Category: Public Choice

For Nov. 5 Vote Diamond Ponders Deregulation of Entrepreneurs, Survival of Israel, Defense of Freedom of Speech

Art Diamond on 9/26/24 with red Nebraska sign.

I requested a red Nebraska sign that was delivered yesterday. Our Omaha district is sometimes called “the blue dot” because it sometimes votes against the rest of red Nebraska. To decide what to do on Nov. 5, I mostly ask three questions. Who will most reduce regulations so that entrepreneurs can create the goods and services that allow us to flourish? Who will stand firm for the survival of the freedom sanctuary that is Israel? And especially, who will stand firm for the nonpoliticized rule of law and for freedom of speech?

Patient-Reported Health Information Deserves Respect

Patients may have more accurate knowledge of their health than the information found in doctors’ blood tests, as reported in the study summarized below. The credibility of patient self-knowledge provides an added reason, besides respect for freedom, why government should not mandate an individual’s food and drug decisions.

(p. D4) . . . a . . . study . . . suggests that how patients say they feel may be a better predictor of health than objective measures like a blood test. The study, published in Psychoneuroendocrinology, used data from 1,500 people who took part in the Texas City Stress and Health Study, which tracked the stress and health levels of people living near Houston.

. . .

The study found that when people said they felt poorly, they had high virus and inflammation levels. People who reported feeling well had low virus and inflammation levels.

“I think the take-home message is that self-reported health matters,” said Christopher P. Fagundes, an assistant psychology professor at Rice University and a co-author of the study. “Physicians should pay close to attention to their patients. There are likely biological mechanisms underlying why they feel their health is poor.”

For the full story see:

Tara Parker-Pope. “Doctors, Listen to Patients.” The New York Times (Tuesday, July 19, 2016 [sic]): D4.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date July 15, 2016 [sic], and has the title “Doctors Should Listen to Patient Instincts.”)

The academic paper co-authored by Fagundes and mentioned above is:

Murdock, Kyle W., Christopher P. Fagundes, M. Kristen Peek, Vansh Vohra, and Raymond P. Stowe. “The Effect of Self-Reported Health on Latent Herpesvirus Reactivation and Inflammation in an Ethnically Diverse Sample.” Psychoneuroendocrinology 72 (Oct. 2016): 113-18.

So-Called “Progressives” Block Progress Toward School Choice

(p. A15) I was wrong to think that Democrats would support school choice to help their constituents out of poverty. Although polling consistently shows that a majority of minority parents want school choice, progressive politicians consistently oppose all such programs.

To understand why, consider who’s funding their campaigns: teachers unions. For unions, choice means competition, and urban public schools with low proficiency ratings can’t compete. Unions know the only way to keep their political power is to keep children trapped in failing schools. Give parents access to other educational options, and they’ll ditch the schools that take them for granted.

. . .

I have discussed school choice with Mr. Trump, and I’m encouraged by what he said. I’m likewise impressed by his actions to advance the cause in real time—namely, by endorsing several of the pro-school choice Republicans in Texas’s legislative primaries. If Mr. Trump uses his bully pulpit to build support for school choice across the country, as he did in Texas, I believe he’ll help improve the lives of many generations of Americans.

I’ve never given financial support to Mr. Trump’s campaign, and I don’t plan to. But on the issue I care about most deeply, the stakes are high.  . . .  . . . the choice is clear.

For the full commentary see:

Jeff Yass. “Trump Is Best for School Choice, Even if I Won’t Donate to Him.” The Wall Street Journal (Tuesday, April 9, 2024): A15.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date April 8, 2024, and has the title “Trump Is Best for School Choice, Even if I Won’t Donate to His Campaign.”)

Conservatives Are Better Than Liberals at “the Separation of Facts from Feelings”

(p. A13) I don’t know who’s going to win the presidential election, and neither do you. Neither, for that matter, does Nate Silver, notwithstanding his reputation as a political prognosticator. He is more accurately characterized as a forecaster, which is to say that he deals in probabilities, not outright predictions.

. . .

