is no simple “what liberty says we should do” answer when we consider how we should handle quarantines within the current system. It is insufficient to say “we must respect the right of the individual who is infected” while ignoring the systemic problem of monopolistic state ownership that both crowds out competitors that would do a better job and that eliminates liability for its own mistakes.

Restoring Freedom?

Following the President’s recent signing of the cellphone unlock bill (“Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act”) the White House issued a press release extolling the benefits of the bill. Amidst the usual self-serving propaganda (“democracy at its best”, “broke through gridlock”, etc.) we find two telling phrases that betray the consequences of accepting dominion of the state over our lives: loss of freedom.

The first is found here, “The story of how we broke through Washington gridlock to restore the freedom of consumers…” and the second here, “…consumer will now be able to enjoy the freedom…”. The unspoken but obvious question here is, How exactly did consumers lose these freedoms in the first place? Oh, that’s right, it was due to the very institution now taking credit for “restoring” those freedoms. The state exhibits the character traits of a thief with self-esteem issues: he robs you but then returns your stolen goods in order to bask in the ego trip of being praised for having done the right thing.

The story of how these freedoms were lost has its genesis in the most basic function of the state: interventionist protectionism for the few at the expense of the many. It started with a bit of intellectual property crony capitalism known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Under the DMCA it is a crime to duplicate digital intellectual “property” (music, movies, books, etc) as this is considered theft. Of course it is not really theft since IP is not intellectual property but rather imaginary property; a business model that necessitates state intervention to succeed is necessarily defective and thus invalid (more of my thoughts on this here and here). Sometimes digital IP is secured with digital locks (digital rights management or DRM) and thus just as it is considered a crime to defeat someone’s padlock in the real world, it is also considered a crime under the DMCA to defeat a digital lock, even if no duplication of the unlocked software ensues. So this is where we get to cellphones; cellphones are locked by the carriers with digital locks, thus breaking those locks is likewise considered a crime under the DMCA. For many years the Librarian of Congress (no idea why it would fall to that department) had issued waivers to the DMCA for phone unlocking, however those waivers ended as of January 1, 2013 due to the increasing availability of unlocked phones directly from carriers. There soon followed a consumer backlash, which manifested itself in a “We the People” petition at whitehouse.gov, which garnered over 100,000 signatures. Congress and the White House soon worked out a bill to permanently restore this exception to the DMCA and the rest is history.

Many are now touting this series of events as a model for how democracy should work: the people spoke, the government listened, case closed. Not so fast. This is yet another lesson in the political slight of hand that hopes to misdirect a gullible public into forgetting some recent history. To be fair we need to review the whole trip, not just the last 5 minutes. The bigger picture of this “democracy in action” includes: the passage of a bad bill that provided for aggression backed support of crony capitalist imaginary property rights, that had obviously foreseeable unintended consequences which could only be avoided with a regular legislative Band-Aids, and that took 16 years to permanently fix, that whole process, that is a model of democracy in action? No wonder the state must exert monopoly control over governmental duties because I can’t imagine anyone voluntarily choosing to pay for the service of these clowns.

With a subtle edit I think this quote by Harry Browne (1996 and 2000 Libertarian Party candidate for President) captures the essence of what has transpired here: “[The State] is good at one thing: It knows how to break your legs, hand you a crutch, and say, “See, if it weren’t for the [state], you wouldn’t be able to walk.”

Life, Liberty and Oligopoly for All!

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness: the protection of these rights is the bedrock upon which any legitimate government is founded (if such an oxymoron is possible). However, apparently somewhere along the way “oligopoly” was added to the list of inalienable rights. To wit, the latest example of such protectionist behavior was filed in the Georgia House of Representatives on February 5. A bill (HB907) was introduced that would expand the onerous taxicab and limousine regulations in order that they encompass the activities of internet based ridesharing services such as Uber and Lyft. For those unfamiliar with these services, they use a smartphone app based system to connect people that need transportation with those willing to provide it. Like the Internet it is peer-to-peer interaction with the host company merely maintaining the communication backend. It is a lean and efficient system that translates lower operational overhead into lower consumer costs. All drivers undergo a background check and vehicle inspection before they can sign up. To weed out both undesirable drivers as well as passengers these services employ a self-regulating Ebay-style reputation/feedback system.

