A tough liability system does more than provide compensation for serious harms after the fact. It also sorts out the wheat from the chaff—so that in this case companies with weak safety profiles don’t get within a mile of an oil derrick. Solid insurance underwriting is likely to do a better job in pricing risk than any program of direct government oversight. Only strong players, highly incentivized and fully bonded, need apply for a permit to operate.

In an environment of unlimited liabilities for harmful externalities, insurance would be a must, and insurance companies will be far better regulators than the government.  After all, the government employee gets paid the same amount of money with the same amount of (never-ending) job security whether he actually assesses risk correctly or not.  The insurance company?  One wrong risk assessment, and it’s in the breadline.

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The dotted line simply averages the sales for the month of the clunkers program and the month after.  I think it is pretty clear that we spent a few billion dollars making some used car owners happy (by overpaying for their vehicles) but did absolutely nothing to move the trend line in auto sales, as the program appears to have just pulled forward purchases rather than stimulated new ones.

Was this predictable?  Of course. In August 2009 when Cash for Clunkers was announced, we said:

The funny thing is that down the road even the dealers will suffer, because this program created false demand and just kicked the can down the road so that the dealers could put off their day-of-reckoning a little longer.

You can read our full Aug 2009 analysis of Cash for Clunkers and get educated on the Broken Window Fallacy that Government commits, daily.

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Be proud, small-business owners! You’re now the most trusted group in America. Listen up, federal government! You’re neglecting small business — and most people think so.

According to the just-released study by the highly respected Pew Research Center, small business is the most trusted institution in America. More than churches. More than colleges. More than technology companies. And certainly more than labor unions or large corporations.

However, that little part of the federal government neglecting us . . . we can take care of ourselves, thanks.  Just stop giving away our money to your corporate cronies, your dirty banksters, your union thugs and your GSEs.  And get out of our way.

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Tim Carney’s book Obamanomics does a great job spelling out how and why. We highly recommend this book to you.  Carney also spoke on a Cato panel about his findings. The video of his speech is at fora.tv – definitely worth the watch.

If you think that the current Goldman Sachs SEC probe is a sign of Big Government taking on Big Business, then I’ve got some beachfront land in Iowa to sell you.  Goldman will get a “slap on the wrist” (if anything at all, since it looks like the charges are extremely overblown and may be without merit) while – wink wink – the resulting financial regulation encouraged by their public castigation will ensure that the new and onerous compliance costs hurt Goldman’s smaller competitors.

Big Government gets more power, Big Business gets less competition from smaller competitors.

It’s a familiar story.  Watch it unfold, yet again, in the coming months and years.

Read that Carney book.  Free your mind.

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Graph from the American Thinker, Care Sales ($millions) Reported by Dealers.:

Cost to taxpayers for each extra car sold because of Cash for Clunkers:  $20,000

Number of clunkers turned in (and taken out of the market):  677,081

Price increase for used cars since CfC:  13.7%

Change in car sales from July 2009 to February 2010:  -0.6%

Why is the financial scam of Managed Care not being exposed?

I cannot understand why the media and we docs are not exposing the financial scam of Managed Care. Readers need to google “Bill McGuire” the former CEO of United Health who was given a $1 Billion benefits package. Read the front page Wall Street Journal and New York Times Articles from December 7, 2007 highlight the $660 million fine McGuire had to pay for back dating stock options and the $800 million in stock options he had left over.

Do you recall when United Health held news conferences and was on all the networks a few years back?  United Health announced it was no longer going to require prior authorizations and then not so publicly instituted a policy of not guaranteeing payment. The standard Managed Care practice now is to deny 30% of physicians billings because Managed Care has calculated that Docs will simply not take the time to appeal as much as 1/3 of denials.