. . . since I first encountered his work in 2009, Mr. Silver has always struck me as an honest practitioner. Although he describes himself as a “center-left liberal,” he frequently provokes antagonism from fellow liberals when his data and analysis point in directions they’d rather not go.

. . .

Mr. Silver’s career as a political pundit is something of an accident. After earning a bachelor’s degree in economics at the University of Chicago in 2000, he went to work as a KPMG consultant. Bored with his job, he started playing online poker, at first for fun. He says he “eventually deposited money at a real-money site and ran it up from 25 bucks to 15,000 bucks.” He quit KPMG and got a part-time job writing about baseball statistics, but 80% of his income came from poker winnings.

Then in 2006 Congress passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which effectively banned online poker by making it unlawful for the sites to accept payments. “That killed my livelihood,” Mr. Silver says. “I started following politics. I had more time on my hands. I also wanted to see the people behind the bill ousted from office, which they were.” Its primary sponsor, Rep. Jim Leach (R., Iowa), lost his bid for a 16th term.

Mr. Silver still plays poker semiprofessionally—in person—and has earned $855,800 in tournaments, according to the Hendon Mob database. He has a new book out next week, “On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything,” in which he interviews professional gamblers, venture capitalists, adventurers and others known for their “mastery of risk” and develops a philosophical framework around their insights.

The book touches only lightly on politics, but some of its concepts have obvious application. One of them is “decoupling,” which means, roughly, thinking with analytical detachment, including the separation of facts from feelings. Journalists used to call it objectivity, an aspiration that has fallen out of fashion in recent decades, especially in the Trump era.

A failure to decouple explains the widespread denial of Mr. Biden’s decline in the months before his withdrawal. Clear evidence became mistakable when distorted through the lenses of partisanship, ideology and antipathy toward Mr. Trump. There is no reason to believe people on the left are intrinsically more prone to this sort of error, but Mr. Silver thinks that “liberal bubbles are bigger than conservative bubbles.” Domination of big cities and influential institutions makes it easier for those on the left simply to ignore opposing views.

For the full interview see:

James Taranto. “The Weekend Interview; President Kamala Harris? What Are the Odds?” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, Aug 10, 2024): A13.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the interview has the date August 9, 2024, and has the same title as the print version.)

The “new book” by Silver mentioned above is:

Silver, Nate. On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything. New York: The Penguin Press, 2024.

Governments Often Deliver “Horrible Ideas Executed Terribly”

(p. A15) After the $320 million floating fiasco ran aground, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance tweeted: “The Gaza pier is a symbol of the Biden administration. A horrible idea executed terribly.”

. . .

Government is bad for your health. Whose idea was it to pay for gain-of-function research in Wuhan? Remember when the Food and Drug Administration delayed the rollout of Covid tests by, among other things, requiring applications on CD-ROMs? In 2020! The FDA interference, according to a Yale Law Journal 2020 Forum, was “possibly the deadliest regulatory overreach in U.S. history.”

. . .

Between the Covid-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan, the Paycheck Protection Program and the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation program, the FBI reports almost $300 billion in fraud. It was so easy, tens of thousands reportedly filed applications from jail.

. . .

Why are governments so bad at execution? Accountability and incentives. There are no prices or profits, just elusive cost benefits estimated in simple spreadsheets any first-year investment banker could fudge.

But these public-works projects are well intentioned, right? Hardly. Good luck finding all the hidden agendas, political back scratching and paid-off donors. Or, in the case of student loans, bribes to voters. Getting re-elected is how politicians measure the success of government work vs. private-sector profits.

Those profits from each private-sector project or product provide capital that pays for the next important project. In perpetuity. Profits also provide guidance to markets that fund great ideas and kill off bad ones. It’s Darwinism vs. kleptocracy. Sadly, politicians and industrial policy will always fund dumb things like electric-vehicle chargers, high-speed rail and Neom—horrible ideas executed terribly.

For the full commentary see:

Andy Kessler. “Your Government at Work.” The Wall Street Journal (Monday, June 10, 2024): A15.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date June 9, 2024, and has the same title as the print version.)

