The Strib has an article about the continued impact that the Theater Exemption is having on the smoking ban. The issue I talked about in an earlier post. Needless to say I think this is both hilarious and important. While I know that at some point the legislature will close this massive loophole I think it is an important example of unintended consequences of regulation. Besides. many of the bar owners have stated that they are doing great business on "Theater Night" which goes to show how wrong many law makers were about the impact this would have on small businesses. The article has also appeared on MSNBC.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Smoking Ban: Act 2
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Most Important Supreme Court Case in Decades
The Supreme Court handed down a 8-1 decision today that may mark an important inflection point in our regulatory lives. The court sided with Fridley Minnesota based Medtronic in a decision that eliminates a companies liability for personal injury on devices that have been approved by and meet FDA standards. No more suits for coated stents, pacemakers or other devices no matter what kind of damages they have caused, as long as the FDA has approved them anyway. The New York Times has a decent article on the case and it's ramifications.
When the state, in this case the FDA, takes responsibility for "approving" the safety of a product they have in fact made a legal claim that the reward outweighs the risk for that product. That claim must hold true for the products producer as well its user. Therefore if an injury occurs it was an injury that was pre-approved by the government as part of the overall risk/reward equation.
This is the natural progression of a regulatory society. A society in which the government assumes some responsibility away from individuals can, and maybe should, also remove their accountability. The fact that it is impractical to sue the state, the rewards for doing so are very limited, means those injured by a bad medical product are given no recourse. Now imagine what this means not only for the soon to be heard case on pharmaceuticals but other areas where the state has regulatory approval procedures for products. Everything from cars to buildings where government provides a preemptive approval based on certain criteria is going to be open to this same logic.
Two possible directions we may go from here are quite different. There could be a push to eliminate many of the current regulations and allow those creating the products in question to be responsible for the liabilities involved or, agencies like the FDA can drastically increase the rigor of their approval processes. The first would be politically unpopular with those on the left that feel that agencies like the FDA are the only thing between the ogres that produce products for money and mere humans as well as the companies who would become responsible for their own products. Funny how both "sides" in the battle want protection from the same entity. The second is more likely but sure to put a chill into all affected industries as it would increase the cost of producing products and reduce the time in which those costs can be recovered. In turn reducing the number of medical innovations available to all of us.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Connecting the Dots
I found this site that connects the electricity used in a given zip code to coal sourced from mines that practice mountain top removal. This is a great piece for a couple of reasons. Most directly it can show us how the energy we used impacts the environment. Maybe more importantly it is a great example of how easily we can use available information to connect actions to consequences. I can imagine this same idea being used to track all types of products we consume and provide information on their sources. I also figured I would provide a partial solution for those people in my neck of the woods and give people this link that lest everyone know how they can specify purchasing wind generated power from Xcel.
Friday, February 15, 2008
The Gun Control Falicy
Though quite an old article I though it was worth posting in light of the most recent campus shooting. The knee-jerk reaction to these tragedies by some people is to crerate law that allows them to feel as though something is being done. The truth is of course that increasing the restrictions on firearm ownership only keeps law abiding from having guns. No person who is planning to commit such a crime would be dissuaded by such laws. The linked article contrasts crime in London and New York with their much different histories of guns laws and crime, New York has had both higher crime and more restrictive gun laws for decades.
Another, related, development on this issue is the court case of Parker vs. District of Columbia which is being heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. It is a case that very well should be the most important 2nd amendment case ever.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Punk Rock=Capitalism
I found this great article and had to share it. Below is a small snippet.
"What the “Anti-Capitalists” are protesting is not Capitalism.
The G8, the WTO, the Free-Trade Area of the Americas, and the IMF are all objects of protest from young idealistic people all over the world and objects of scorn for the punk press. And rightly so. The problem is that none of these organizations is remotely capitalist. In fact, the system we live in today is not capitalist."
Read more!Tuesday, February 12, 2008
The Destruction Continues (why Hillary is unfit to be president)
So the Senate once again bent to the will of President Bush and passed S.2248 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 2007. This means we are only a house vote away from this awful thing becoming law. This article gives a good overview of what the bill contains. If you look at the vote in the Senate there is one glaring fact of which everybody should be aware. the fact that Hillary Clinton was one of two Senators to abstain, the other was a Republican. This is really just one of the many example of why she is unfit to be president.