These services are faster, often cheaper and can quickly respond to increases in demand, so it should come as no surprise that they’ve been having an impact on the bottom line of the traditional taxi services – many of which still don’t even accept credit cards in the cab. Taxi companies don’t like competition. So what do they do? Do they turn to government and ask “Why don’t you remove all your burdensome regulations so we too can operate more efficiently and at lower costs?” No. Instead they demand that if they must drag a 100-lb boulder everywhere they go, then so too must everyone else. In reality they never would ask for regulations to be repealed. Many had a hand in crafting them. These regulations artificially suppress the supply of service (oligopoly) so as to maintain elevated prices. As an industry, taxis operate nationwide under a byzantine set of rules that permit the local government (and often competitors as well) to determine, in their sole discretion, the precise perfect quantity of taxis needed in their jurisdiction. Once that is determined, taxi owners are allowed to purchase from the government that quintessential symbol of their “public necessity” role – the taxi medallion. The medallion is nothing more than a glorified business license, albeit an artificially limited license. To imagine how limiting the quantity of licenses issued for a service might affect prices paid by the consumer, imagine if, say, another occupation that is also bizarrely licensed by the state – barbers – (really? we really need government to ensure we get a good haircut?) were restricted to just one barber per town. Sure that one barber earns more, but everyone else loses. In the same way, the taxis that already have their medallion stand to benefit by using government to artificially limit who can participate in the taxi market.

When discussing this bill in public the taxi companies are not foolish enough to divulge it’s all about protecting their oligopolistic profits; no, they claim, (as do all politicians looking for an excuse to control our lives), it is about “public safety.” Yes, because clearly when someone is paying you for a lift you lose all ability to competently operate an automobile. Cars function completely differently when a paying passenger is in them as opposed to a non-paying passenger. Yes, how stupid of me to not realize this fact.

It’s a good thing we have government, otherwise how else would we be protected from the evils of innovative businesses attempting to compete with ossified fascist oligopolies.

Minority Report

This past Friday (December 27) a federal judge ruled that it is perfectly fine for the NSA to collect and review your phone and Internet records . Why is that? Well, those records don’t actually belong to you. This ruling is consistent with an interpretation of the 4th amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure known as the “3rd party doctrine.” Under this doctrine anything you disclose to a third party is no longer yours and therefore loses all expectation of privacy. Since it is no longer private the government has free reign to sink their teeth into it without any of those annoying justice-impeding anachronisms known as search warrants.

Innocent until proven guilty will soon be replaced by harassed until proven innocent.

As with all government propaganda there is a thin veneer of truth that shamelessly attempts to obscure the larger lie – but these truths are about as effective in that goal as Miley Cyrus’s underwear are in making her appear demure in her Wrecking Ball video. Yes, if you disclose something about yourself to a third party that information is technically no longer strictly private (private meaning known only to yourself). However what eludes this judge and those before him is that it is possible to convey private information to a third party under the protection of a contract. The privacy policies of some companies inform their customers how the company will and will not use information collected in the course of the business relationship. This establishes a reasonable expectation of privacy concerning any information stipulated to remain private. Therefore the 3rd party doctrine does not apply (even though the government wishes otherwise) in those situations where the consumer has a reasonable expectation of privacy per agreement with the third party. It would appear the mantra of the government is that expediency in catching the “bad guys” trumps all other concerns.

The judgment in this case is moving this country backward. Back to the 18th century that is. Back then the use of the “general warrant” by the British rulers was commonplace. A general warrant is distinguished from other types of warrants (i.e. arrest warrant, search warrant, etc.) in that it permits the holder of such warrant to pretty much do anything they want. They can search anything, anytime, anywhere and arrest anyone for any reason. If the principle of the 3rd party doctrine is applied consistently in future cases then it means the federal government has a general warrant to search anything not in your house. There is therefore no barrier to the government demanding the bulk disclosure of: patient records from doctors, purchase records from credit card companies, banks or other businesses, or school records from universities. This data could then be placed into a massive database and “mined” in order to uncover patterns and connections in a futile attempt to flush out the “bad guys.” Today the bad guys are the terrorists, the drug dealers or organized crime (ironically all entities created as a result of government interference). Perhaps tomorrow the enemies will be anyone who dissents from the approved public opinion of his or her masters, that is, The State. Someday soon the world’s mightiest super computers will employ predictive algorithms upon this ocean of data as they attempt to predict undesirable future behavior. Department of Pre-Crime at your service.

Perhaps the above sounds a bit far-fetched, but remember, there is nothing in the arguments currently employed to justify mass collection of data that would preclude these alternative forms of data collection. Just ten years ago the currently revealed mass collection of data would have seemed far-fetched. Just imagine what they can do ten years from now.

In this brave new world that is fast approaching our freedom will be instantly curtailed at the pleasure of any investigatory bureaucrat who doesn’t quite like our answers as they relate to our algorithmically questionable activities. If you become ensnared in this trap then you’d better hope you have an alibi. Innocent until proven guilty will soon be replaced by harassed until proven innocent.

