Category: Public Choice

Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) Rallied with Poor Hispanic Entrepreneurs Who Were Shut Down by Government Regulators

(p. A21) Until last week, Corona Plaza in Queens was bustling: taqueros flipping fresh tortillas and vendors hawking Central American crafts over a soundtrack of cumbia and train traffic. There were produce stands, live bands and surging crowds, all in a public square that was named one of the 100 best places to eat in the city.

But last Thursday [Aug. 3, 2023] and Friday [Aug. 4, 2023], sanitation workers swept through the plaza, removing several stalls and threatening to penalize vendors who did not have a city permit to operate — nearly all of the more than 80 who regularly work there. In the days since, the grilled-meat stands and jugs of agua fresca have been replaced with protest signs.

It was the latest escalation in the city’s tense relationship with the plaza merchants — most of them immigrant women, many of them undocumented — who have helped revive one of the New York neighborhoods hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic.

. . .

The City Council passed a law in 2021 mandating the release of another 445 food vendor permits every year for a decade, but the rollout has been slow.

There are 10,195 food vendors on the waiting list, according to a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which manages the applications. The agency has issued just 104 of the new licenses so far, and only four of the recipients have completed all the steps needed to sell food legally.

Ms. Calle is one of the few vendors at the plaza who has a permit — but only because she rents it from a third party for $16,000 a year, a prohibited but widespread practice.

Even so, Ms. Calle decided to close her stall this week, in solidarity with her neighbors.

“I know how hard it is” for new vendors, she said in Spanish, recounting how she had been arrested four times in 23 years for various permitting violations.

While few merchants at the plaza own the hard-to-obtain permits, most of them, including Ms. Calle, pay taxes on sales, and hold a license that certifies they have taken a food safety course.

At the rally at the plaza on Wednesday [Aug. 2, 2023], the dispersed merchants were joined by elected officials including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Donovan Richards, the Queens borough president, . . .

. . .

Nearly 4,000 people, most of them locals, have signed a petition in support of the vendors.

The plaza, once an underused service road near 103rd Street and Roosevelt Avenue, was redesigned in 2012 as a public square.

When the pandemic hit the surrounding neighborhood of Corona — harder than almost anywhere else in the United States — the plaza became an economic and cultural hub for recovering workers, said Carina Kaufman-Gutierrez, the deputy director of the Street Vendor Project.

For the full story, see:

Stefanos Chen and Raúl Vilchis. “Their Food Is Hailed; They Want the Right to Sell It.” The New York Times, First Section (Sunday, August 6, 2023): A21.

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

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Aug. 5, 2023, and has the title “They Make Some of New York’s Best Food. They Want the Right to Sell It.” Where there are minor differences in wording between the print and online versions, the passages quoted above make use of the online wording.)

“Proud Symbol of Britain’s Welfare State” in “Deepest Crisis of Its History”

(p. A1) As it turns 75 this month, the N.H.S., a proud symbol of Britain’s welfare state, is in the deepest crisis of its history: flooded by aging, enfeebled patients; starved of investment in equipment and facilities; and understaffed by doctors and nurses, many of whom are so burned out that they are either (p. A6) joining strikes or leaving for jobs abroad.

Interviews over three months with doctors, nurses, patients, hospital administrators and medical analysts depict a system so profoundly troubled that some experts warn that the health service is at risk of collapse.

. . .

(p. A6) More than 7.4 million people in England are waiting for medical procedures, everything from hip replacements to cancer surgery. That is up from 4.1 million before the coronavirus pandemic began in 2020.

Mortality data, exacerbated by long wait times, paints a bleak picture. In 2022, the number of excess deaths rose to one of the highest levels in the last 50 years, and those numbers have kept rising, even as the pandemic has ebbed.

In the first quarter of 2023, more than half of excess deaths — that is, deaths above the five-year average mortality rate, before the pandemic — were caused by something other than Covid-19. Cardiovascular-related fatalities, which can be linked to delays in treatment, were up particularly sharply, according to Stuart McDonald, an expert on mortality data at LCP, a London-based pension and investment advisory firm.

For the full story, see:

Mark Landler. “After 75 Years, Health Service In U.K. Teeters.” The New York Times (Monday, July 17, 2023): A1 & A6-A7.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date July 16, 2023, and has the title “A National Treasure, Tarnished: Can Britain Fix Its Health Service?”)

Perverse Medicare Pricing Incentives Drive Hospital Consolidation Inefficiency

(p. A17) Currently, Medicare pays hospital-owned facilities two to three times as much as independent physician offices for the same service, according to the Alliance for Site Neutral Payment Reform. This creates an enormous incentive for large hospital chains to acquire outpatient practices. Consolidation creates a vicious circle in which larger hospital systems can demand ever higher rates from insurers and also have the capital to buy up physician practices. Removing this perverse incentive will ensure that patients have access to trusted doctors and appropriate care at the same price regardless of treatment location and remove artificial pressure to consolidate.

