""This is America’s drug war and America’s war on immigrants, not Mexico’s."

"[S]upporters of Donald Trump do not like people referring to his upcoming presidency as dictatorial, notwithstanding his own promise to be a dictator on Day 1 of his administration (and possibly beyond). ...
    "[R]ecently, in the finest Godfather tradition, [he] made Mexican President Claudia Scheinbaum an offer she can’t refuse. He told her that if she fails to enforce his war on drugs and his war on immigrants, he will impose a 25 percent tariff on Mexican products exported to the United States. ...
    "For decades, the U.S. government has had a drug war and a system of immigration controls, ... [that] have produced nothing but death, suffering, corruption, and the destruction of liberty and privacy. ...
    "This is America’s drug war and America’s war on immigrants, not Mexico’s. Why should Mexico be required to enforce America’s dysfunctional and unworkable systems, especially since such enforcement constitutes a destruction of the liberty and privacy of the Mexican people? ...
    "What if Scheinbaum succumbs to Trump’s threat and lines the Mexican border with Mexican troops. ... Does Trump expect the Mexican military to shoot them, just as East German troops were called on to shoot East Germans who were trying to enter West Germany? ...
    "[U]nder [the American] system of government, [a unilateral imposition of tariffs] were supposed to be made by the elected representatives of the people in Congress. But I suppose that Trump’s thinking is that in a Day 1 dictatorship, who needs a stinking Congress? It’s much easier to simply issue dictatorial decrees. ...
    "[And] guess what happens if Trump makes Mexico even more poverty-ridden with his imposition of tariffs. Yep, more immigrants fleeing Mexico to come to the United States, just as millions of Venezuelans fled that country after the imposition of U.S. sanctions on the Venezuelan people. ... especially given that Mexico already has significant poverty, which is why so many Mexican citizens risk their lives and liberty to come to the United States. ...
    "I wonder if Trump has thought about that."

~ Jacob Hornberger from his post 'Don Vito Trump'

"The U.S. should abandon its obsession with the anti-immigration policies of the recent past, and instead address the real causes of illegal immigration."

"How can the United States reduce illegal immigration? ...
    "The reality is that only four policies can significantly reduce illegal immigration.
    "The first is allowing more legal immigration. …
    "The second … is to expand free trade. …
    "A more controversial way to shrink illegal immigration is to de-escalate the war on drugs. …
    "A further policy that might reduce immigration is scaling back the U.S. welfare state ... to either reduce that generosity or condition benefits on legal residence for a significant number of years. ...

"The policies that will do little to shrink illegal immigration are increased border enforcement, stiffer punishments for employers who hire illegals, or aggressive arrest policies ... These measures are ineffective because they do not change the fact that wages in the U.S. are attractive compared to wages in poor countries. And, for centuries, immigrants have endured amazing hardships to seek higher income or a better life in America. Longer or higher fences will not change that.
    "Instead, stepped-up enforcement will drive more activity underground....

    "[T]he U.S. should abandon its obsession with the anti-immigration policies of the [recent] past and instead address the real causes of illegal immigration."

~ Jeffrey Miron from his post 'The Right Way to Reduce Illegal Immigration'

More news from the War on Drugs™

"When President Nixon declared drug addiction Public Enemy Number One in 1971, it was with his 1969 declaration to Congress that the full forces of government must be marshalled “to cope with this growing menace to the general welfare of the United States.” Again, the nation was told, we would reduce crime and poverty, lower the scope and costs of incarceration, and stamp out a danger to the American family.
    "It is a vast understatement to say that these assurances were wrong ...
    "As of 2015, the rate of prisoners as a function of the population has grown from 100 per 100,000 in the period before Nixonian drug policy to over 500 per 100,000. As a result, the United States has become the world’s largest jailer, both in absolute terms and in rate. ...
    "Between 1973 and 2013, over $1 trillion was spent on drug enforcement in the U.S. alone. Yet, in 2016, Americans spent $150 billion on heroin, methamphetamines, cocaine, and marijuana, which doesn’t even factor in other classes of illicit drugs. Perhaps the most troubling aspect of these sunk opportunity costs is that despite a regime of increasing funding for supply-side enforcement, drug prices have continued to decline over the last four decades. This isn’t to say that they exist in cost parity with legal substances; their prices are still higher. What it does say is that current policy does little to abate demand.
    "Moreover, instead of reducing crime, prohibition simply creates more criminals. Everyone involved in the drug market, from supplier to distributor to consumer, is automatically a criminal. Absent the property rights protections and dispute resolution apparatus available via normal legal channels, interested parties must resolve their own conflicts, often leading to violent means. ...
    "Just as it was with alcohol during Prohibition, quality control is an issue with illegal drugs. As we discussed earlier, prohibitory laws create incentives to minimise the costs of production and transport while maximising profit, which in turn trends towards potency as the major concern. Because the product is manufactured by local entrepreneurs, however organised, there are no industry-wide safety standards. Hence, the current issue of heroin laced with fentanyl, for example. This leads to an increase in drug-related overdoses, and other related problems.
    "These are just a few of the more obvious social costs related to the War on Drugs™."

