The Liberal Order

A Johnston County teen brings a gun to school . . . so what's next?

Here are a few reasons why someone may have a gun on campus:

1. They intentionally want to murder innocent students, teachers, and staff
2. They want to protect themself from an immediate threat, which then threatens innocent bystanders
3. They forgot to keep it at home after a weekend of hunting

The problem is that ex-ante we cannot know the intent or the reason why the person bringing the gun to school did so, therefore make possessing a gun on school property a per se violation punishable by expulsion or at least a long suspension. If we cannot know the intent of the gun toter before any shots are fired, then punish a gun toter for the simple act of brining a gun to school.

Now, in the case of David Cole Withrow of Johnston County, North Carolina, he realized that he had accidently brought the gun to school with him after a weekend of hunting and immediately went to school officials to inform them of his mistake and to ask their permission to take it home.

Mr. Withrow appears to be a clean-cut kid, and Johnston County is certainly known for hunting, with all those Jim-Bobs and Skeeters living in the woods over yonder, so having a hunting rifle in your vehicle is not out of the oridinary. Maybe reason should have prevailed and the school official grant him permission to take the gun home, with a warning that the next time will be treated as a violation of the gun policy. But no, school officials immediately called the police, Withrow was suspended, and he is currently being told that he will not graduate with his classmates.

If you want kids who accidentally bring guns to school to never reveal their error, and in fact to possibly compound the problem by hiding the gun on their person or in an unsecured place where someone with evil intent can get to it, proceed to harshly punish Mr. Withrow and make sure that reason will never prevail when a bright and otherwise cooperative student attempts to rectify a mistake.

Oh, whatever happened to the good ol' days.

The Whitey Award

I didn't even know there was a "Whitey Award," but if you have to give one, nine middle class golf management majors probably deserve it. 

Best Week Ever
Get More: Best Week Ever, Best Week Ever

 

Proving Governor Pat McCrory Right.

North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory voiced concern publicly about the classes taught in today's colleges and universities, arguing that the state should not pay for students who take courses that provide no social value. Basically he was criticizing public colleges and universities that teach, among other things, gender or race specific courses.

From Sunday's Raleigh News & Observer comes this letter to the editor from Joseph Harris:

Perhaps Gov. Pat McCrory is concerned that if UNC women take classes in gender studies they might start asking why they are paid less, on average, for their work than men?

And that proves McCrory's point. It certainly may be that by "tak[ing] classes in gender studies [women] might start asking why they are paid less, on average, for their work than men," but if they instead take a good course in economics they'll do more than ask why; instead, through reason and logic they'll learn why. 

For manufacturing employment, the future is now.

As former Washington Redskins coach George Allen used to say, "The future is now." For employment in manufacturing, the days of pushing a button and watching a machine process or snapping two things together are largely over. Today's workers require a different skill set.

They are also pushing hard to redefine manufacturing as a thinking-person’s career. State officials have given up on saving the traditional blue-collar jobs that had sustained local communities in earlier generations.

“The reality is North Carolina and the United States will never be able to compete for these jobs,” said Lew Ebert, CEO of the N.C. Chamber, the state’s business lobby. “What you want is an economy of knowledge workers.”

Much of the menial work has gone overseas to be performed by low-wage floor crews. Other types of manufacturing jobs have been wiped out by automation, robotics and technological efficiencies.

The jobs North Carolina economic planners want to keep are computerized and sophisticated, in such areas as pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, components and a plethora of specialty products. There is no giant manufacturing industry to dominate the field as textiles, furniture and tobacco once did in their golden age.

Sadly, though, is this.

Siemens employs 1,550 at its turbine and generator factory in Charlotte, nearly half of them blue-collar manufacturing jobs, often straight out of high school. They operate lathes, boring mills and other complex equipment and are paid between $10-an-hour and $25-an-hour.

