Category Archives: Corruption

Overregulation Is Killing America’s Can-Do Spirit | The Fiscal Times

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What happened? Hathaway and Litan shrug their shoulders after finding that these trends held steady across all states and metropolitan areas. Clearly, “business dynamism and entrepreneurship are experiencing a troubling secular decline,” they conclude, but “our findings stop short of demonstrating why these trends are occurring, and perhaps more importantly, what can be done about it.” However, the chart itself suggests one answer in particular. The decades involved in this study saw a significant and accelerating expansion of federal regulatory power, which only had one period of significant reversal – the Reagan era. That period shows the only significant return to a higher rate of business births in the last thirty-five years. The consistency of the decline across regions and states also bolsters this interpretation. Some states and regions have better economic growth rates than others; Texas Governor Rick Perry has recruited major employers from California on that basis, most recently Toyota’s US headquarters and its 5,000 jobs. Despite a friendlier tax and economic climate, though, Texas still has a lower business birth rate than it did thirty years ago, and so does every other state, and every metropolitan area save one unnamed.

via Overregulation Is Killing America’s Can-Do Spirit | The Fiscal Times.

The Last Psychiatrist: Who Bullies The Bullies?

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The Last Psychiatrist puts a finger on the issue of our time:

Hess yells about a world of masculine power because she has the power to yell at it. But of course her power is limited only to yelling, she is impotent against a troll who yells at her. But her mistake is in thinking he has the power. No one has it, the system doesn’t allow it. Even the mighty Economist demo feels impotent. Are they all delusional? This is the true critique of the system, not simply that one group reliably oppresses another; but that the entire system is based on creating a lack. This lack is not a bottomless hole that nothing could ever fill, but a tiny, strangely shaped divot in your soul into which nothing could ever fit: not money, not sex, not stuff, not relationships. Nothing “takes.” Nothing counts. Nothing is ever right. Only novelty works, until it wears off.

This lack of power– not power to rule the world, but existential power– what is the purpose of my life? What is this all for? I get that I’m supposed to use my Visa a lot, but is that it? Shouldn’t I be able to do more than this? Everything is possible, but nothing is attainable. Nothing tells them what is valuable; worse, everything assures them that nothing could be more valuable. That the media is the primary way the system teaches you how to want should have been obvious to Hess, she works for it, but for that same reason it was invisible to her.

via The Last Psychiatrist: Who Bullies The Bullies?.

Too Big To Audit? Large Partnerships Escape IRS Scrutiny, GAO Reports | CNS News

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In 2011, while the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was busy scrutinizing the tax-exempt status of 100 percent of Tea Party groups and other conservative non-profits, the tax agency did not audit a single high-value electing large partnership (ELP) with more than $100 million in assets.

That’s according to a preliminary report released to Congress by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) April 17th. (See GAO.pdf)

An ELP is a business entity with more than 100 partners and more than $100 million in assets that is required to file a 1065-B tax return every year. They include large private equity firms, hedge funds and oil and gas partnerships.

“No partnerships that filed a Form 1065-B from tax years 2002 to 2011 had their tax return audited and closed by IRS from fiscal years 2007 to 2013,” a footnote on page 14 of the GAO report stated.

via Too Big To Audit? Large Partnerships Escape IRS Scrutiny, GAO Reports | CNS News.

Donald Sterling ban: He should sell the Clippers, but the NBA shouldn’t force him to do it.

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or Sterling to finally get his comeuppance, to feel the wrath of public opprobrium, and to lose his prime asset seems just. For the NBA, which was engaged in a decades-long battle with its longest-tenured, and worst, owner, this was a perfect opportunity to act swiftly and harshly.

Yet one has this niggling feeling that Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has a point when he says, “If we’re taking something somebody said in their home and we’re trying to turn it into something that leads to you being forced to divest property in any way, shape, or form, that’s not the United States of America.”

via Donald Sterling ban: He should sell the Clippers, but the NBA shouldn’t force him to do it..

“Nobody ever heard of an ‘adjunct administrator'”: Higher Ed SNAFU – Hit & Run : Reason.com

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Some thoughts on the fall of academia:

I support the move toward “adjunct administrators.” It used to be widely understood that a college or university travels on the quality of its faculty, not its climbing walls, dining halls, or number of administrators. The University of Arkansas’ Jay Greene found that between 1993 and 2007, the number of administrators at research universities grew by 39 percent per 100 students while the number of employees directly involved in research and teaching grew by just 18 percent. More damning, spending on administration grew 50 percent faster than spending on instruction. Administrators don’t just add to the open-air prison climate on many campuses, they directly add to rising costs.

via “Nobody ever heard of an ‘adjunct administrator'”: Higher Ed SNAFU – Hit & Run : Reason.com.

Russian forces storm Ukraine naval HQ in Crimea – Yahoo News

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“Putin said his move to take control of Crimea was justified by what he calls “fascists” in Kiev who overthrew pro-Moscow president Viktor Yanukovich last month after three months of often deadly street protests.”

The biggest fascist in Europe is Putin.

via Russian forces storm Ukraine naval HQ in Crimea – Yahoo News.

HuffPo – What Cop T-Shirts Tell Us About Police Culture

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Within the more militarized units of police departments, the imagery can be even stronger. Former San Jose, California police chief Joseph McNamara told National Journal in 2000 that he was alarmed when he attended a SWAT team conference the previous year and saw “officers . . . wearing these very disturbing shirts. On the front, there were pictures of SWAT officers dressed in dark uniforms, wearing helmets, and holding submachine guns. Below was written: ‘We don’t do drive-by shootings.’ On the back, there was a picture of a demolished house. Below was written: ‘We stop.’” In his 1999 ethnography on police culture, criminologist Peter Kraska writes that one SWAT team member he spent time with “wore a T-shirt that carried a picture of a burning city with gunship helicopters flying overhead and the caption Operation Ghetto Storm.”

via What Cop T-Shirts Tell Us About Police Culture.

A rare peek into a Justice Department leak probe – The Washington Post

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They used security badge access records to track the reporter’s comings and goings from the State Department, according to a newly obtained court affidavit. They traced the timing of his calls with a State Department security adviser suspected of sharing the classified report. They obtained a search warrant for the reporter’s personal e-mails.

via A rare peek into a Justice Department leak probe – The Washington Post.

Democrats lose sequester battle: Glenn Reynolds

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But there’s another lesson in the FAA furlough fiasco: Whatever politicians control, they will use against you to get what they want. The furloughs weren’t a reasoned effort to save money: They were an attempt to punish voters for not approving tax increases. If the politicians could have shut down ESPN and blamed insufficient revenue, they would have done that, too.

via Democrats lose sequester battle: Column.