It’s Free Market Day in Washington DC!

My flight was canceled due to the DC snowstorm and there were no government buses or trains to take me home from the airport.  Stranded, I was left at the mercy of a taxi industry operating in a (brace yourself) free and open market system. On any other day, cabs are price controlled by the government through a meter system that makes drivers very little money. It is illegal for them to charge more or less for a ride, even if the services and quality of the ride are superior than others. But today, King Mayor Fenty graciously allowed taxi drivers to charge a higher market price to encourage cabbies to drive out in the snow.

(Let me take a paragraph here for obligatory grovelling: Oh, thank you, your Majesty. Your Graciousness, Your Holiness. Thank you for allowing your subjects to engage in voluntary exchanges without the fear of fine or imprisonment)

Anyway, I hail a cab and he says it’s gonna cost me $45 to get home. (It’s usually about $15). On top of that, I have to share the cab with two other folks who also have to pay another $45.

I happily take the offer.

Now, why wasn’t I outraged? Why didn’t I rampage against this taxi driver’s clear use of extortion through price gouging?

Demand. That’s why. Without this incentive to make some extra money by risking his car in the snow, that taxi driver would have stayed home for the day with his family. I was grateful that he could charge me whatever he wanted. Without the open market,  no one would have any reason to drive anyone anywhere on a day like this.

Of course, next week the taxi drivers will be back on the meter system. We’ll return to a system controlled by an elected planning board, one that offers no incentive to upgrade the product or offer better services. It’s a shame.

Furthermore, if you ever want to make friends with a cabbie in DC, ask him about the new meter system, and sympathize with him when he tells you it’s ruining his ability to make a living. It’s amazing how easy it is to make economic libertarians out of people when it’s  labor and services they’re after.

Cop Pulls Out Gun at Snowball Fight

Around 2.30PM on Saturday, December 19, during a historic snowstorm, residents at the intersection of 14th and U Streets NW started throwing snowballs at passing Hummers.

One of the cars pelted was driven by a plainclothes police officer identified only as Det. Baylor. Baylor got out of his car and brandished his gun at the crowd.

Reason.tv’s Dan Hayes was on the scene, capturing the tense confrontation between police and citizens who chanted “Don’t bring a gun to a snowball fight!”

Approximately 5 minutes; harsh language throughout.

Quote of the Day

“All politics is, is  a constant campaign to scare the heck out of people and politicians to offer themselves as the great defender of those fears.”

-Jerry Taylor

Nice Try, But No

In the aftermath of a city council election  in North Carolina, the loser is challenging the legitimacy of the elected officer over a matter of religion. Citing a clause in the North Carolina State Constitution that bars anyone from holding office in the state who “den[ies] the being of Almighty God,” the loser says his opponent, who considers himself “post-theist,” should not be granted the seat.

As as I said in the title of this post, nice try, but no. An outsider to U.S. politics might wonder how a clause like that has remained in a state Constitution for more than 100 years. Well, it’s simply a product of federalism and the way our court system works. A state can attempt just about anything and it will stay on the books until it is individually challenged. Typically, matters that involve severe injustices are removed quickly. But others somehow hold on, and can wait decades to be challenged.

It’s a blatantly unconstitutional provision, and now that it has been brought to light, it will be removed. As Ed Morrissey points out, “the Supreme Court has already overturned Maryland’s constitutional bar for public office on religious affiliation in 1961 andNorth Carolina will lose this one, too.”

So thank you, political opponent. You’ve finally brought the North Carolina State Constitution into the post-Enlightenment 19th century. I applaud you.

Pearl Harbor

It has been 68 years to this day that U.S. forces were attacked at Pearl Harbor. Two years ago I had the opportunity to interview a few survivors for a feature in the Palm Beach Post.  Read their story after the photo.

With his swimming trunks packed for a leisurely Sunday at the pool, 19-year-old Seaman 1st Class William Benny was finishing his breakfast when the first Japanese bomb fell from the sky.

“The first thing we heard was a loud explosion and everybody ran to the casement to look out to see where the explosion hit,” said Benny, who served on the USS Nevada.

Benny and another Port St. Lucie veteran, Roy Miller, vividly remember Dec. 7, 1941, the “date which will live in infamy,” 66 years after the planes flew over their heads and bombs landed on the nation’s ships at Pearl Harbor.

As Benny climbed a ladder to man his station, a bomb struck the ship, blasting shrapnel straight at him.

“I got hit with something and fell to the deck,” said Benny, 85. “But I got back up.”

That “something” turned out to be six pieces of shrapnel that lodged in his body.

In the end, six bombs struck the ship before it came to a rest in the shallow water. Fifty of Benny’s shipmates on the USS Nevada were killed that morning.

“When I came down, they had the dead lined up on the deck by then,” he said.

“I’d never seen a dead person in my life, not even a funeral, so it was very devastating.”

Benny wasn’t the only one taking the morning off.

Across the water, another sailor was just taking off his shirt for some sunbathing on the deck of the USS St. Louis, when the first wave of Japanese planes roared into the harbor.