Pious Climate “Scare Tactics” Lead to Despondency and Bad Policy

(p. A15) Whatever happened to polar bears? They used to be all climate campaigners could talk about, but now they’re essentially absent from headlines. Over the past 20 years, climate activists have elevated various stories of climate catastrophe, then quietly dropped them without apology when the opposing evidence becomes overwhelming. The only constant is the scare tactics.

. . .

After years of misrepresentation, it finally became impossible to ignore the mountain of evidence showing that the global polar-bear population has increased substantially.

. . .

For the past three years the Great Barrier Reef has had more coral cover than at any point since records began in 1986, with 2024 setting a new record.

. . .

Today, killer heat waves are the new climate horror story. In July President Biden claimed “extreme heat is the No. 1 weather-related killer in the United States.”

He is wrong by a factor of 25. While extreme heat kills nearly 6,000 Americans each year, cold kills 152,000, of which 12,000 die from extreme cold. Even including deaths from moderate heat, the toll comes to less than 10,000. Despite rising temperatures, age-standardized extreme-heat deaths have actually declined in the U.S. by almost 10% a decade and globally by even more, largely because the world is growing more prosperous. That allows more people to afford air-conditioners and other technology that protects them from the heat.

. . .

Scare tactics leave everyone—especially young people—distressed and despondent. Fear leads to poor policy choices that further frustrate the public. And the ever-changing narrative of disasters erodes public trust.

Telling half-truths while piously pretending to “follow the science” benefits activists with their fundraising, generates clicks for media outlets, and helps climate-concerned politicians rally their bases. But it leaves all of us poorly informed and worse off.

For the full commentary see:

Bjorn Lomborg. “Polar Bears, Dead Coral and Other Climate Fictions.” The Wall Street Journal (Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024): A15.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date July 31, 2024, and has the same title as the print version.)

Nock Taught Buckley that Members of the “Remnant” Can Save the World

I was taught about the remnant by Ben Rogge, my mentor at Wabash College. When I find hope ebbing, I remind myself of Nock’s story, as briefly distilled by Rogge.

(p. A13) It isn’t a backhanded compliment to say that the funniest show on television this week—or any in recent memory—is “The Incomparable Mr. Buckley.” The “American Masters” production does its ostensible duty, exploring the origins, education and machinations of William F. Buckley Jr. as an architect of American conservatism. But his wit is so sharp, his ripostes so surgical, and his extemporaneous bons mots so witheringly droll that the humor, as well as anything else, explains not just his long and lasting popularity but his ability to charm the opposition.

. . .

The Buckley family story is a tale well told in this almost two-hour production, . . .

. . .

The Buckley money came from William Sr.’s oil explorations in Mexico and he established the family dynasty at Great Elm, the Connecticut estate where William Jr. and his nine siblings were not only raised but educated. It was an idyllic upbringing, influenced by the thinking of ur-libertarian Albert Jay Nock, who was a frequent guest at Great Elm and believed that “The Remnant,” a small minority of enlightened and educable individuals, would be the inheritors and saviors of society. That Buckley perceived himself as being part of that remnant was never a question. Call it perverse, but it was part of his charm.

For the full review see:

John Anderson. “TELEVISION REVIEW; William F. Buckley’s Wit and Wisdom.” The Wall Street Journal (Wednesday, April 3, 2024): A13.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the review has the date April 2, 2024, and has the title “TELEVISION REVIEW; ‘The Incomparable Mr. Buckley’ Review: Withering Wit and Wisdom.”)

Nock’s essay on the Remnant, mentioned above, has been reposted on the web:

Nock, Albert Jay. “Isaiah’s Job.” Atlantic Monthly 157, no. 6 (June 1936): 641-49.

Citizens with Criminal Records Are “Upset” at Liberals’ “Dehumanizing” Rhetoric in Calling Trump a “Convicted Felon”

(p. A16) Some Democratic leaders are eager to make former President Donald J. Trump’s new identity as a convicted criminal central to their pitch to voters on why he is unfit for office. At the same time, there has been a movement on the left for years to end the stigma of criminal records and point out grave issues in the country’s legal system.