These employees are put through a battery of training courses that Siemens calls “mechatronics,” a program leading to a 2-year associate’s degree.

Getting one of these jobs requires passing a screening exam in literacy, math, mechanical aptitude and other basic skills. Only 10 percent of applicants have an adequate high school preparation to pass the Siemens exam, said Mark Pringle, director of operations for Siemens Energy in Charlotte.

“They’re just not training these skills in high school,” Pringle said.

A Woman vs. Her HOA

It's easy to read a story like this and jump to the conclusion that another overzealous HOA is abusing its power and legal authority. Unfortunately, too many HOA leaders meet Hayek's theory of why the worst get on top and are run by overzealous tyrants with a penchant for control. Still, as we learn in both Public Choice and Law & Economics, rules are necessary to restrain certain behavior to promote more efficient outcomes.

Gloria Daniel received a city permit to build the two-story staircase at the back of her Karlbrook Lane home in the Stowecroft neighborhood off Buffaloe Road. But she didn't follow the subdivision's covenants, which required her to get approval from the HOA first.

The Stowecroft Owners Association Inc. sent Daniel letter after letter telling her to tear the staircase down. She refused, saying she spent thousands of dollars on it.

"They say they're going to fine me $100 every day, and if I don't pay, they're going to foreclose on my home," she said recently. "When they say 'foreclosure,' I was so sad. These people are going to foreclose on my home just for building some steps."

Even though the city governmet where she lived approved her design, it does not subvert the authority of the HOA to limit what Ms. Daniel does to her home. Prior to buying and moving into her home, Ms. Daniel voluntarily agreed to restict her behavior (i.e., she won't paint the home pink and kelly green, nor will she put appliances in her yard or cars on blocks in the driveway, and she won't alter the outside of her home or yard without approval from the homeowner's association) in consideration of her neighbors agreeing to restrict their behavior by not doing the same. In doing so, the neighborhood maintains higher property values.

But now when it comes time to build what Ms. Daniel wants, she cannot just ignore the agreement that she and all other homeowners signed. The other neighbors supposedly maintained the agreement that they signed, now Ms. Daniel must do the same.

In addition, although HOAs sometime act like formal governments in that they collect association dues, establish rules and enforce them, they are not formal governments. One important difference is that an HOA cannot selectively enforce its rules like a formal government can.  (Notice that cops don't have to pull over everyone who is speeding in order to issue you a speeding ticket.) Years ago all the neighbors in my cul-de-sac purchased the exact same model storm door for our front doors. All of our doors matched and the colors of our storm doors matched the color of our existing doors. Nevertheless, we all received citations telling us that we had to go through the formal approval process or remove the doors.

I found this insulting and stupid, but was informed by a nearby neighbor on the Architectural Review Board that if they ignore the changes that we made to our doors, they have to ignore changes made by other people to their doors, changes that may not maintain the relatively same appearance to our existing doors that our storm doors did. (I did subsequently convince the ARB to establish guidelines that restrict the style and color of a storm door, but that allows homeowners to install a storm door without having to go through the formal review process.)

So later in life, after you purchase your first home and recieve a letter by your HOA telling you that your structure does not comply with their rules, remember that a) you can always buy a home outside of an HOA (though fewer and fewer are being built outside HOAs), and b) your HOA agreement is like an ex-ante constitution to which you voluntarily agreed to abide. It's a failure on your part if you ignore what you agreed to do and not do, not the failure on the part of the HOA.  

Our Education Woes

Craig Newmark links to this study that shows a large increase in the number of teachers and administrators hired relative to the growth in the number of elementary and secondary school students. Talk that we must throw more money at education is shortsighted and will simply compound the problem. 

Here is a previous post of mine from June, 2011 that provides some data I looked at for North Carolina schools from 1998 to 2008.