Do we not realize that we are paying an ever increasing ”tax” in effect to Managed Care Executives?  Last year 3 of the largest Managed Care companies raised premiums 26 % while only increasing payments 6% for services. On average the highest paid CEO’s are Managed Care CEO’s. When the Catholic Nuns ran the largest health care system Sister Mary CEO did not get paid a salary. There is a calcualtion called dollars lost from actual provision of healthcare and supposedly Medicare loses $6 for every $100 and Managed Care loses nearly $30 for every $100 with most of this $30 going to Executive compensation. Additionally 6.9 % of healthcare dollars are lost to the time doctors spend on dealing with Managed Care authorization paper work.

Is anyone questioning how 80% of Americans are supposedly happy with their current health care? Since 20% of Americans do not even have health care coverage this means that there is 100% satisfaction of those who do have coverage. This makes no sense. Any of us who have a health plan have watched the increasing portion of our pay check going to managed care. My first employee health plan many years ago cost me nothing and had no copays. Gradually I have paid larger and larger portions of the premiums and the copays have escalated and the coverage shrank.

If Americans are happy it is because they do not look at their pay check and are not realizing the “tax” they are paying to Managed Care CEO’s. The flattening of incomes and the declining of purchasing power is directly related to the thievery of Managed Care. Doctors salaries have been stagnant by and large since 1992 yet we have allowed ourselves to be scapegoated in this process. If we do not disclose the evils of Managed care we are doomed.

Managed Care lobbyists are going to be succesful in maintaining their strangle-hold by getting a mandate for insurance and a mandate for more employer sponsored care. If Americans are happy it is because doctors are fighting the denials and doing all the authorizations and doing all the care free by phone and employers are doing all the leg work arranging the plans and American industrial production and workers are economically suffering as a result.

The only ones ‘doing well” in this system are the Masnaged Care executives and perhap Managed Care shareholders. This needs to stop. Healthcare needs to be disconnected from employment, and patients, not doctors, need to deal with insurance denials then there will be true competition because patients will not put up with what doctors have put up with from Managed Care. We need to call upon the media to do its job and expose Managed Care for what it is a profit scam for its own Executives.

Dr.  Barry Jacobs is a Reproductive Endocrinologist, practicing in Carrollton, Texas, a northern suburb of Dallas. He completed his residency training in obstetrics and gynecology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, and remained at that institution to become its first fellow once Baylor achieved accreditation for an advanced training program in Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility. Dr. Jacobs has served on the faculty of several medical schools and was director of Reproductive Endocrinology at Texas Tech Health Science Center in Amarillo. Currently, in addition to his clinical activities caring for infertile patients and those with recurrent pregnancy loss, he is Chairman of the IVF committee at Baylor Medical Center in Carrollton.

But recently, UPS has declared war on FedEx, in the form of Union-Driven rent seeking and the outcome of the war will likely affect small business owners and employees.

Lakers vs. Celtics, Red Sox vs. Yankess, UPS vs. FedEx.  Rivalries are good, and in the case of the latter two package delivery companies, a strong rivalry results in better prices, improved innovation, and improved choices, particularly for small businesses.

But Congress is trying to mess with that by “leveling the playing field” through a small provision tucked into the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2009.  The Act, which made it through the house is now in front of the Senate, and essentially changes the rules on labor organization for express package carriers. (See Section 806)

The bill’s sponsor is Minnesota Representative James Oberstar, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and co-sponsored by Jerry Costello, from Illinois.  Both of these congressmen receive a large percentage of their campaign contributions from Union organizations, and both have been the recipient of steady generous campaign contributions from UPS and the Teamsters Union (which represents UPS workers).

At issue is this:  FedEx Express (which carries only the overnight and express packages) workforce is governed under the Railway Labor Act, which requires a national vote of employees in order to form a Union.   UPS, on the other hand, is governed under the National Labor Relations Act, which allows for unions to form on a local level.  UPS and its Teamsters Union admit that the fact that FedEx’s workers are not unionized is a “competitive advantage.”  They have therefore used their political clout to get Mr. Oberstar and Mr. Costello to pork-barrel in legislation that would put FedEx Express under the NLRA, and make it possible for local union organization.