These bipartisan reforms would deliver hundreds of billions in savings for families. Site-neutral payments would save taxpayers more than $153 billion in Medicare spending over the next decade and also substantially reduce premiums and cost-sharing for Medicare beneficiaries by $94 billion, according to CRFB. In total, these changes could save patients and taxpayers between $346 billion and $672 billion over the next decade.

Large hospital systems have exploited our nation’s outdated billing systems to foist gigantic bills on Americans. Bringing much-needed transparency in hospital billing will deliver more affordable care and put patients back in control.

For the full commentary, see:

Bobby Jindal and Charlie Katebi. “Doctor’s Office Care at Hospital Prices.” The Wall Street Journal (Thursday, July 27, 2023): A17.

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date July 26, 2023, and has the same title as the print version.)

Scientists Had Political Motives for Dismissing Wuhan Lab-Based Covid Origin

(p. A17) On March 17, 2020, the journal Nature Medicine published a paper by five scientists, “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2,” that dismissed “any type of laboratory based scenario” for the origin of the pandemic. It was cited by thousands of news outlets to claim that the virus emerged naturally. But Slack messages and emails subpoenaed and released by the House Oversight Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic suggest that some of the authors didn’t believe their own conclusions. Before, during and even after the publication of their paper, they worried privately that Covid-19 was caused by a laboratory escape, perhaps even of a genetically engineered virus.

. . .

On April 16, a month after publication, Mr. Andersen wrote that “I’m still not fully convinced that no culture was involved” and “we also can’t fully rule out engineering”—i.e., that the virus not only was released from the lab but had been genetically manipulated there. He worried about the Wuhan lab’s research on live SARS-like viruses from bats at low biosafety levels: “it’s definitely concerning work, no question about it.”

So why did they publish a paper denying that laboratory origin was plausible? The answer may lie in their messages. In early February 2020, Mr. Rambaut wrote: “Given the s— show that would happen if anyone serious accused the Chinese of even accidental release, my feeling is we should say that given there is no evidence of a specifically engineered virus, we cannot possibly distinguish between natural evolution and escape so we are content to ascribing it to natural processes.”

Mr. Andersen replied: “I totally agree that that’s a very reasonable conclusion. Although I hate when politics is injected into science—but it’s impossible not to.”

. . .

To adjust the conclusions in a scientific paper for political reasons isn’t part of the scientific process. The world was misled with serious consequences.

For the full commentary, see:

Matt Ridley and Alina Chan. “The Covid Lab-Leak Deception.” The Wall Street Journal (Thursday, July 27, 2023): A17.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date July 26, 2023, and has the same title as the print version.)

Average Wages in Boom Towns Would Rise “Astounding” $8,775 If Zoning Laws Eased

(p. A13) Though some might expect areas populated by conservatives to be the most exclusionary, it is areas where highly educated liberals live that engage in the worst forms of economically exclusionary housing policy. Researchers writing in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology in 2018 found that highly educated Americans have comparatively tolerant racial attitudes but hold “negative attitudes toward the less educated.” Americans with different levels of education all have biases, they wrote, but “the targets of prejudice are different.”

Exclusionary housing practices are a linchpin in the architecture of educational inequality in America. Because 73% of American school children attend neighborhood public schools, where you live typically determines the quality of schooling. Most people who are concerned about improving education naturally focus attention on what school boards and state education officials do, but it’s at least as important to focus on what the local and state officials running housing policy are up to.

For sixty years, researchers have found that the economic segregation of students. which is driven by housing policy, shapes educational opportunity even more powerfully than per pupil spending. In Montgomery County Maryland, for example, county officials pursued two strategies for raising the achievement of low-income students. In one program, starting in 2000, the school board spent $2,000 extra per pupil in high-poverty schools. In another, begun decades earlier, the county council enacted an “inclusionary zoning” law that to this day requires builders to set aside a portion of new developments for low-income families. Over time, as Heather Schwartz of RAND found in a 2010 study, what the housing authority did for students cut the math achievement gap between low-income and middle-class students in half, while the school board’s program had much less impact.

Zoning-induced housing costs also prevent workers from moving to places where they can make the highest wages, which is typically in coastal cities. Research shows that this barrier to mobility gravely damages American economic productivity, to say nothing of the aspirations of individuals and families. A 2018 study by Edward Glaeser and Joseph Gyourko, for example, found that “restrictive residential land-use regulation” had a price tag of “at least 2% of national output,” or about $400 billion. A 2019 study by Chang-Tai Hsieh and Enrico Moretti, found that if three high-productivity cities—New York, San Jose and San Francisco—relaxed restrictions on housing supply, more workers could move to them, and average wages nationally would rise an astounding $8,775.