That is why in the wake of the news last week that a New York jury had found Mr. Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, there were especially complex and personal reactions among the millions of Americans who have also been convicted of felonies.

. . .

For Dawn Harrington, who served time on Rikers Island in New York and now directs an organization called Free Hearts for families affected by incarceration in Tennessee, watching the news coverage of Mr. Trump’s criminal conviction last week was upsetting.

She heard liberals rejoice that he was now a “convicted felon,” a term she and others have tried to persuade people not to use.

Ms. Harrington said she did time for gun possession after traveling to New York with a handgun that was registered in Tennessee.

. . .

After the Trump verdict, she also heard President Biden defend the justice system as a “cornerstone of America” that has endured for “nearly 250 years” — back to a time, Ms. Harrington noted, when slavery was legal.

The rhetoric, she thought, was “quite frankly dehumanizing to the base that we organize with,” she said.

For the full story see:

Shaila Dewan. “Among People With Criminal Records, Complex Feelings About Trump.” The New York Times (Wednesday, June 5, 2024): A16.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date June 3, 2024, and has the title “People With Criminal Records React to Trump Verdict: ‘Now You Understand’.”)

Biden’s Tax and Regulation Plans Shift “Demonized” Silicon Valley Toward Trump

(p. B1) In 2021, David Sacks, a prominent venture capital investor and podcast host, said former President Donald J. Trump’s behavior around the Jan. 6 [2021] riot at the U.S. Capitol had disqualified him from being a future political candidate.

At a tech conference last week, Mr. Sacks said his view had changed.

“I have bigger disagreements with Biden than with Trump,” the investor said. Mr. Sacks said he and his podcast co-hosts were working on hosting a fund-raiser for Mr. Trump, which could include an interview for their “All In” show.  . . .

Such public support for Mr. Trump used to be taboo in Silicon Valley, which has long been seen as a liberal bastion. But frustration with Mr. Biden, Democrats and the state of the world has increasingly driven some of tech’s most prominent venture capitalists to the right.

. . .

(p. B5) Delian Asparouhov, an investor at Founders Fund, the investment firm founded by Mr. Thiel, recently marveled at how much the political winds had shifted. This month, Mr. Trump made a virtual appearance at a venture capital conference in Washington. There, he thanked attendees for “keeping your chin up” and said he looked forward to meeting them.

“Four years ago you had to issue an apology if you voted for him,” Mr. Asparouhov wrote on X.

Mr. Sacks, Mr. Palihapitiya and Founders Fund did not respond to a request for comment. Sequoia Capital declined to comment.

The comments and activity by the group of tech investors are particularly noticeable given Silicon Valley’s blue background.

. . .

The . . . “techlash” against Facebook and others caused some industry leaders to reassess their political views, a trend that continued through the social and political turmoil of the pandemic.

During that time, Democrats moved further to the left and demonized successful people who made a lot of money, further alienating some tech leaders, said Bradley Tusk, a venture capital investor and political strategist who supports Mr. Biden.

“If you keep telling someone over and over that they’re evil, they’re eventually not going to like that,” he said. “I see that in venture capital.”

That feeling has hardened under President Biden. Some investors said they were frustrated that his pick for chair of the Federal Trade Commission, Lina Khan, has aggressively moved to block acquisitions, one of the main ways venture capitalists make money. They said they were also unhappy that Mr. Biden’s pick for head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Gary Gensler, had been hostile to cryptocurrency companies.

The start-up industry has also been in a downturn since 2022, with higher interest rates sending capital fleeing from risky bets and a dismal market for initial public offerings crimping opportunities for investors to cash in on their valuable investments.

Some also said they disliked Mr. Biden’s proposal in March [2024] to raise taxes, including a 25 percent “billionaire tax” on certain holdings that could include start-up stock, as well as a higher tax rate on profits from successful investments.

Mr. Sacks said at the tech conference last week that he thought such taxes could kill the start-up industry’s system of offering stock options to founders and employees. “It’s a good reason for Silicon Valley to think really hard about who it wants to vote for,” he said.

. . .