Why should you care?

1. This will drive up the cost to run your small business.  If FedEx workers were to organize, it would assuredly result in a higher cost of business for them. Those additional costs would then be passed on to businesses and consumers that use FedEx.  Even if you use UPS, your costs would go up, because as FedEx raises it’s prices, UPS would not be forced to keep prices down to remain competitive.  Thus resulting in higher overall transportation costs for everyone.
2. The federal government should not be involved in “leveling the playing field.”  Many small and large businesses in all industries take advantage of competitive positions, through legal loopholes, legislative action, or through strategic partnerships.  If FedEx has found a legal way to have an advantage over a competitor, why should that be taken away?
3. There are only 2 small package delivery companies in the country (if you don’t count the Post Office (and we don’t)). Taking away competitive advantages results in identical companies, thus creating a duopoly.  With no competitive differences, there would be no incentive for either company to work harder for your business, thus resulting in higher prices, and lower service for small businesses that ship goods.
4. Do you remember when the Teamsters Union chose to strike in 1997?  If you owned a business then, I guarantee you remember. Small businesses were the ones that suffered the most.  If passed, we could conceivably end up with both FedEx and UPS workers going on strike at the same time.  What would that do for your business?
5. Organizing as a Union will do nothing for the average FedEx worker.  The next time you shop at a grocery store, ask the clerk at the counter what he gets from being a member of his local Grocery Workers Union.  Or ask your favorite teacher if she is confident that the local Teacher’s Union has successfully secured her a competitive salary.  The UAW is just as much at fault for the failing US auto industry as is poor management. Unions do nothing for average workers except take a piece of their paychecks, and gift an occasional hat or commemorative pin.

In reality, Unions are a thing of the past.  They may have been a necessary part of the development of our laws.  But in today’s economy, they essentially create no net gain for their members and are merely a self serving political entity.  As Veronique de Rugy puts it:

Unions represent an Industrial Revolution–era understanding of labor relations. The modern American movement grew out of an assembly line culture where every product was identical and workers were viewed in a similar way. As that mode of production has declined, so have unions’ relevance and power. 

Call or write your Senator today.  Tell them to stay out of business, and to vote no on the H.R. 915 -FAA Reauthorization Act of 2009.  Click here for a quick and easy email submission tool.

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To understand why this is, you need only understand the Broken Window Fallacy.

Frederic Bastiat originally formulated the Broken Window Fallacy in his landmark book That Which is Seen and That Which is Not Seen.  Henry Hazlitt then expounded and reformulated it for a more modern audience in his classic work, Economics in One Lesson (which was one of our 31 top resources for small business owners and employees).  In Chapter 2, entitled “The Broken Window,” Hazlitt wrote:

The Fallacy of the Broken Window exposes the lie that, as one Austrian Economist put it, “the … destruction of wealth fuels its creation.”   He then goes on to summarize the Fallacy and concludes:

You can see the absurdity of the position … when you take it to absurd extremes. If the broken window really produces wealth, why not break all windows up and down the whole city block? Indeed, why not break doors and walls? Why not tear down all houses so that they can be rebuilt? Why not bomb whole cities so construction firms can get busy rebuilding?

It is not a good thing to destroy wealth. Bastiat puts it this way: “Society loses the value of things which are uselessly destroyed.”

But Big Government frequently peppers hammers us with the message that we must create new wealth by destroying old wealth!

And that’s where Cars For Clunkers comes in.  Here’s a quick summary of the program and where it goes wrong.