In the dark

As a small business owner I have had the unique misfortune of being exposed to a wide array of state-imposed roadblocks. Whereas the individual may only be disturbed by the occasional run in with their tax bill or prohibition against engaging in activities frowned upon by our wise overlords, a business is daily confronted by a multitude of meddlesome intrusions (and I am not speaking of regulation of efficacy or safety, such standards would still exist in an insurance driven, rather than regulation driven, free market framework).

For example, my company manufacturers chemical products used to maintain aquariums (i.e. to keep fish, plants and corals alive and healthy). A good portion of our products is classified by various state agriculture agencies as either feeds or fertilizers (because they help living organisms grow). Such products are subject to the same agriculture rules and regulations intended for the products aiding in the production of food or large animal husbandry. These rules not only specify a set of taxes (fees) you must pay just for the mere privilege of selling such products within a particular state (50 States, 50 different fees per every product, every year) they also specify the manner in which you may artistically design labeling, the verbiage you’re permitted to use and the manner in which you can market said products. If an ingredient is not on a particular state’s “approved” list then that means you can’t say anything about it on the label – even if it confers a competitive advantage. Therefore the product must get “dumbed down” to meet the most obtuse standards, as printing 50 variations of the same label is not economically viable (for smaller businesses). In some states a lone bureaucrat can unilaterally block the sale of a product to an entire state if they perceive said product does not provide value to the consumer – all on their own personal whim and without any appeal recourse. By way of example I actually had such a bureaucrat in Wisconsin tell me that aquatic plants in Wisconsin don’t need iron to grow (therefore justifying the blocking of sale of our iron supplement). Curious. I know legislatures can enact laws, but I didn’t know they could repeal laws of nature as well.

Now, and here’s the rub for those of you that might think even these onerous regulations ensure efficacy – no state agency actually cares whether a product does what it says. That’s right. All they care about is collecting their fee and that your description of your product conform to their narrow definition of a “proper” feed or fertilizer. Innovation and change? Sorry, not permitted. This is an unfortunate legacy of the fascist depression era agriculture policies that continue to interfere in commerce to this day. All these bureaucrats care about is what you SAY is in the product – and that you pay your fees every year. Of course before you can SAY anything about your own product you must humbly bow down before your overlords and request as meekly as possible that if they have the time could they perhaps deign to review your label so as to ensure it meets their standards for banality and mediocrity, thus ensuring its admission into the Great State of <insert state name here>.

So, if you have ever pondered why so many competing products all say and do the exact same thing, it’s more than likely because of regulations. When government sets the standards, nobody is permitted to step outside of the 3×5 card of approved product parameters. Everyone is forced sell to the same level of mediocrity stipulated by ignorant bureaucrats. Unless, of course, you are a mega huge business that helped to enact these regulations, in which case you can easily afford the hundreds of thousands of dollars to get your ingredient approved or the millions of dollars to buy political favor if you can’t. Unfortunately small time competitors can’t afford such hurdles even if their product is better. Regulation imposes costs only on those businesses that can already afford it. It ensures the consumer remains in the dark about what they’re missing from smaller competitors who are marginalized by lowest common denominator minded regulation. I know, because I make the innovative products you’re not permitted to know exist.

Think Different, Think Free

It is a peculiar characteristic of US anti-trust law (Sherman Anti-Trust Act) that competition itself can be characterized as “anti-competitive”. The recent e-book price-fixing case against Apple (in which Apple was ruled against on July 10) is a prime example. The case is rather “weedy” so I will provide a pared down synopsis, however for those interested in the details please see this article for an excellent summary. Prior to Apple’s entry into the e-book market in 2010, Amazon was in a monopsony position in the wholesale e-book market and a monopoly position in the retail e-book market. No, I did not misspell “monopoly” – monopsony is a situation where a market has just one buyer (as opposed to just one seller with monopolies). In this case Amazon was the only (over 90% market share) buyer of e-books from the “Big 6” publishing houses. As such it was in a position where it could dictate the terms of sale to the publishers. Amazon sold every e-book for $9.99 and often lost money on these sales. The publishing houses were not happy with this situation as they felt Amazon’s low prices tended to devalue hardcopy books in the consumer’s mind and thereby potentially weaken their sales position further in retail book outlets (as people balked at paying high prices for print copies when e-books could be had for so much less).

In comes Apple to save the day. It’s a win-win situation for Apple and the publishing houses. Apple wants to chip away at Amazon’s dominance in the e-book market and the publishers want to have an alternate buyer for their e-book wares. So the upshot of all this? E-book prices went up, Amazon made more money (due to not losing money anymore), the publishers made less money (due to decreased sales resulting from higher prices) and Apple got a foothold into the e-book market. Unfortunately the judge ruled against Apple, citing that “depriv[ing] a monopolist of some of its market power is [not] pro-competitive” merely because some e-book prices rose after the fact. In other words, for competition to be permissible in this country it must fall into a narrow and arbitrarily subjective standard of behavior. If you enter a market and cause prices to rise too much then you are a monopolist. If you enter a market and causes prices to fall too much then you are a ‘predator’. And finally, if you enter a market and charge the same price as everyone else, then you are a cartelist.