When people do move to higher-wage regions, exclusionary zoning laws often force them to live in the far reaches of metropolitan areas. This means longer commutes, which are associated with higher blood pressure and divorce rates, and more miles on the road, which is bad for the environment.

For the full essay, see:

Richard D. Kahlenberg. “Only Zoning Reform Can Solve America’s Housing Crisis.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, June 24, 2023): A13.

(Note: the online version of the essay has the date June 22, 2023, and has the same title as the print version. The sentences in the penultimate paragraph quoted above (mentioning 2018 and 2019 papers) appear in the online, but not in the print, version of the essay.)

The essay quoted above is adapted from the book:

Kahlenberg, Richard D. Excluded: How Snob Zoning, Nimbyism, and Class Bias Build the Walls We Don’t. New York: PublicAffairs, 2023.

The Talented, Wealthy, Ambitious, and Hardworking Vote with Their Feet Against Communist China

(p. B12) Is China reopening to the world or turning inward again?

Many would argue the latter, but in one important way, the country is still going global: Residents appear to be leaving at a faster clip than they have in years, including a significant number of the wealthy and well-educated the nation needs to keep modernizing and investing.

. . .

Rebounding emigration is also striking in the context of a declining overall birthrate, and suggests that Beijing must do far more to convince talent, both domestic and foreign, that China is a good place to put down roots if it wants to avoid a steeper growth slowdown in the years ahead.

. . .

Rising net emigration also mirrors much smaller influxes of foreign talent in recent years—another trend that threatens to slow China’s climb up the technological ladder. Foreign residents of Shanghai and Beijing numbered just 163,954 and 62,812 in 2020, according to official data, down 21% and 42%, respectively, since 2010. The pandemic is clearly a major factor. But given the well-publicized rising tensions between China and the West, slowing growth and the rising risks of detention and investigation for what used to be considered routine business by foreigners in China, a portion of that decrease seems very likely to persist.

For much of the new millennium, China has been a place where the ambitious, hardworking and lucky could often get ahead. But in today’s China—more focused on security and control, less on growth—it is no longer clear how true that really is.

Some people, at least, seem to be voting with their feet.

For the full commentary, see:

Nathaniel Taplin. “HEARD ON THE STREET; China’s Brain Drain Threatens Its Future.” The Wall Street Journal (Thursday, July 6, 2023): B12.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date July 5, 2023, and has the same title as the print version.)

Unsound Trucking Firm “Blew Through” $700 Million of Federal Covid “Bailout” Loan

(p. A4) The Treasury Department erred in giving a loan to a troubled trucking company as part of a 2020 Covid-19 rescue package and should refrain from similar sector-specific loan programs in the future, according to a new congressional report.

Yellow, a trucking company, received a $700 million loan from the Treasury Department as part of an aid program for private industries included in bipartisan legislation known as the Cares Act enacted early in the pandemic.

But Treasury had to skirt the program’s rules to make the loan, the report said. The agency designated Yellow—then known as YRC Worldwide—as critical to national security even though the company didn’t meet the standard for that designation, the report said.

. . .

In exchange for the loan, Treasury received a roughly 30% stake in the company.

. . .

At the time of the loan the company was rated noninvestment grade by Moody’s Investors Service and was at risk of bankruptcy, according to the report.

. . .

In recent months, Yellow has again suffered from the broader freight slowdown.

. . .

Teamsters President Sean O’Brien said the union is abiding by the terms of its contract with the company.

“After decades of gross mismanagement, Yellow blew through a $700 million bailout from the federal government, and now it wants workers to foot the bill,” O’Brien said in a statement.

For the full story, see:

David Harrison. “Treasury Faulted for Loan to Troubled Trucking Firm.” The Wall Street Journal (Wednesday, June 28, 2023): A4.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated June 27, 2023, and has the title “Treasury Shouldn’t Have Given Pandemic Aid to Trucking Company, Report Finds.”)

Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Seeks to Bury Merging Firms in Paperwork

(p. A13) The Federal Trade Commission is trying to make it harder for companies to merge by burying them in paperwork. The FTC’s proposed overhaul of a critical part of the U.S. merger review process would increase the average time to prepare a merger filing from 37 hours to 144. According to the agency’s calculations, that’s roughly $350 million in added costs for an estimated 7,100 filings a year, which would be a boon for lawyers but a burden for businesses.

The one-size-fits-all proposal to add dozens of hours of paperwork per deal—regardless of competitive concerns—is an overreach by the FTC and the Justice Department’s antitrust division that will disproportionately chill investments at the lower end of the reporting threshold.

