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A Stitch in Haste

A Stitch in Time Saves Nine … But Haste Makes Waste

A collection of real-world libertarian, individualist and laissez-faire rants on law, economics, politics, culture and other current events
by an average, everyday lawyer & investment banker and part-time pop scholar.


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Entries Tagged as 'Rent-Seeking'

Apparently Now It's the "Unbroken Window Fallacy"

March 3rd, 2009 · Comments Off

The Vice President visits a window factory.

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Tags: Capitalism · Kip's Law · Rent-Seeking · Taxation & Fiscal Policy

CRS Recommendation: Campaign Finance Cases

January 15th, 2009 · Comments Off

The schizophrenic holding of Buckley v. Valeo has resulted in over thirty years of litigation.

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Tags: First Amendment - Speech · Law · Politics · Rent-Seeking

More on Obama's "New WPA"

December 9th, 2008 · Comments Off

Two weeks ago I wrote the following regarding the sort of jobs that would be "created" (i.e., redistributed) under the Obama infrastructure stimulus package:
Stimulating the economy by building infrastructure projects may have made sense in the 1930s when the work force consisted almost exclusively of healthy adult males (white, of course, but that's another blogpost).
How, [...]

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Tags: Politics · Rent-Seeking · Taxation & Fiscal Policy · Updates

On the Calls for an Auto Industry Bailout

November 17th, 2008 · 2 Comments

Some hasty stitches regarding calls to use TARP money to bail out the Big Three automakers:

General Motors is not "the U.S. auto industry." The Big Three are not "the U.S. auto industry." There are many different metrics (vehicle production, revenue, employment, etc.) but a good benchmark is that the Big Three represent only about one-half [...]

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Tags: Economics & Finance · Rent-Seeking · Taxation & Fiscal Policy

It's a Fine Line Between "Capitalist" and "Rent-Seeker"…

August 23rd, 2008 · 2 Comments

…and T. Boone Pickens has taken a flying Jedi leap right over it:
Roberts County, Texas, sits atop the Ogallala Aquifer, a huge underground reservoir that stretches all the way to South Dakota. It's in Roberts County that T. Boone Pickens set aside eight acres from his ranch for drilling deep into the aquifer.
Then he turned [...]

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Tags: Economics & Finance · Kip's Law · Rent-Seeking

"Entrepreneur" Rent-Seeks a Privacy Violation From His Educrat Brother

January 10th, 2008 · Comments Off

So which is the worst aspect of a plan by the Middletown, Rhode Island, school district to tag students with RFID chips in their backpacks?
1. The lack of necessity. (ACLU: "We are not questioning the school district's ability to use GPS to monitor school buses. But it's a quantitative leap to monitor children themselves.")
2. The [...]

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Tags: Rent-Seeking

Another Texas "For the Children" Rent-Seeking Scandal

May 25th, 2007 · Comments Off

To review: The pharmaceutical company Merck bought an executive order from Texas governor Rick Perry mandating that all pre-pubescent schoolgirls be vaccinated against HPV, via Merck's expensive and not entirely effective Gardasil vaccine. This despite the fact that HPV, unlike the infamous childhood diseases of generations past, is not casually communicable in a classroom setting [...]

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Tags: Rent-Seeking

Merck Buys Rent-Seeking HPV Vaccination Order from Texas Governor

February 2nd, 2007 · 2 Comments

Texas governor Rick Perry has mandated compulsory vaccination against human papillomavirus (HPV) among prepubescent girls:
By issuing an executive order, Perry apparently sidesteps opposition in the Legislature from conservatives and parents' rights groups who fear such a requirement would condone premarital sex and interfere with the way parents raise their children.
Beginning in September 2008, girls entering [...]

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Tags: Rent-Seeking