The irony is that government should be the one prosecuting supposed anti-competitive behavior when it is government itself that is the sole source of monopolies and anti-competitive behavior. For example, this country still engages in New Deal era agricultural price controls intended to prop up prices by limiting production. Tariffs, subsidies, grants, regulations, certificates of need, insurance commissions, utility boards, public schools – all are either outright government granted monopolies or are examples of policies that have the direct effect of limiting market entrance or production and thus raising prices and stifling competition.

All “anti-trust” legislation should be abolished. Such legislation is akin to anti-witch legislation; a pointless attempt to prevent something that cannot nor did exist prior to enactment in 1890, myths of “Robber Baron” monopolies notwithstanding. Trusts, cartels, and monopolies – such things cannot exist in a free market for any appreciable length of time as long as competition is not short-circuited by arbitrary government edicts. To the extent a monopoly could exist in a free market it would be a testament to the degree to which such an entity is satisfying the preferences and demands of its consumers.

The government has spent millions of dollars prosecuting Apple over its behavior in a market for a luxury good that did not even exist 5 years ago. Perhaps it never occurred to anyone that if e-book prices were too high then people would simply stop buying them? Ultimately it is the consumer, exercising control over the purse, that dictates what will and will not succeed in the market. Government “anti-trust” witch hunts do nothing but harm the consumer by scaring off potential competitors who fear censure for not competing in precisely the manner prescribed by our wise overlords.

Invalid Means yield illegitimate Ends

Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. This sentiment pretty much sums up the state of affairs in Georgia with respect to DUI evidence collection. If a driver is pulled over in Georgia and is suspected of being inebriated, then the law requires that the officer ask if they will submit to a BAC (blood alcohol content) test. The law also permits the driver to refuse, however under Georgia’s “implied consent” laws (one’s tacit agreement with the state in order to acquire a driver’s license) any driver who refuses will have their driving license revoked for not less than 1 year. However, just as in an M. Night Shyamalan movie, there is a twist. Since 2006, if you refuse the test, the police can then get a search warrant and forcibly extract your blood. This is done in rather Guantanamo-esque style  in Gwinnet county (see video) where at least five burly officers forcibly hold the suspect down while being tightly strapped to a gurney. This dehumanizing treatment is visited upon both the resistant and compliant alike.

Now don’t get me wrong, those that drive under the influence of anything (alcohol, drugs, texting, etc) are among the vilest sort of individuals. They put their own selfish pursuits above the safety of others as they recklessly navigate our roadways. Removing such drivers from the roads should be one of the paramount goals of the police. I see no issue with sobriety stops per se. Were the roads not monopolistically owned by the government it would be equally incumbent upon private road owners to purge their roadways of such drivers (dangerous roads are bad for business). So while I object to the government owning roads (as there is no justification for state sanctioned monopolies in any industry) I also recognize the reality today is that they do own them. Therefore, as owners, they have an obligation to keep them safe. Sobriety checkpoints are a valid tool to achieve that goal. The only problem with such checkpoints from a civil liberties standpoint is when they are used as a pretext to engage in warrantless searches and seizures that have nothing whatsoever to do with driving safety.

If the goal is to remove impaired drivers from the road before they can cause harm, then this is clearly achieved via license loss. Forcing a BAC test is superfluous if license loss has already occurred. In fact, making the penalty for refusal equal to the penalty for a positive test would more efficiently achieve the desired goal. It would both provide an even greater incentive to not drive drunk while removing from the roadways those that do so anyways. If an accident has occurred and a presumably drunk driver kills someone, then that driver is not going to go free even if they refuse a BAC test; they will be prosecuted based on their actions. Absent any mitigating circumstances (like proof of being drug/alcohol free) they will incur the maximum penalty. A refusal harms no one but the accused.

The 5th amendment guarantees the right of each person not to “be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” Obtaining a warrant to invade someone’s body makes a mockery of the intent of this amendment.  If this is not compelling someone, then I don’t know what is. If some day there is technology that can read memories shall the police be permitted to obtain warrants against all suspects and witnesses and then forcibly extract whatever information they deem might be relevant? The truth is important. Justice is important. But results are what matter. The goal should be to achieve the desired result without violating human rights and dignity. So yes, the ends do matter, but the means of achieving those ends matter even more. America, Georgia, is selling its soul for the illusion of justice and safety.