Seaman Gunner Mate 1st Class Roy Miller threw his clothes back on, took one last look at the incoming attack and manned his battle station below deck, where he could not see what occurred above.

He worked the entire day alone, loading ammunition into the ship’s blazing guns.

“I did the work of three guys,” said Miller, 87.

Benny and Miller are two of nearly 4,800 survivors in the United States, according to the Pearl Harbor Survivor Association.

How Minorities Are Targeted in Drug Enforcement

Racial minorities account for a majority of the population who are convicted of drug related crimes, but make up  no where near the majority of users. This is due to a variety of reasons, but one that I have found interesting is because most drug enforcement is done in public spaces, where minority drug peddlers do much of their business. In contrast, whites typically conduct drug transactions in closed-door private spaces. At the height of the crack scare in the late 1980s for example, blacks comprised 12 percent of the population, but 42 percent of drug arrests involved blacks. Before you jump to the conclusion that this is because “whites don’t do as many drugs,” keep in mind that whites make up 70 percent of drug users in the United States.

One study in Seattle revealed that despite the fact that drug enforcement officers retrieve far more illicit substances when focusing on drug transactions captured by a private property search warrant, drug officers  insist on focusing their efforts on open air drug markets.

To wit:

During the period under investigation, buy-bust operations, which targeted ‘street dealers,’ yielded an average of .1 gram of narcotics and 33 cents in funds seized per officer-hour spent conducting the operation. By contrast, search-warrant arrests, which by definition occur indoors, yielded an average of 52 grams of illegal drugs and $749 per officer.

Despite this, resources are still heavily devoted to busting the outdoor transactions, which leads to more minority arrests, but less yield. This leaves it very hard to say with any honesty that racial disparity is just an “unfortunate byproduct” of the drug war.

A Major Gap

Get this:

Ninety-nine percent of children who are Black, who live in a single parent household, and who live with a head of household who has less than 12 years of education have experienced poverty, compared with only 15% of children who are White, who live in two-parent households, and who live with a head of household who has completed at least 12 years of education.

-Karen Seccombe, Families in Poverty in the 1990s,: Trends, Causes, Consequences and Lessons Learned

Seecombe’s description applies to a majority of black children in urban areas in the United States. As a policymaker, this is where you are starting from when crafting laws. This is a harsh reality, but a reality nonetheless, and must be taken into account  The gap cannot be ignored, and must be factored in when framing policy discussions.

Blogging the Masters Thesis

I began work on my masters thesis this year, and have decided that one of the best ways for me to retain some of the information is to blog it periodically. I will use this space to share bits of information that I find fascinating, and my analysis of it.

To be submitted to The Johns Hopkins University in two years time, I am writing my thesis on three government institutions that I contend perpetuate cyclical poverty rates in the United States. In brief, the government institutions in dire need of reform are:

1. Public Education – The American system utilizes a monopoly-based approach to public education, one financed by local taxes and held back by bureaucracies that regularly block access to competition. It has created a nationwide system in which children growing up in poor areas have little, if no access to quality education facilities. For many, private education is out of reach because of cost restrictions. So, the child who is born into poverty has a higher probability to grow up at a constant remedial education level.

2. Drug Policy - Once the child is grown, he is not only at greater risk to use harmful drugs, but at even greater risk of imprisonment for drug use than wealthier counterparts. The drug system in place today imposes a measurably increased burden on the poor and minorities. Criminal convictions make it very hard for citizens to re-enter society, which leads to more years of poverty. Reforming our drug laws so that treat drug abuse as a social and health problem instead of a criminal one will keep many at-risk citizens out of prison, and offer a better chance for success in life.

3. An Outdated Social Security Entitlement System – The retirement-age safety net in place, which was implemented in the mid-20th century, is unsustainable in the  21st century. With the growing rate of Americans who live to be over the age of 65, without reform, this system will consume the federal budget on a massive scale. It’s sustainability notwithstanding, it does not offer citizens the opportunity to save and pass down wealth as one based on private accounts would. Americans who work low-wage jobs have nothing monetary to offer to new generations, who must start life on their own, instead of building on the shoulders of their relatives. The system should be reformed to give elderly poor Americans more control over the money they do have, and more ability to pass it to their children.

Combined, these three government institutions, which were meant to alleviate poverty, have done little to do so. Over the next two years, I will explain how they can be reformed to not only “do no harm,” but to give poor citizens more opportunities to capture the American dream. The government should not be in the business of building roadblocks to that dream; instead it should allow for institutions to be put in place to guide more Americans along its path.

The Best Route to Liberalism

“I’m a libertarian because I’m a liberal.  In other words, I support small-government, free-market policies because I believe they provide the institutional framework best suited to advancing the liberal values of individual autonomy, tolerance, and open-mindedness. Liberalism is my bottom line; libertarianism is a means to promoting that end.” -Brink Lindsey

I’ve been contemplating this sentiment for some time now, and just stumbled across Lindsey’s words today. That about sums it up.

Close Enough

Happy Thanksgiving.