1. The Federal Government takes tax-dollars, or borrowed dollars (to be paid back later through taxes), and offers to hand that money to people who will trade in pre-selected older cars; the money is to be used toward buying a new car; then the government takes the traded-in car off the road, and junks it, often by destroying the engine; the “subsidy” given toward buying the new car (for each trade-in) is $3,500-4,500
2. If the value of the trade-in car is less than the $3,500-4,500 handed in trade value the government has overpaid for the car, despite that the government is about to junk it, thus ensuring that no value will be received in return.
3. If the value of the trade-in car is more than the $3,500-4,500 handed, the government still derives no value from the trade because it’s not reselling it; it’s junking it and stripping it for salvageable parts (which are minimal)
4. The net number of cars on the road remains the same; maybe net emissions drop or maybe fuel-usage drops (because of better fuel efficiency) in the aggregate, but maybe not! (more on that below)

So, in this new version of the Broken Window Fallacy, our modern-day Window Breakers are destroying drivable cars, then handing out confiscated or borrowed money to the people who are allowing their “windows cars to be broken” because other people are paying for these windows cars to be replaced with newer, better, sexier models!

They do this in the name of saving the environment from pollution, or saving on “waste” through fuel-efficiency, or preventing global-warming through reducing emissions, or whatever.  It really doesn’t matter what justification they’re using, it’s wrong on several levels.

It destroys wealth by not letting these cars be used up over their useful life.  It destroys wealth by routing scarce resources into activities – in this case, car building – that wouldn’t otherwise take place, denying other industries access to those resources.  It destroys wealth by taking on liabilities, through borrowing, that have to be paid back later by taxpayers (reducing their purchasing power in the future) or by taxing them immediately (reducing their purchasing power today).

Also, building the new cars emits all kinds things into the atmosphere and gobbles up energy in the production process!   So any gains in emission and efficiency are offset by that, too!

Guess what else proponents of this destruction are missing?

They are oblivious to how the incentives will change future behavior.

These people traded in a car they’ve been likely to drive less.  We can safely assume these cars didn’t get as good gas mileage or were older, “clunkers”, because they were targeted for these reasons.  These cars also may not have been driven at all, or driven rarely.  However, they’ve been used to help people get a vehicle that they’re now more likely to drive more frequently!!!  More driving means more emissions, even if the emission per unit of travel is less.  More driving means more fuel consumption, even if the fuel consumption per unit of travel is less.

See, when you change the incentives, you change the behavior.  The people who owned these traded in cars were incentivized to drive them less by having to pay more for a unit of travel, and by having to conserve the remaining life in the car, which may have been approaching the end of its life over the next 5-10 years.  Now?  Not so much.

In fact, the New York Times reports, “Michael Gerrard, director of Columbia Law School’s Center for Climate Change Law, said in a statement that the cash-for-clunker program is not a cost-effective way to reduce fuel use or greenhouse gas emissions. Any energy savings, he said, could take several years to realize, considering the time it takes the fuel savings from a new car to exceed the energy cost used to make it.

Who are the favored parties?

The subsidized consumers, of course.  But also the favored industries, who have had their goods favored at the expense of other industries.  The government isn’t handing out money to go buy [fill in the blank], yet they’re siphoning off money and resources from a finite supply and putting it into one area, at the expense of other areas.

Think the Auto-Dealers liked it?

Look at this:

Of course!  The “government” should put more money into it.  Let me fix that quote to show you what it should say if it were telling the truth.

Who were the losers?

Everyone else, especially the taxpayers.  And other businesses and industries, especially ones directly impacted by trading these cars in instead of servicing them, auto-parts sellers, mechanics, etc.

The funny thing is that down the road even the dealers will suffer, because this program created false demand and just kicked the can down the road so that the dealers could put off their day-of-reckoning a little longer.

Want to feel some outrage?

Read this story and watch the video, especially watch the video at the 2 minute mark on where they discuss how the cars are junked, and how otherwise re-saleable parts are destroyed in the process.  Perfectly usable cars being destroyed!  And, as an added bonus, Big Government makes a complete mess in administering the program (but don’t worry, they’ll run nationalized health care flawlessly).

We’re not being fooled.  The majority of American people understand that this program is corrupt and just 35 in 100 Americans are in favor of it.

