The weekend's interesting reads

"Workers and Employers" by Don Boudreaux at Cafe Hayek:

"So in this view – what we might call the “Progressive” view - workers are seen as contributing little to their employers (which is why employers can so blithely fire workers). At the same time, employers are seen as contributing enormously and philanthropically to their workers. “Enormously” because the presumption is that the typical worker’s next-best employment option would pay him or her much less than he or she makes in the current job, and “philanthropically” because the presumption is that the worker is paid more than he or she is worth to the employer."

I mentioned the other day about the flight attendants union employees at Delta and how they were complaining that the merger would hurt them. My question is "So what? What do they owe you?".

"Back to the Past" by John Samples with Cato:

"Question: How do these two [quotes by LBJ in 1964 and David Brooks in 2008] differ?

Answer: They don’t. Both “hunger for community.” Both condemn a “soulless wealth.” Both promise decentralization. Both believe in the end that community can and should be created by coercion."

You can't make people be friends just because they live in the same state, country. Community has a tendency to evolve fairly nicely on its own.

"Religion and Freedom" by Mitt Romney at Townhall (remarks made at the Metropolitan Club in New York City where he accepted the Becket Fund’s Canterbury Medal for his defense of religious liberty.)

"I had missed an opportunity [in my speech] to clearly assert that non-believers have just as great a stake as believers in defending religious liberty.

If a society takes it upon itself to prescribe and proscribe certain streams of belief--to prohibit certain less-favored strains of conscience--it may be the non-believer who is among the first to be condemned. A coercive monopoly of belief threatens everyone, whether we are talking about those who search the philosophies of men or follow the words of God.

We are all in this together. Religious liberty and liberality of thought flow from the common conviction that it is freedom, not coercion, that exalts the individual just as it raises up the nation."

After reading this article in The Economist last year, talking about how those "with no religious beliefs are shut out from political power", I've become more and more leery of people pushing their religious agendas through politics. Of the three main conservative legs the Republican Party currently purports to stand on, social conservatism stands behind economic conservatism in importance for me. In my view, economic conservativism and social conservatism ultimately stand at odds in that economic conservatism relies on small government and gives freedom of choice to the individual while social conservatism relies on large government and takes choice away from the individual (except in the case of abortion, but I won't go into that now).

"Farm Bill Fails to Cultivate Reform" on The Foundry blog at the Heritage Foundation (HT: Club for Growth):

You really just have to look at the table comparing food commodity prices in 2002 (the last time a farm bill was passed) to 2008. The price increases of rice and corn, for example, are 281% and 256%, respectively. Why are we still giving subsidies to the farmers who grow these? They then give eight reasons why the bill should be vetoed. The one that always bothers me is the "stop subsidizing millionaires" argument. I don't like it for two reasons. First, if we're going to give out subsidies, it should be based on acres or output, not income. Subsidies should be incentive to produce, assuming we need to subsidize to keep some food production domestic, not a safety net. Second, because most of those who are millionaires likely own lots of land, they are probably more efficient. If you decide to subsidize small so they can compete with the big, you're effectively subsidizing inefficiency.

"Stamping Our Feet" by Don Boudreaux at Cafe Hayek:

"It has been suggested that, because the nominal price of first-class postage is about where it was in the late 18th century, Americans who complain about the proposal to increase postal rates are merely whining wimps who are lacking in historical perspective.

However, the real price of transportation (a key input in postal service) has plummeted over the last 200 years. In 1799 it took 53 days for an Army courier to travel from Detroit to Pittsburgh.

Today the same trip can conveniently be made in minutes. Likewise, the productive efficiency of the United States is vastly greater now than it was even a few decades ago.

Given the plunge in transportation costs, joined with other technological improvements and a large increase in the scale of postal activity, the price of postage should have fallen dramatically."

This is a reprint of a letter he sent in 1994 in response to an earlier postage increase. A comment noted that it costs $.40 to buy a kiwi grown in New Zealand but $.42 to mail a piece of paper.

"Oceans Apart: Mergers and Dominant Firm" The Economist:

"The difference in approach is partly explained by economic philosophy. In America there is a greater faith that markets will fix the problem of monopolies and a belief that market leadership in high-tech is transient. A new product may make today's dominant technology redundant tomorrow. Firms compete for the market as much as in it: temporary monopoly is the reward for innovation.

Alongside this belief is another: that if regulators interfere they need to be sure that they are helping competition. That is not easy when behaviour that could bolster monopoly is indistinguishable from vigorous competition. Bundling, one of the sins for which Microsoft was punished, is common practice: every fast-food outlet charges more for separate items than for combined meals. And when a local print shop offers discounts or rebates for bulk orders—Intel's transgression—few imagine it is plotting against consumers.

But in a market where one firm is king, such practices can take on a sinister guise. Dominant firms might use loyalty rebates to stop others from becoming large enough to pose a serious threat. Bundling can be a tactic to compel consumers to buy several things from a firm with a monopoly in one product. It is hard to establish whether such strategies are pro-competitive or nefarious. Antitrust watchdogs have to gauge the tangible short-term benefits of lower prices and convenience against theoretical long-term harm."