Mr. Andreessen, a founder of Andreessen Horowitz, a prominent Silicon Valley venture firm, said in a recent podcast that “there are real issues with the Biden administration.” Under Mr. Trump, he said, the S.E.C. and F.T.C. would be headed by “very different kinds of people.” But a Trump presidency would not necessarily be a “clean win” either, he added.

Last month, Mr. Sacks, Mr. Thiel, Elon Musk and other prominent investors attended an “anti-Biden” dinner in Hollywood, where attendees discussed fund-raising and ways to oppose Democrats, a person familiar with the situation said. The dinner was earlier reported by Puck.

For the full story see:

Erin Griffith. “Silicon Valley Notables Are Shifting to the Right.” The New York Times (Friday, May 24, 2024): B1 & B5.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed years, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date May 22, 2024, and has the title “Some of Silicon Valley’s Most Prominent Investors Are Turning Against Biden.”)

Rex Murphy Saw We Are Governed by People Who Look Down on Us

(p. B12) Rex Murphy, a Canadian newspaper, radio and television commentator who delighted his country’s conservatives with sharp attacks on environmentalists, liberal politicians and what he called their “woke politics,” died on May 9 [2024] in Toronto. He was 77.

His death, from cancer, was announced on the front page of The National Post, the widely read daily newspaper for which he wrote a column, one of several he had over the years in Canadian papers, including The Globe and Mail in Toronto. His editor at The National Post, Kevin Libin, said Mr. Murphy died in a hospital.

. . .

Mr. Murphy’s sharp political turn to the right — from commenting for centrist outlets like the CBC and The Globe and Mail, where he had a regular column until 2010, to the right-wing views he espoused at The National Post — had its roots in his own working-class background, in the view of those who knew him.

. . .

He regularly took on what he deemed the sins of “woke” politics and “wokeism.” In a February 2023 column, he wrote: “I have finally fixed upon the definition of progressivism. It means the dismissal of everything that counts, unconcern with what makes life hard for most, and a scorn for the realities of day to day; instead shepherding to very particular political interest groups.”

In his final days there were diatribes against critics of Israel during its war with Hamas and against the liberalism of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

. . .

Mr. Murphy was animated, Mr. Libin said, by “the sense that we were being governed by people who looked down on us.”

. . .

Throughout his career, Mr. Murphy set great store by verbal expression. His fans and his critics agreed that his distinctive, sometimes high-flown use of English was what set him apart from his country’s other journalists. Profiles noted that he was as devoted to the works of John Milton as he was to “The Simpsons.”

For the full obituary see:

Adam Nossiter. “Rex Murphy, 77, a Pundit on the Right in Canada.” The New York Times (Friday, May 24, 2024): B12.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed year, added.)

(Note: the online version of the obituary was updated May 23, 2024, and has the title “Rex Murphy, a Dominant Pundit on the Right in Canada, Dies at 77.”)

A Libertarian Case for Trump

(p. A15) If we pull the lever for Mr. Trump in . . . swing states, we may get a slightly more libertarian president . . .

Some Libertarians find Mr. Trump unacceptable on grounds of principle. True, he is no libertarian, but Mr. Biden—the wokester, the socialist, the interventionist—is much further from us on the political-economic spectrum than Mr. Trump.

Others are put off by Mr. Trump’s obnoxious behavior. He engages in name-calling. He puts ketchup on filet mignon.

Mr. Trump grew up in Queens. I’m roughly his contemporary and come from Brooklyn. I assure you that everyone in New York City is personally unbearable (except Staten Islanders). It is a geographical-genetic disposition. Ignore it. This act of his is mostly tongue-in-cheek. New Yorkers actually have contests to see who is the most insufferable. Prizes are given out.

The Libertarian Party typically attracts 1% to 3% of the electorate. But when opinion polls ask respondents if they support low taxes, free enterprise, and an end to victimless crimes, some 20% to 25% say yes. Libertarians, loosely defined in this manner, can have an effect on the coming election.

For the full commentary, see:

Walter E. Block. “Libertarians Should Vote For Trump.” The Wall Street Journal (Wednesday, May 29, 2024): A15.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date May 28, 2024, and has the same title as the print version.)