But since we’re living in the age of Big Government, so let’s go all the way with this!

Why stop at cars?  In fact, the Wall Street Journal today asked, Why not a “Cash for Everything” program?

Let’s blow up buildings and rebuild them with subsidies to stimulate commercial building.  Let’s burn down homes and rebuild them with taxpayer funds to stimulate the homebuilding industry!  Let’s break up all our fine-china and buy everyone a new set!

Or maybe not.

Let’s just point out one last thing about the way Cash For Clunkers was run, and how it exposes Big Government hypocrisy.

Very poor people, the car-less among us, who don’t have any private transportation of their own, and who Big Government always profess to help, could have really used those cars.  They could’ve been given to people in need.

This summer I donated my “clunker” to the Kars 4 Kids charity, which then sold it and used the money to help poor children.  I’ll bet you my shiniest nickle that this government program has caused material hurt to charities like Kars 4 Kids.  And not just this year, but also in future years since many cars that may have been later donated to charity had their end-life pushed up to the present day and therefore won’t be available for donation in the future.

Just another sad instance of the Bastiat’s “unseens” or, in words we like to use, “what-might-have-beens.”

The program should probably be called “Cash From Clunkers” since this bunch of Big Government phonies are possessed of such little brain-power that they can only themselves be referred to as Clunkers.  Then again, referring to it as “Cash From Clunkers” also obscures the fact that though they are delivering the money, it’s not their money.  It’s our money.  Or China’s money that they’ve borrowed and we will have to pay back someday.

Anyone suspect that this whole program might just be one ruse to prop up Government Run Motors or as a payback to the Automobile Unions?

Whatever.  It’s corrupt.  Another example – in a long and growing list – of corruption and Big Government going together.

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SBABG.org

—

UPDATES -  Below by Date – how did our predictions go relative to what really happened?  Read the results and decide for yourself.  (N0, we’re not prophets, we just have common sense and an understanding of basic human behavior, mysterious commodities that appear to be absent in politicians.)

UPDATE: October 4, 2009 – Cash for Clunkers Fails to Help Economy and Environment

Last week U.S. automakers reported that new car sales for September, the first month since the clunker program expired, sank by 25% from a year earlier. Sales at GM and Chrysler fell by 45% and 42%, respectively. Ford was down about 5%. Some 700,000 cars were sold in the summer under the program as buyers received up to $4,500 to buy a new car they would probably have purchased anyway, so all the program seems to have done is steal those sales from the future. Exactly as critics predicted.

Cash for clunkers had two objectives: help the environment by increasing fuel efficiency, and boost car sales to help Detroit and the economy. It achieved neither. According to Hudson Institute economist Irwin Stelzer, at best “the reduction in gasoline consumption will cut our oil consumption by 0.2 percent per year, or less than a single day’s gasoline use.” Burton Abrams and George Parsons of the University of Delaware added up the total benefits from reduced gas consumption, environmental improvements and the benefit to car buyers and companies, minus the overall cost of cash for clunkers, and found a net cost of roughly $2,000 per vehicle. Rather than stimulating the economy, the program made the nation as a whole $1.4 billion poorer.

UPDATE: October 23, 2009 – Dealers say Cash for Clunkers has made cheap, used vehicles harder to find

In his 20 years in the business, salesman Mark Sauer has never had a tougher time finding inexpensive used cars.

“It’s never been this bad,” said Sauer, buyer and sales manager of Vaccaro’s Auto Buyers of Reading, 805 Hiesters Lane.

“Customers used to be able to find a good car for their son or daughter to take to college for $2,000 or $3,000, but now that same car may cost $5,000,” Tabakelis said. “It’s sad.”

He, too, blames cash for clunkers, which has led to fewer vehicles being available at used-car auctions, and the recession.

“You used to be able to find a decent car for $2,500, and you can’t anymore, especially in the past two months,” said Arie Garcia, the association’s office manager.

