Money blinds objectivity. When money drives decisions, controverting evidence is ignored, dissenting voices are ridiculed, open debate is suppressed, talking points are distributed, conclusions are delayed, and people die from a product with liability protection.
Month: February 2023
Vigorous Property Rights in Vermont
This is more a matter of where two property owners’ rights begin and end than of the value of property rights versus their denial.
https://ij.org/cje-post/vigorous-property-rights-in-vermont/
Let Housing Markets Work
Two stalled developments in New York City demonstrate a flawed approach to affordability. By demanding affordable “set-asides,” the city forces market-rate units to subsidize low-rent ones.
Government Keeps Meddling With Private Company Decisions
In the Twitter Files, every conversation with a government official contains the same warning: You can do it happily, or we’ll make you.
https://reason.com/2023/02/02/private-companies-public-pressure/
Natural Gas, Electricity, and Thermodynamics
As long as natural gas is used to generate electricity, bans on natural gas use in new residential construction result in reductions in CO2 emissions only if very high efficiency heat pumps are used and only if combined cycle rather than simple gas turbines are used for generation. All other uses of electricity actually increase emissions because of the heat losses in electricity generation. So why are localities in Blue America banning natural gas?
https://www.cato.org/blog/natural-gas-electricity-thermodynamics
Four Ways to Get What You Want
You can make something yourself, someone can give it to you as a gift, you can steal it, or you can trade for it. Doing it yourself is fun sometimes, but unless you’re doing it recreationally, DIY is the road to poverty and starvation.
The U.S. Probation System Has Become a Quagmire
What was originally intended as an alternative to incarceration has become a system for mass state control.
“It’s a fear that never leaves you. You could be plucked from society at any moment for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
https://reason.com/2023/01/26/the-u-s-probation-system-has-become-a-quagmire/
Justice Gorsuch’s Dissent from Denial of Review in an Excessive Fines Clause Case
We have held that “[p]rotection against excessive punitive economic sanctions” is “‘fundamental'” and “‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.'” And all that would mean little if the government could evade constitutional scrutiny under the Clause’s terms by the simple expedient of fixing a “civil” label on the fines it imposes and declining to pursue any related “criminal” case.
California’s Floods Another Reminder of Failed Water Management Policies
In drought or flood, bad environmental policy is making Californians miserable.
How the CDC Became the Speech Police
Secret internal Facebook emails reveal the feds’ campaign to pressure social media companies into banning COVID “misinformation.”
The platforms may have thought they had little choice but to please the CDC, given the tremendous pressure to stamp out misinformation. This pressure came from no less an authority than President Joe Biden himself, who famously accused social media companies of “killing people” in a July 2021 speech.
https://reason.com/2023/01/19/how-the-cdc-became-the-speech-police/