~ Tarnell Brown from his post 'Nothing New Thing Under the Sun: Prohibition, Drugs and the Iron Law'

The US southern border is a mess. But it's not a warzone. There is no "invasion." But it is a problem. How to improve safety at the border and reduce illegal immigration? In this short guest post, Jeffrey Miron offers three strong libertarian solutions ....

Reducing Illegal Immigration

by Jeffrey Miron

What policies, if any, can reduce the flow of illegal immigration?

The libertarian answer is expanded legal immigration. Libertarians believe this would benefit the United States, the sending countries, and the immigrants.

The more popular answer is roughly the opposite: stricter bans on immigration via guards or border walls.

Numerous examples, however, suggest that banning something (drugs, guns, prostitution, abortion) has only a modest impact on its prevalence.

Thus, without expanding legal immigration, the US can only curtail illegal immigration by reducing the demand to migrate here.

Fortunately, the US has two options that fit the bill. The first is repealing the War on Drugs, which is responsible for much of the violence in Latin America. Absent this chaos, fewer people would attempt to migrate.

The second is the elimination of trade restrictions against Latin America (and other countries). This would raise wages and improve economic conditions south of the border, again reducing the flow of migrants.

Happily, both policies make sense independent of immigration policy. Two “win‐​win” options, if the US only has the sense to adopt them.

* * * * 

Jeffrey Miron is an American economist. He served as the chairman of the department of economics at Boston University from 1992 to 1998, and currently teaches at Harvard University, serving as a senior lecturer and director of undergraduate studies in Harvard's economics department. 

His post previously appeared at the Cato at Liberty blog.

'Abusers Give Vice a Bad Name'

"The difference between me and normal observers: I don’t consider extreme abusers or 'addicts' to be victims. I consider them victimisers. They aren’t a symptom of a greater social problem. They are the greater social problem. Abusers have and continue to make evil choices. Granted, it logically possible to end up on Fentanyl Row through tremendously bad luck. Empirically, however, everything I’ve read on poverty convinces me that the root cause of such residence is almost invariably extraordinarily irresponsible behaviour. (Even a mild dose of the Success Sequence will keep you off the street: Read Adam Shephard’s 'Scratch Beginnings' for a blueprint.)
    "Abusers don’t just mistreat their families, friends, neighbours, and passersby. Even worse, they give vice a bad name."

~ Bryan Caplan from his post 'Abusers Give Vice a Bad Name'

Q; "What's America's longest war?"

"When you ask people, "What's America's longest war?" they usually answer "Vietnam" or amend that to "Afghanistan," but it's neither.
    "America's longest war is the war on drugs.
    "[Almost fifty] years and counting.... And drugs are more plentiful, more potent, and less expensive than ever."
          ~ Dan Winslow, from his book The Cartel

Politicians’ Biggest Anti-Marijuana-Legalisation Talking Point Just Got Thoroughly Debunked: New Study

Image Credit: PixaBay | CC via 2.0

A new study of the results of American semi-legalisation of marijuana suggests the notion that marijuana is a 'gateway drug' is little more than political fiction. As Brad Polumbo concludes in this guest post, however, to oppose the right of adults to decide for themselves, politicians will still resort to base scare tactics no matter how many studies debunk their false doomsday narratives.

Politicians’ Biggest Anti-Marijuana-Legalisation Talking Point Just Got Thoroughly Debunked: New Study

by Brad Polumbo

Politicians who defend criminalising recreational marijuana users have long riled up voters with dire warnings that the substance acts as a “gateway drug.” They insist that even if deaths directly caused by marijuana usage are virtually nonexistent, pot will nonetheless 'eventually' lead many users  to more dangerous drugs.

