Florida House votes to deregulate many businesses

From the Orlando Sentinel:

The Florida House voted Thursday to strip government oversight of more than a dozen professions, including auctioneers, yacht brokers and talent agents.

Some of the regulated professions generate thousands of consumer complaints annually.

The bill, HB 5005, would dump licensing, surety bonds and other consumer safeguards required of telemarketers, travel agents/vacation-package sellers and auto-repair shops.

Those industries ranked first, fourth and fifth, respectively, on the 2010 Top 10 Consumer Complaint List compiled by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. There were 8,599 filings on telemarketers alone.

I guess we know the reporters opinion, but that's for another day. Professional licensing is mostly pushed by the industries themselves to reduce competition, increase profits and add false prestige and credibility through a state stamp of approval.

As a result, we have dozens of boards, departments and a plethora of arcane rules that mostly serve to employ regulators and don't really do much to protect the public while making it expensive and time consuming to enter numerous professions. And there's no evidence whatsoever that licensing reduces consumer fraud or abuse. In fact, it gives the public a false sense of security since the state doesn't and can never have enough resources to police all these businesses as promised.

This vote was passed along party lines with Democrats predictably voting against economic freedom. Of course, the usual hysteria followed:

“Should we stop registering sex offenders because that’s all we do is register them?” asked Rep. Jim Waldman, D-Coconut Creek. “There comes a time when registration is critical.”

Leave it to a liberal to liken yacht brokers and interior designers to child molesters. That's how they view the private, productive and - gasp! - for profit private sector.

IRS Wants to be World Tax Cop

Watch the video and think about the larger issues beyond the trillions in capital that would leave this country because the IRS wants to use extra legal means to report foreign, non resident investment income to foreign governments. Besides the breathtaking economic stupidity, one has to ask why the executive branch wants to do this. In Europe and elsewhere, statist high tax governments and their cheerleaders have carping for years about 'tax competition"

They don't like the fact that certain countries have more favorable tax structures that attract capital away from high tax and/or corrupt countries, making it harder to impose a worldwide financial regime.

Trusts for the Rich Flock to Low-Tax States

From the WSJ:

New Hampshire, in fact, has become a kind of mini-Switzerland for wealthy Northeast families. Trust assets under management by banks and trust companies up north have jumped 70% over the past five years, to $311 billion in 2010, from $184 billion in 2005, according to the New Hampshire Banking Department. State.

The Boston Herald says trust companies are “cropping up like tax-free liquor stores in southern New Hampshire.”

Can we blame them? Of course not.

No, we can't.

"Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as
possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the
treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes.
Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister
in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone
does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any
public duty to pay more than the law demands."- Judge Learned Hand

Paul Ryan's Path To Prosperity

Let's hope that years from now we don't look back on this say "If only..." This is what we're facing and there's not much time. And it's wont be like the 70's or even the 30's - it'll be much worse and will last for generations.

Inflation inflicting pain, as wages fail to keep pace with price hikes

Gee, what a surprise. This would be a more accurate headline if it were prefaced by "As Predicted:"
Inflation and a devalued currency is the tax that Obama and his leftist crew are imposing on every American to pay for their statist utopian vision financed by a 24/7 money printing operation. But the problem, according to WAPO, is those damn third world folks trying to raise their standards of living:

Although unique factors have contributed to the latest price shocks, such as turmoil in the oil-rich Middle East and a weak Russian grain harvest this year, there’s a common, more fundamental cause. As people in poor nations become wealthier, they develop middle-class tastes. They wish to eat more beef instead of just rice, for example, and drive cars rather than bicycles. Those rising living standards in developing nations have left suppliers struggling to grow enough feed grain, mine enough iron and pump enough oil to keep prices near the lower levels of recent decades.

Yes, blame it on the billions of people living without running clean water or electricity for wanting some protein in their diet and a better way to get around than pedal power. Cruel condescension mixed with a touch of racism and an "I got mine, screw you" attitude is a hallmark of the self important left.

The Post also doesn't see any link to our recently increased burning of food for fuel through the Ethanol scam as another cause of rising commodities prices, nor does it consider this administration's hostility to domestic energy production as having anything to do with rising prices. No, shutting down deep water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, pulling previously approved permits and other dictatorial edicts from an out of control Energy Department and EPA has nothing to do with skyrocketing energy costs, according to the Post.

The Democrat's base in the dependency class along with government workers and union members will see their income keep pace through automatic cost of living increases, but most of the people who pay the bills will really feel the pain.

I wonder how this moron is doing.

Ending Fannie & Freddie

Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, proposed a bill Thursday that would phase out government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in five years or privatize them.

Will we finally see the end of government distortion of the real estate and mortgage markets through these two entities? Maybe, but not without a fight from the rent seekers and the economically ignorant. The NAR qualifies on both counts and weighs in with a "yeah, but:"

The National Association of REALTORS® urged Congress this week to not move too fast in reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

“NAR strongly agrees that the existing system failed and that reforms are needed. However, redesigning a viable secondary mortgage model that will protect taxpayer dollars and serve the country’s home owners today, and in the future, can only be achieved through a methodical, measured effort,” 2011 NAR President Ron Phipps said in testimony before the House Subcommittee on Capital Markets this week.

In other words, the NAR doesn't want its customers and members to compete for capital based on the merits of the deals they create and still want taxpayers to assume the risk for private mortgage transactions. Politically motivated government manipulation of the mortgage market through Fannie and Freddie caused an unprecedented nationwide collapse of the real estate market, and the NAR just wants to tinker around the margins lest they lose their influence and have to play on a level field.

Economic ignorance makes us poorer

Economics is hard and the benefits of free trade and free markets are often hard to see and taken for granted. Here's a great article to reference the next time some ignorant demagogue starts screaming about "shipping jobs overseas."

"It is easy to see the loss of 200 jobs in a U.S. textile mill that produces men’s T-shirts, but it is not as obvious to see the benefit from the fact that everyone can buy T-shirts for $2 less when they come from China, even though the cotton in the shirts was most likely grown in the United States. Real U.S. disposable income is increased when we spend less to buy foreign-made products because we are spending less to get more - and that increase in real income means that U.S. consumers can spend much more on U.S.-made computer equipment, air travel or whatever. A loss of 200 jobs in one industry can easily translate to the imperceptible gain of 2,000 jobs in 100 other domestic industries as a result of the cost reductions from free trade."