Another problem is that used-vehicle prices have quickly risen above their book values, making it tougher for customers to secure financing, Garcia said.

“Cash for clunkers really hurt the used-car industry,” she said. “I think it hurt more people than it helped.”

UPDATE: October 29, 2009 – Taxpayers paid $24,000 per car

The Cash for Clunkers program gave car buyers rebates of up to $4,500 if they traded in less fuel-efficient vehicles for new vehicles that met certain fuel economy requirements. A total of $3 billion was allotted for those rebates.

The average rebate was $4,000. But the overwhelming majority of sales would have taken place anyway at some time in the last half of 2009, according to Edmunds.com. That means the government ended up spending about $24,000 each for those 125,000 additional vehicle sales.

UPDATE: October 29, 2009 – Cash for Clunkers Massively Distorted GDP

If anyone mentions the just-released 3.5% U.S. third quarter GDP growth, just throw this chart in their face. Cash for Clunkers clearly distorted the U.S. economic figures in an unsustainable fashion.

Next quarter, we won’t just be returning to business as usual for auto output. Don’t forget that Cash for Clunkers pulled future auto demand, ie. some of Q4 demand, into Q3. Thus Q4 is likely to be very weak since many people who planned to buy a car in Q4 probably took advantage of Clunkers and bought in Q3.

Next quarter, not only are we unlikely to get Q3’s boost, but motor vehicle output data could subtract from GDP as well. So watch out for the cliff…

UPDATE: March 23, 2010 – Car Sales ($millions) Reported by Dealers

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It’s no wonder that big business is never leading the charge against welfare reform.  Many of them are great beneficiaries of it and it allows them to also “receive a handout” from the government.  Corporate cronyism.  The lobbying dollars the big businesses spend ensures that Big Government favors Big Business over Small Business.

Government regulations impose higher costs on small businesses, because the “cost per employee” to meet the demands of the regulation are much higher for small businesses.  No wonder some corporations actually advocate for more legislation and restriction on business – it keeps upstart competitors out of their market.

Perhaps most disturbing is the way welfare funds are used.

Think about this.  If you as a small business owner or as a small business employee were able to keep more of your money, you could actually create more jobs (by expanding your business and hiring others if you are an owner) and spend more in your local enonomy (if you had more take-home pay after taxes), THEREBY LOWERING THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE AND ACTUALLY LOWERING THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE ASKING FOR WELFARE HANDOUNTS.  (I’m shouting this because it’s a fact no one seems to get!)

Taxation for welfare programs BEGETS the need for more welfare programs (and therefore more taxation).

Now, let’s talk about the consequences of Welfare dependency.  It makes us all worse off and actually enables bad behavior while diminishing the need to be personally responsible.

I received the following email this week from a member of the SBABG facebook group.  He works at a large national convenience grocery chain, but is very sympathetic to our small government message.  He writes:

You know what would be nice? If welfare could have more restrictions. 99% of all Electronic Benefit Transfers  (EBT) transactions  for welfare recipients at my store are for candy, chips and pop. Very, very rarely do I see someone actually use EBT for a necessity.

It would be interesting if there was data that showed how much junk food vs necessities was purchased with EBT.

At least energy drinks such as Rockstar or Red Bull are not covered. A guy tried to buy one a few months back and when EBT wouldn’t cover it exclaimed “They should pay for that!!”. Ummm, No!, I should not have to pay for you to drink sugar water!  I know there are people who actually need welfare, but I think the majority of people on welfare are too lazy to try and find a job (even before the economy went down).

Welcome to the harm that Big Government does.  Apparently, we are unable to work out social problems in our local communities, so Big Government takes from the most productive among us, gives handouts that do not fulfill their stated objective, and thereby ensures that the problems are permanently with us.

As we like to say, “Way to go Big Government!”

Do you have any “nightmare stories” you’d like to share?  Please leave them in the comments below!

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