President Biden himself has long made this claim, stating in 2010 that “I still believe [marijuana] is a gateway drug.” Only in 2019, while campaigning for president, did Biden begin to walk back this position. Yet he still does not fully support federal marijuana legalisation. And the “gateway” position is still held by many other politicians clinging to their opposition to a widely popular legalisation movement. For example, Republican Congressman Andy Harris recently referred to marijuana as “a known gateway drug to opioid addiction” while arguing against legalisation. 

[And here in New Zealand, the recent referendum was confounded with the same fact-free assertion from politicians and their assorted supporters. - Ed.]

However, a new study suggests once again that the notion that marijuana is a “gateway drug” is little more than political fiction.

Economists examined the impact that recreational marijuana laws passed in 18 U.S. states and the District of Columbia have had on metrics key to the “gateway” narrative. The analysis is the first to “comprehensively examine the broader impacts of state recreational marijuana laws (RMLs) on a wide set of outcomes related to hard drug use, including illicit non-marijuana related consumption, drug-related arrests, arrests for property and violent offences, mortality due to drug-related overdoses, suicides, and admissions for drug addiction-related treatment.” 

And what did they find? Across four different nationwide databases, the researchers “find little consistent evidence” that recreational marijuana laws have gateway effects to hard drugs. Further, the study finds “little compelling evidence to suggest” that marijuana legalisation leads to more increases in drug use, more arrests for hard drug offences, drug overdoses, or admissions for drug addiction treatment.

They say there is even “suggestive evidence that legalising recreational marijuana reduces heroin- and other opioid-related mortality.” [Emphasis mine.] Ultimately, the authors conclude that critics' fear of marijuana’s supposed “gateway” effect appears “unfounded.”

Unfounded, indeed. But don’t expect critics to change their tune.

The argument for marijuana legalisation is, fundamentally, just an argument for personal choice and individual liberty. To oppose the right of people to decide for themselves, politicians must resort to scare tactics, no matter how many studies debunk their false doomsday narratives.

[Which means that here in New Zealand, as comedienne Michelle A'Court observed, even though the hypothesis that cannabis is a "gateway" to harder drugs has been debunked, it sure as heck remains a gateway to prison. - Ed.]

* * * * 

 

Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a libertarian-conservative journalist and Policy Correspondent at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), where his post first appeared.

On the cannabis referendum...

"'I think if you look at the evidence around use in New Zealand which can be harmful, this legislation is well written, puts in protections, and I expect will reduce harm,' [says Dr Richard Medlicott]."
    "Opponents to legalisation say some of those provisions can be put in place without legalising weed, such as better access to health services. The New Zealand Medical Association ... [for example, proposes] a form of decriminalisation, rather than legalisation. Dr Medlicott does not agree with that.
    "'It's kind of a change in the rules that doesn't really go far enough,' Dr Medlicott said.
    "'You'd still have people that want to purchase marijuana going to some pretty dodgy places and mixing with some pretty dodgy characters.'
    "'You'll still have high potency marijuana available, you'll still have it being pushed on the under 20s.'
    "'I don't think decriminalisation is the way, I think legalisation has to be the better option.'"

                ~ Dr Richard Medlicott, the Medical Director at the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners, reported in the article 'Doctors speak out against Medical Association's stance on cannabis referendum'

The five most ridiculous beliefs that many people hold about economics or politics ...

 

Don Boudreaux was asked to list the "five most ridiculous beliefs that many people hold about economics or politics – beliefs that should be recognised as ridiculous by any sane adult, regardless of education or exposure to economics." And they are, in ascending order:

1. Free trade is a plot by elites to enable corporations to profit at the expense of ordinary people.

2. The war on drugs protects us and our children from violence and other crimes.

3. Those immigrants – you know, the kind who mow your lawn, work as maids in the motel you last stayed at [or at the old folks home your mum is at], deliver and install the new dishwasher you bought, and are part of the construction crew building the new road in town – are lazy welfare leeches who are stealing jobs.

4. Government officials who do not know you care about you enough for you to trust them with power over you.

5. The most precious right an individual can have is the right to vote.

. 