After controlling for inflation, per pupil spending on public schooling in this state increased more than 125% since 1980. We have nothing to show for it. Between 1998 and 2008, the number of teachers, administrators and professional support staff (i.e., psychologists and consultants) per pupil increased by more than ten, eleven and twelve percent, respectively. Schools have become bloated and cutting their budgets seems reasonable.

One more fallacy to remember as prices rise for some goods in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

Don Boudreaux writes a nice letter to the Washington Post, questioning why the media encourages speculation before Hurricane Sandy's arrival in the U.S., but then denigrates it at other times. 

In the aftermath of what is turning out to be a very devastating hurricane, we will soon hear people denigrating businesses that raise the prices of their goods and services that suddenly are more scarce as a result of the hurricane. We will hear terms like "price gougers" and "profiteers" and "greedy capitalists."

Here is what I said in an op-ed in the News & Observer on September 24, 2008, after Hurricane Ike caused a disruption in the supply of gasoline to North Carolina, driving the price of gasoline higher. (For some reason, the N&O did not publish this online.)

Prices convey important information about scarcity. They direct scarce resources from where and when they are desired least to where and when they are desired most. The higher price of gas related to Hurricane Ike informed us to stop making frivolous trips and to find other ways of conserving gas when we have a lot, so that we would have more next week when supplies were expected to be less. Prices also informed outsiders that if they satisfied our greed by reducing their consumption of gasoline and shipped some to us, we'd satisfy their greed by compensating them more for each gallon.

Market conditions change as a result of some event, often weather related, which caused prices of goods and services to increase becasue they are now suddenly more scarce than they were prior to the event that caused the change. As consumers, we deride these greedy business owners for taking advantage of the changing market conditions. (Well, I don't.)

But what's the difference between business owners raising their prices due to a change in market conditions (typically weather related) and buying something on sale because it's no longer in season? Market conditions changed (summer is over, driving sales down of shorts and short-sleeved shirts and the like) and I got to gouge the store that consequently marked down their prices.  

The Poverty of State Collectivism - Government School Edition

In a market capitalist system properly conceived, in order to make me better off I have to make you better off relative to what anyone else is offering you with similar resources. Competition forces me to continually improve on quality at any given price, which also means discovering ways of producing the same quality at reduced cost, and therefore reduced price. Failing to do so, I go out of business and people quit dealing with me.

Why does this seem so foreign to government school bureaucrats and those with egalitarian mindsets?

Annica Eriksson, the head cook at the Falun school, received an order from the municipality to decrease the quality of her cooking after it discovered she served a variety of 15 vegetables and freshly baked bread to students each day. The municipality claims that these offerings are “unfair” to students at other local schools, who consume meals of a lesser quality, The Local reported.

School choice (and I mean total school choice - free schools from any state mandates, including curriculum requirements) forces schools to compete for students by continually innovating and discovering ways to serve students' needs rather than the interests of teachers and public school bureaucrats.

This egalitarian ideology has had tragic consequences, leading to mass murdering of millions of people around the world throughout the Twentieth Century. This is not to say that forcing the lunch lady to reduce the quality of her meals is going to lead to mass genocide in Sweden. But egalitarianism is a slippery slope, and if it's important that something as trivial as school lunches be equal, and you're willing to force one school to degrade the quality of its lunches so students at other schools don't feel slighted, you're probably pretty far down that slope. 

Here is an old post on the travesty of choice in North Carolina schools. 

Government of the lobbyists, by the lobbyists and for the lobbyists.

From Gordon Tullock:

Politics is about concentrating benefits on well-organized and well-informed interest groups, and dispersing costs on the unorganized and ill-informed masses.

Taken from Pete Boettke's new book Living Economics.

I couldn't help but think about Tullock's insight while reading this piece in today's News & Observer about the changes that have taken place in rankings of the top lobbyists in NC following the Republican takeover of both Houses after 100 years of control by the Democrats. 

The top 10 features mostly lobbyists with Republican ties, a reversal from two years ago when Democrats filled the upper echelon.