Monday, February 11, 2008
How Creativity is being strangled by the law
This is a must watch for anybody with access to a computer, which obviously means everybody who sees this. Larry Lessig, a Stanford professor and copyright expert, talks about how our current view of copyright is counterproductive in the truest sense of the word. He explains in a brief talk about how the democratization of "content" is critical. It made me think about how these same ideas apply to politics. It seems as thought there is a fairly direct correlation and that our current "read only" methods of governance where the individual has little to no input could benefit from becoming a bottom-up "read-write" system.
Read more!Saturday, February 9, 2008
The Chicken Dove Democrats
Matt Taibbi has written a great piece for Rolling Stone about how house and senate Democrats have sold out the idea of peace for the proverbial thirty pieces of silver. Their rhetoric on wanting to bring the troops home is nothing more than that. In the end Democratic leadership needs to have the war as a campaign issue come November. They need to feign powerlessness in order to fan the flames of displeasure for Republicans that they hope will convince voters that Democrats need the White House in order to do anything. The Truth is that as long as Iraq gives the Democrats an edge they have no reason to bring the war to an end.
Most recent on Biofuels
The International Tribune has a very well written article on the environmental costs of biofuels. I important additional fact not often talked about is how subsidizing the production of these fuels will increase the supply of fuel in general, driving down it's price and thereby encouraging consumption. This fact only compounds the issues discussed in the article. Corn ethanol, the worst offender of all biofuel types, exists only to enrich corn producers. This and the negative affects on our diets from cheep corn is further proof that we need to stop encouraging consumption by subsidizing politically favored producers.
The Smoking Ban Loophole: Act One
So I have always thought the smoking ban is a ridiculous infringement on our property rights that uses a made up right, that of being able to go to any bar or restaurant and not be affected by tobacco smoke, to eliminate actual rights, those of owning property and assembly. So it is with great glee that I read this article in the Star-Tribune today that brings to light a loophole in the law that I first thought of just after it was passed.
The "Freedom to Breath Act", a name that is right up there with "The Patriot Act" or the "Defense of Marriage Act" for law names that are the opposite of what they are, has a provision that allows actors on stage to smoke. The provision fails to define "actor" or "stage" however which means that as long as the property owner claims that a production is being staged and that anybody smoking is a member of the cast there is little authorities can do.
Sure this is a loophole that will more than likely be closed as soon as those at the capitol can shake off the interim cobwebs and start up their regulation machine but it is a fun protest action non the less. I hope that this idea catches on for no other reason than to help bring attention to the over-regulation of our every day lives and so much of it is so poorly thought through.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Ultimate in Geek Cool
This little baby is the Cree electric vehicle. A three wheeled all electric two seater designed in Switzerland. A car that if were available here I would buy in a heart beat as I only have about 4 miles each way to work and never see a freeway. This would be perfect for about 90% of the driving I do and the car my wife usually uses would take care of the other times.
The End of Poverty?
The TED conference is a great series of lectures from people that represent a wide range of ideas. This is the second I have seen from Hans Rosling.
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I agree that it doesn’t have to be all or nothing (socialist or free market) but the fact remains that we do not currently hav e a free market system of any sort. Saying so seems to place the blame on the market and fails to understand how much our current position is due to poorly designed regulations and past government involvement.
The system has to be fundamentally changed, I just want to make it better rather than worse. To do that we have to be honest about where we have been and what we advocate.
Personally I would suggest the following as a starting point. Create a system that requires all health insurance providers to sell a minimum plan, what that is TBD, that is available to anybody no matter what at a fixed price. The trickiest part will be determining a price for this basic plan. Detach insurance from employment by making all health care costs up to the price of that minimum plan tax deductible if paid for by an individual and not an employer. Then provide vouchers to those who meet income requirements to purchase the basic plan room whomever they choose.
Most people would likely purchase more than a basic plan which helps drive competition between insurers. The fact that even those on a basic plan could pick between providers would encourage insurers to work to make sure those people are satisfied. The key here is that the price set for the basic plan covered the real costs of providing care. We could start paying for this with a tax on plans above that of the minimum.
Having consumers that could potentially be on there rolls their entire lives would be a great incentive for insurers to focus on regular preventative care. The fact that most insurance is provided by employers is the core of our current problem. The provider who knows any particular individual will likely be with a different job and have different insurance in ten years has no incentive to provide preventative care to prevent problems for which they likely will not be responsible.
Single payer is a potential disaster if for no other reason than if it is designed poorly from the beginning or if it ends up being used for political reasons we could really make things worse. It also means that there is little to no recourse for those who receive bad service. If you only have one choice for health care or insurance there is nothing you can do when things go poorly and elections are not often of affective enough to help.