"Why does no one understand that the people primarily responsible for the opioid 'epidemic' are the addicts themselves? This is the real issue—some people, including youths, find their own lives unbearable. Why? What is it about our culture that leads to such desperation?" #QotD

"Why does no one understand that the people primarily responsible for the [opioid] 'epidemic' are the addicts themselves? Narcotics are not some irresistible force that takes over the human brain. Each addict made a conscious decision each and every time he or she 'tried,' 'tried again,' and “continued” rather than 'abstained.' ...
    "This then is the real issue—some people, including youths, find their own lives unbearable. Why? What is it about our culture that leads to such desperation? ...
    "The only effective long-term strategy for eliminating drug abuse from a culture—whether the drug of choice be oxycodone, heroin, fentanyl, cocaine, morphine, marijuana, or alcohol—is to create a culture that will support authentic self-esteem, not the pseudo-self-esteem created by the cult of vicious victimhood."

~ Donna Paris, from her post 'The Opioid Epidemic Becomes the New Rope Used for Big Business Lynching'
.

QotD: "...while conservatives quiver and quake over the prospect that the illegals are coming to get them, they continue to ardently support a federal program that is a root cause of the violence in Central America and Mexico that is causing people to flee those countries. That federal program, of course, is the drug war..."

"But let’s get one thing clear: Contrary to what those fear-filled conservatives are saying, the immigrant caravan is not an invasion.... 

     "Among the darkest of ironies in this nightmarish circus [however] is the fact that while conservatives quiver and quake over the prospect that the illegals are coming to get them, they continue to ardently support a federal program that is a root cause of the violence in Central America and Mexico that is causing people to flee those countries. That federal program, of course, is the drug war, a program that has long been near and dear to the hearts of both conservatives and liberals.... 

    "There are no positive arguments for continuing drug prohibition. And no one can deny that the drug war has ripped Mexico and Central America apart owing to the drug cartels and drug gangs that the drug war has brought into existence... 

    "Many of the people in the current caravan are fleeing the drug-war violence in their countries in the hope of saving their lives or the lives of their family members. So, wouldn’t you think that conservatives, who are themselves in terrible fear of losing their lives to the illegals, would say, 'Hey, it’s time to end the drug war so that all those people will have less incentive to flee and come to the United States'? 

    "Alas, no one has ever accused a conservative of being logical." 

~ Jacob Hornberger, from his post 'The Migrant Caravan & the Drug War'

Quote of the Day: ‘Addiction ... is not what you think’

“Professor Alexander argues this discovery is a profound challenge both to the right-wing view that addiction is a moral failing caused by too much hedonistic partying, and the liberal view that addiction is a disease taking place in a chemically hijacked brain. In fact, he argues, addiction is an adaptation. It’s not you. It’s your cage. …the opposite of addiction is not sobriety. It is human connection.”~ Johann Hari, from his article ‘The Likely Cause of Addiction Has Been Discovered, and It Is Not What You Think’

Quotes of the Day: Compare and contrast

“No man of what state or condition he be, shall be put out of his lands or tenements nor … arrested or deprived of liberty by the state … without he be brought to answer by due process of law.”
~ from the statutory rendition of Magna Carta, 1354

“No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law …”
    ~ from the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution, 1789

“…nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
    ~ from the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, 1868

“National say they'll give police powers to search the homes and cars of some violent gang members at any time without a warrant or warning…”
    ~ report on press conference with PM and Deputy PM, Sunday September 3, 2107

“It was good New Zealand lacked a written constitution as it gave governments flexibility.”
    ~ Prime Minister Bill English, reported remarks from press conference with Paula Bennett, Sunday September 3, 2107

“Question to Deputy PM Paula Bennett: ‘Does an [alleged] criminal have human rights?’
Paula Bennett: ‘Some have fewer human rights than others…”
    ~ remarks from press conference, Sunday September 3, 2107

Wasted life

In the end, it seems, nothing summarises the time in Parliament of Peter Dunne quite as much as his timing in choosing to leave.

After thirty years in office, around twenty of them as a lapdog to power, he had signalled that he might, for the first time, be able to see his way clear to effecting some sort of liberalisation of the War on Drugs -- his first move of any significance in all his time as the various politicians' poodle.

So the very moment he may have proved himself to be of some use to the wider world proved instead his complete and utter impotence.

And instead of a liberalisation that has been far too long in coming, an achievement for which he would have deservedly been remembered, he leaves the Parliament instead after thirty years without a single credible achievement to his name.

He will be able to look back back, in other words -- just like many another politician -- at a wholly and completely wasted life.
.

Want tax cuts? End the War on Drugs.