For the full commentary, see:

Christopher Williams and Henry Hauser. “Antitrust Officials Pile on the Paperwork.” The Wall Street Journal (Wednesday, July 5, 2023): A13.

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date July 4, 2023, and has the same title as the print version.)

Portland Feels “Unsafe” and “There’s Trash Everywhere”

(p. A3) PORTLAND, Ore.—Mark Rogers has made a list of things he misses about Portland—its vegan restaurants, Powell’s bookstore, public transit—and the things he doesn’t—having his things stolen, stepping in human excrement, extreme politics.

The 44-year-old artist moved across the country to Fort Wayne, Ind., last year.

“I don’t want to talk trash about my home city even though there’s trash everywhere,” Rogers said.

. . .

Andrea Lamprecht, 50, a cardiac nurse, said she was chased by a homeless man while out on a jog in her Alameda neighborhood on the east side of Portland, where the median home price hovers around $1 million.

She and her husband, Derek Lamprecht, an orthopedic surgeon, had raised their children in Portland. The chasing incident contributed to the couple’s decision to move to a quiet rural area about 10 miles outside the city in 2021. “It never felt unsafe before,” said Derek Lamprecht. “The character of the city changed.”

For the full story, see:

Zusha Elinson. “Disenchanted Portland Residents Leave the City.” The Wall Street Journal (Thursday, June 29, 2023): A3.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date June 28, 2023, and has the title “Portland Is Losing Its Residents.”)

Dem Celebrities and Politicians Cultivated Crony Ties to FTX Fraudster Bankman-Fried

(p. B1) About 10 months before he was arrested on fraud charges, the cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried posed for a photograph at the 2022 Super Bowl in Inglewood, Calif.

On one side of him were Orlando Bloom and Katy Perry, the celebrity couple. On the other was the actress Kate Hudson. Standing in the center, with his arm slung over Mr. Bankman-Fried’s shoulder, was a lesser-known figure: Michael Kives.

Mr. Kives, a Hollywood agent turned investor, played an unusual role in Mr. Bankman-Fried’s business empire: super connector. He and his business partner, Bryan Baum, helped the young founder cultivate relationships with Mr. Bloom, Ms. Perry and former President Bill Clinton, and offered introductions to a who’s who of celebrities and business leaders, from Leonardo DiCaprio to the governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.

The relationship was mutually beneficial. Mr. Bankman-Fried invested $700 million in Mr. Kives’s venture-capital firm, court records show, an extraordinary level of support for a fund with a short track record of start-up investments. Mr. Kives, the founder and face of the firm, and Mr. Baum each received $125 million as part of the deal.

For the full story, see:

David Yaffe-Bellany and Erin Griffith. “The Celebrity Super Connector Who Brought Big Names to FTX.” The New York Times (Saturday, June 24, 2023): B1 & B4.

(Note: the online version of the story has the date June 23, 2023, and has the title “The Super Connector Who Built Sam Bankman-Fried’s Celebrity World.”)

Feds Release Covid Origin Report on a Friday Evening–A Time to “Put Out News They Want Buried or Ignored”

(p. A12) The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a long-awaited declassified report, which included spy agencies’ findings on the so-called lab leak theory, . . .

The 10-page report said scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology did conduct research on coronaviruses, in some cases had inadequate safety measures and had genetically engineered coronaviruses.

. . .

After three years of study, some senior U.S. officials have said that the spy agencies are unlikely to come to any satisfactory conclusion, in large measure because China has not cooperated with international inquiries and some officials in Beijing are not interested in digging deeper into the cause of the pandemic.

. . .

The report was released on a Friday evening, traditionally a time when administrations put out news they want buried or ignored. Conservatives had criticized the government for failing to meet a deadline of the beginning of the week, though few congressionally mandated reports are delivered precisely on time.

While Biden administration officials have said they have ordered investigations without favoring one theory over another, Republicans have harshly criticized how the White House and its intelligence agencies have investigated Covid’s origins.

“The lab leak is the only theory supported by science, intelligence and common sense,” John Ratcliffe, who served as the director of national intelligence in the Trump administration, said as the report was released Friday [June 23, 2023], adding: “The Biden administration’s continued obfuscation of Covid origins is a disservice to the intelligence community.”

For the full story, see:

Julian E. Barnes. “Intelligence Agencies Remain Divided Over Theory That Covid Came From Lab.” The New York Times (Saturday, June 24, 2023): A11.

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

(Note: the online version of the story has the date June 23, 2023, and has the title “U.S. Intelligence Report Finds No Clear Evidence of Covid Origins in Wuhan Lab.”)