“The issues in the last two years allowed to be heard and debated have dramatically changed,” explained Connie Wilson, a former GOP lawmaker who became a lobbyist after leaving office in 2004. Wilson is ranked No. 7 after not making the top 55 in 2010. “There is an increased demand for Republican lobbyists,” she added.

The special interests that hired the top lobbyists in the 2011-2012 legislative session were predominantly health care and energy entities.

Government of the people, by the people and for the people serves the interests of the people. Legislation is limited and fairly consistent; it does not change at the whim of business or other interests that are required compete in a marketplace committed to serving the interests of consumers, not the corporations, unions, teachers, etc. Therefore, even when control of the legislature changes, if legislation truly serves the general welfare of the people there should be little, if any, change in the rules and legislation. If, however, government serves the interests of the politically connected, then we shouldn't be surprised that as power changes from one party to the other, rules and legislation change, and so then do the top lobbyists. 

Even more disturbing.

“The rankings shed light on what is often an invisible process,” said Ran Coble, the center’s executive director.

Seven lobbyists ranked are former lawmakers, who are required by state law to not lobby their former colleagues for six months after leaving office.

“Former legislators know what it takes to make things happen,” Coble said. “They also have long-term relationships with their former colleagues that can open doors.”

The general partisan shift didn’t surprise Rep. Leo Daughtry, a Smithfield Republican. “That’s the way it works,” he said.

Yes, invisible and behind closed doors is the way it works, but that was the reason for constitutional constraints on what we can achieve through the political process. If you've not seen the CBS 60 Minutes piece about Jack Abramoff below, it's well worth watching.

What really gets to me is that this is published in a newspaper that a) sees no limits to government control, and b) unless apparently it's Republicans who control the legislature.

Here's Mike Munger with more insight.

 

Tax the things you want less of and subsidize the things you want more of.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation released its most recent rankings of the economic well-being of kids by state. The News & Observer notes that NC ranks 34th in the nation in term of kids' economic well-being. Should we be surprised?

I used data from the Kaiser Family Foundation's statehealthfacts.org web site to run a simple OLS, regressing the percentage of kids from single family homes living in poverty (data here) the average percent of births in each state that were funded through Medicaid between 2003 - 2009. North Carolina is the eighth highest.

Here are the overall results.

Adjusted R-squared = .37627

What this says is that for every one percentage point increase in births funded by Medicaid in a sate, children from single-parent families living in poverty increased .424%. (Every state had data for at least one of the years, many of the states had data for all, or nearly all, years.)

This is not a truly scientific study in that first, the data is not complete since some states do not report every year what percentage of births in their state was paid for by Medicaid. And second, correlation does not imply causation. Causation probably goes both ways in this study, but that's the point - we subsidize women to have children who are poorly equipped to financially care for these children. A large number of them are teenagers younger than 18, they give birth and we then feign surprise that these women (almost all are women) cannot lift themselves out of poverty since they've never been taught skills and they now have an anchor hanging around their neck. Oh, and their children are unlikely to ever escape poverty.

This is the cruelest hoax we've played on children in this country. "We are going to make sure that your unwed teenage mother gets appropriate neonatal care, pay for your birth, and then watch in bewilderment as you grow up with little chance of ever having a socially productive life on your own."   

My favorite line from a very good movie is when Tod, played by Keanu Reeves, says, "You know, Mrs. Buckman, you need a license to buy a dog, to drive a car - hell, you even need a license to catch a fish. But they'll let any bu__-reaming a__hole be a father." I'm not calling for licensing births, but I'm also not for subsidizing children who cannot even care for theselves having children for whom they have no conceivable means of financial responsibility.

Throwing money at a problem is not solving a problem, in fact, it oftentimes makes a situation worse. This is one of those situations. Why is it we tax the things we want more of (i.e., more productive people) and subsidize the things we want less of (i.e., out-of-wedlock births that leads to more children living in poverty)?