 

So, strangely, just as a $1.8 billion government “surplus” is announced* a billion-dollar need for more prison beds is discovered (or will it really be a $2.5 billion bill?) to bed down 1800 more prisoners in our already swollen prison population.

With a prison population of just under ten-thousand, New Zealand’s incarceration rate is not yet among the world’s highest – America’s 693 per 100,000 makes our 202 look positively like a land of the free – but it’s still a lot more than otherwise comparable countries like the UK (143), Australia (152) and Canada (115), and fewer than two-thirds are there for sexual or violent crimes.

But here’s the thing. The War on Drugs is not just a failure, not just a formula for easy profits for gangs, not just a violent crackdown on a victimless crime, it’s also one way the prison popuation is much greater than it would be otherwise.

End Prohibition and you don’t just take away profits from gangs and reduce the violence around drugs, you also get to reduce the prison population by around fifteen percent.

Which is frighteningly close to that figure of 1800 beds the government reckons it needs to lock up the victims of victimless crimes.

So end the War on Drugs and (if the surplus is genuine*) then you have a legitimate argument for tax cuts without commensurate spending cuts. Don’t, and you won’t.

.

* Or is it really even a real surplus when net Crown debt increased by $1.3 billion? You tell me.

.

NZ police officer calls for and end to “unsustainable” War on Drugs

 

A New Zealand cop states the obvious: NZ's war on  cannabis must end.

The frontline officer shared his opinion in a September 'I Am Keen' column for Police Association magazine ‘Police News,’ in which officers have the opportunity to anonymously voice their views on police operations…
    He says his perspective on the crime has changed over his time as an officer.
    "I have dealt with drugs on an almost daily basis in the course of the job, whether it's seizing them or dealing with the after-effects on users.
    "But I often question why we prosecute people who have small quantities of cannabis on them… does punishing a user of a drug, any drug, actually impact on their decision to use that drug? I don't think so.
    "People use drugs for various reasons. The thought of being prosecuted for such behaviour is obviously something they have considered briefly and then decided not to worry about it.
    "Punitive measures often have very little impact on the fight against drug use."
    He argues treatment and education are the answers to drug problems, not criminal sentences.
    "Slapping someone with a criminal conviction for possessing one gram of anything is a disproportionate punishment." …
    "This war on drugs is not sustainable and cannabis reform needs to be at the heart of a wider debate about how we deal with drugs. Making criminals out of users benefits nobody."

He’s right you know.

[Hat tip NZ Law Enforcement Against Prohibition]

.

Q: What’s the difference between decriminalisation & legalisation? A: Gangs. One funds them, one doesn’t. [Updated]

 

The Herald’s sensational poll on Monday has put ending the War on Drugs in Enzed right back on the agenda. The shackles of prohibition have been coming off around the world, and the poll says most New Zealanders (whether they imbibe or not) would like to see that new dawn here too.

But the poll shows some confusion.

It shows almost 65 per cent of NZers want personal possession of cannabis either decriminalised or made legal. While a similar proportion think selling cannabis should still be illegal.

Here’s a quick question for everyone: if you can legally possess but not legally buy, will this encourage or discourage those who supply illegally?

Yes, right answer: it will hand certain profits over to every outlaw who suppies outside the law.

So bad news then.

A similar confusion exists between those who favour decriminalisation instead of simple legalisation.

They see it as a peaceful halfway house instead of the recipe for gang funding it really is.

So what’s the difference between decriminalisation and legalisation?

Legalisation means it’s legal to enjoy, sell and (perish the thought but pass the peaceful joint) even tax the blessed weed. Whereas decriminalisation means it’s legal to enjoy drugs but still illegal to sell them. Spot the contradiction a gang truck can drive through.

Portugal, for example decriminalised every imaginable drug, from marijuana, to cocaine, to heroin in 2001, to discover that to discover that drug use went down rather than up, that the drugs being consumed were far safer than they were before, and most importantly Portugal now enjoys the second-lowest death rate from recreational drugs in all of Europe (after experiencing one of the worst rates with prohibition)

Almost all good news then.

But because the selling of those drugs in Portugal is still illegal (drugs were only decriminalised, not legalised), it is still largely in the hands of gangs – who are certainly being nicer than they were, but are still at heart just gangsters. “Decriminalisation’s flaw,” notes the Economist (which even our Prime Minister is known to read),

is that it does nothing to undermine the criminal monopoly on the multi-billion-dollar drugs industry. The decriminalised cocaine consumed without criminal consequences in Portugal is still supplied by the gangs who cut off heads in Colombia. Washington, DC’s version of legalisation is similarly flawed: although possession has been legalised, Congress has prevented the city from legalising the buying and selling of the drug. The capital’s pot business will therefore remain a criminal monopoly. [Decriminalisation] is good news for the people who harmlessly get high. But unless it is followed up eventually by legalisation of the supply-side of the business, it is [still] good news for the crooks who sell it.

So remember Richard Branson’s observation that drug legalisation is pretty much the worst thing that could happen to organised crime. Still true. But only legalisation, not merely decriminalisation.

Remind your MP. And don’t forget to suggest they pass a copy of that Economist to the PM.

UPDATE: The support and the facts supporting legalisation being so clear, the Prime Minister has resorted to fear-mongering in response. “Obviously, this wild scaremongering is intended to attempt to defuse popular momentum and support for a law change. And the manifestly fact-free nature of Key’s rhetorical stabs are revealed by the logical contradictions between them.”

In other words, says Curwen Rolinson, Key is Being Disingenuous on Dope Decriminalisation.

..

Legalise it?

 

 

Cartoon by Blunt

 

Posted with Blogsy

Quote of the Day: How to really mess up your head

 

“If you think that weed, cocaine, and heroin mess up people's heads, you should see what statism does to them. The latter's harm exceeds the former's harm by many orders of magnitude.”
~ Robert Higgs

.

7 things a Trump must do [updated]

 

[UPDATE: “Donald Trump is a fast-flowing river of economic fallacies.” His “proposed policies … insofar as we can make them out [are] concocted from economic idiocy and nativist superstitions.”]

To "Make America Great Again" will take more than bumper-sticker slogans and a stained red golf cap.
Here, says a group of free-market economists in this Open Letter, are seven things any president must do to begin at least to make its economic system great  , and a Trump could do if he were at all serious about his slogan:

An Open Letter to Donald Trump

We the undersigned urge you, the presumptive Republican nominee for President, to support a rebirth of free-market capitalism in the U.S. You have said repeatedly that you want to make American great again. We […] assert that the most effective way to start that process would be to affirm your principled support for economic liberty, for open and competitive markets, and for a foreign policy that rejects both protectionism at home and interventionism abroad.

Over the last two decades especially, the U.S. economy has been saddled increasingly with burdensome government rules and regulations that stifle innovation and retard economic growth. Some of the more obvious examples are the massive command and control system put in place under the Affordable Care Act (ACA); the enactment of purposely mislabelled “free trade” agreements (such as NAFTA) that actually have harmed some U.S. businesses and destroyed jobs while subsidising other politically-connected firms; the failed so-called “War on Drugs” which wastes private and public resources and contributes to rising violent crime rates; and the expansion of inefficient and rights-violating environmental regulations that have hampered productivity and increased the overall cost of doing business; and, finally, the pursuit by the Federal Reserve of a pernicious decade-long low-interest rate monetary policy which has (again) created a massive speculative bubble in housing and on Wall Street … that is sure to end badly.

As a successful businessman, you must understand that these harmful economic policies of the past must be changed by the next president and Congress if the U.S. is to continue to remain prosperous. And you also must understand that the key to any economic rebirth in the U.S. is not old-fashioned Keynesian deficit spending, quantitative easing by the Fed, or the enactment of higher minimum-wage laws. The key to any sustained economic recovery is the legal protection of private property rights and the adoption of free markets in which entrepreneurs, alert to price and profit signals, guide scarce resources into their most productive use. Below we suggest a concise list of first-order public policy changes that could set the early agenda for your new administration [if you truly did believe in making America great again – Ed.]:

First, the Affordable Care Act should be repealed in its entirety and, as you have already pointed out, any prohibition on interstate competition in health insurance also should be repealed. Health care and health care insurance should be left to the market.

Second, all recent thousand-page international trade agreements should be replaced with a single, clearly worded paragraph that allows any U.S. business (or consumer) to trade with any other business (or consumer) anywhere else in the world on terms that are mutually satisfactory. Period.

Third, you or the Congress should immediately remove cannabis (marijuana) from its current Schedule One prohibition status under Federal law; cannabis and drug policy generally should be left entirely to the states. (Ideally the entire Drug War should be scrapped and the production and consumption by adults of any “drug” should be legalized.)

Fourth, the federal minimum wage should either be permanently fixed at its current rate or reduced. (Ideally, all minimum wage laws should be repealed since they cause job destruction.)

Fifth, the U.S. corporate tax rate should be reduced so that it is the lowest (not the highest) in the industrial world; ideally, it should be repealed entirely because it constitutes double taxation on shareholders of corporations who also pay income tax on their dividends.

Sixth, the Federal Reserve should be required by law to end all forms of quantitative easing and interest rate regulation now accomplished primarily through open market operations; interest rates for savers and investors should be market determined. In addition, the Federal Reserve’s budget should be determined by Congressional appropriations like that of any other federal department or agency.

And finally, as a long-run solution for our recurring financial problems and economic recessions, replacing the current inflationary paper dollar with alternative monetary arrangements that provide for a sound, market-based commodity money, such as the gold standard, should be seriously considered.

There will be Democratic as well as (some) Republican opposition to these changes. Count on it. But your job will be to hold fast to basic principles and persuade the opposition that long lines at airport security and rising health-care costs are based on economic ideas that are totally misguided. Socialism and progressivism and crony capitalism have failed miserably.

We need common sense capitalism and you now have a clear mandate to initiate its rebirth.

Sincerely,

Joseph T. Salerno, Pace University
Mark Thornton, Auburn University
Henry Thompson, Auburn University
Jo Ann Cavallo, Columbia University
Dominick T. Armentano, University of Hartford
Christopher Westley, Florida Gulf Coast University
Murray Sabrin, Ramapo College of New Jersey
Thomas Tacker, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
Peter M. Kerr, Southeast Missouri State University
Thomas DiLorenzo, Loyola University Maryland
Marshall DeRosa, Florida Atlantic University
Walter Block, Loyola University New Orleans
Robert Batemarco, Fordham University
Samuel Bostaph, University of Dallas
Paul A. Cleveland, Birmingham-Southern College
Peter G. Klein, Baylor University
Thomas L. Wenck, Michigan State University
John B. Egger, Towson University
Douglas Butler, Texas Christian University
William N. Butos, Trinity College
Paul Prentice, Colorado Technical University
Butler Shaffer, Southwestern University Law School
Judd Patton, Bellevue University
Paul Gottfried, Elizabethtown College
Jim Cox, Georgia Perimeter College
Roger Clites, Tusculum College
Bruce Koerber, Divine Economy Consulting

So, a chocolate fish to anyone who thinks any presumptive president, let alone a Trump, would do even a single one of these things.

 

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• Whether it is Clinton or Trump who enters the White House in January 2017, they will have perhaps the highest disapproval rating of anyone just becoming president. A sizable majority of voters are frustrated, fearful, and forlorn about the prospect having either Hillary or Donald winning this presidential election, and many, according to the polls, will be voting more against someone than for a candidate they really are positive about.
      “However, what needs to be kept in mind is that regardless of who wins, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are cut from the same interventionist-welfare state political cloth… They may pander and promote different coalitions of special interest and ideological groups, but both will use the power of the state to benefit some at the expense of others.
      “What have been lost in this election-year charade are the most fundamental issues concerning individual liberty and the role of government in free society. Alas, too many of our fellow citizens are happy with the interventionist-welfare state, as long as the plundering and paternalism serves those people and causes of which they approve.
      “If government were limited to the narrow and specific functions originally designed for in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, it would matter very little if a president was personally obnoxious and rude and crude, because that persona would have no role or responsibility beyond protection of each individual’s rights, rather than violating them.
      “It’s precisely because whoever is president becomes the plunderer and paternalist-in-chief that so many find offensive who it may be who sits in the Oval Office.”
  Donald and Hillary in Plunderland – Richard Ebeling, FEE
• “The ghost writer for the art of the deal (Trump didn't write a word of it) is pledging all of his royalties towards charities supporting those negatively affected by Trump’s proposals.
      “The Art of the Deal made America see Trump as a charmer with an unfailing knack for business. Ghostwriter Tony Schwartz helped create that myth—and regrets it.”
  Donald Trump's Ghostwriter Tells All – NEW YORKER
• “Chaos is erupting at the Republican Convention as anti-Trump forces united to replace him as the nominee, and Trump supporters lose their minds. Watch as party boss Reince Priebus flees the stage after the anti-Trump chants begins…” 

 

[Hat tips The Leighton Smith Show, Richard Ebeling, Michael Earley, Monica Beth].

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