Minor Thoughts from me to you

GasBuddy has a nifty map of gasoline prices by county. I imagine that ease of transportation explains part of the price differences. However, I think that most of the difference is explained by differences in state taxes and EPA regulations.

Keep this map in mind the next time you're tempted to blame oil companies for expensive gas.

Psycologist Robert Epstein doesn't like adolescence.

Psychologist Robert Epstein argues in a provocative book, "The Case Against Adolescence," that teens are far more competent than we assume, and most of their problems stem from restrictions placed on them.

The whole culture collaborates in artificially extending childhood, primarily through the school system and restrictions on labor. The two systems evolved together in the late 19th-century; the advocates of compulsory-education laws also pushed for child-labor laws, restricting the ways young people could work, in part to protect them from the abuses of the new factories. The juvenile justice system came into being at the same time. All of these systems isolate teens from adults, often in problematic ways.

The factory system doesn't work in the modern world, because two years after graduation, whatever you learned is out of date. We need education spread over a lifetime, not jammed into the early years"”except for such basics as reading, writing, and perhaps citizenship. Past puberty, education needs to be combined in interesting and creative ways with work. The factory school system no longer makes sense.

Imagine what it would feel like--or think back to what it felt like--when your body and mind are telling you you're an adult while the adults around you keep insisting you're a child. This infantilization makes many young people angry or depressed, with their distress carrying over into their families and contributing to our high divorce rate. It's hard to keep a marriage together when there is constant conflict with teens.

We have completely isolated young people from adults and created a peer culture. We stick them in school and keep them from working in any meaningful way, and if they do something wrong we put them in a pen with other "children." In most nonindustrialized societies, young people are integrated into adult society as soon as they are capable, and there is no sign of teen turmoil. Many cultures do not even have a term for adolescence. But we not only created this stage of life: We declared it inevitable. In 1904, American psychologist G. Stanley Hall said it was programmed by evolution. He was wrong.

He has me convinced. My own experiences reflect this. My parents homeschooled me. By my early teen years, I was ready to get out of the house and start doing more. A mutual friend taught me about relational databases, then offered me a job working for his web startup company. I remember being totally astonished that I had to get permission from City Hall (literally), in order to work at age 15. (Actually, I couldn't work at age 15. I had to wait until I was officially 15½.)

Even at such a young age that policy angered me -- I wanted to work, I wanted to do more, and my parents were supportive of that. The state, however, assumed that I was incompetent and that my parents were exploitative. Thankfully, the waiver was easy to obtain. But it shouldn't even be necessary any longer. Factories no longer thrive on grunt labor. American factories require workers with lots of skill and expertise. Our economy is fundamentally different than it was in 1900. Repealing the overly restrictive child-labor laws would not lead to an increase in child labor -- except in those situations where young adults are hungry for a chance to work.

Ironically, because minors have only limited property rights, they don't have complete control over what they have bought. Think how bizarre that is. If you, as an adult, spend money and bring home a toy, it's your toy and no one can take it away from you. But with a 14-year-old, it's not really his or her toy. Young people can't own things, can't sign contracts, and they can't do anything meaningful without parental permission"”permission that can be withdrawn at any time. They can't marry, can't have sex, can't legally drink. The list goes on. They are restricted and infantilized to an extraordinary extent.

I was also frustrated, as a teenager, by the banking restrictions. I learned to manage my money at a young age. I'm fairly certain that my parents opened my first account when I was 13. Again, I was surprised to find that I wasn't allowed to have my own bank account (my parents were co-signers on the account) or credit card until age 18. I was reasonably mature, I was capable of handling my finances, and I didn't understand why the State insisted on treating me as a child.

If my daughter matures as quickly as my wife and I did, I intend to do everything I possibly can to help her skirt these ridiculous laws and regulations. I'll help her open a bank account, I'll help her get work permits, I'll probably even put her on my credit account -- there's no sense in treating her like a child if she acts like an adult.

A few days ago, I wrote about government regulators preventing progress. You may be interested in another example.

My mother was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. By itself this fact is not particularly exciting. But, when I was younger, I learned about the burning Cuyahoga River. Once I realized what had happened, I never lost an opportunity to tease my mother about her hometown.

Recently, I learned the rest of the story. It turns out that excessive government regulation bears a large amount of the blame for the fire.

Incomes were rising and concern about industrial wastes was mounting. Pollutants were corroding sewage treatment systems and impeding their operation. In another part of the state, the Ohio River Sanitation Commission, representing the eight states that border the Ohio River (which runs along Ohio's southern border), developed innovations to reduce pollution. The municipalities and the industries along the Ohio began to invest in pollution control technology.

Unfortunately, this progress soon ended. The evolving common law and regional compacts hit a snag in 1951 when the state of Ohio created the Ohio Water Pollution Control Board. The authorizing law sounded good to the citizens of Ohio. It stated that it is "unlawful" to pollute any Ohio waters. However, the law continues: ". . . except in such cases where the water pollution control board has issued a valid and unexpired permit."(3)

The board issued or denied permits depending on whether the discharger was located on an already-degraded river classified as "industrial use" or on trout streams classified as "recreational use." Trout streams were preserved; dischargers were allowed to pollute industrial streams. The growing tendency of the courts to insist on protecting private rights against harm from pollution was replaced by a public decision-making body that allowed pollution where it thought it was appropriate.

Cleveland Mayor Carl Stokes, who helped draw attention to the Cuyahoga fire, criticized the state for letting industries pollute. "We have no jurisdiction over what is dumped in there. . . . The state gives [industry] a license to pollute," the Cleveland Plain Dealer quoted him as saying (June 24, 1969). Stokes was not far off the mark.

...

In sum, the Cuyahoga fire, which burns on in people's memory as a symbol of industrial indifference, should also be viewed as a symbol of the weaknesses of public regulation.

It's worth reading the whole thing, if only to see what I left out.

Regulation will always be "captured" by those who have a vested interest in the regulations. Rather than strictly controlling an industry, the regulatory agency will soon be controlled by the industry. This is what is happening (has happened) to the FDA and this is what contributed to the Cuyahoga River fire.

Whatever you do, don't put your faith in a regulatory agency. It will only let you down.

Quick -- how do you increase the wealth of a nation and improving living standards for everyone? I'll tell you how. First, create a stable system of laws that apply to everyone and make sure that everyone knows what they are. This creates a level playing field where neither income nor social status prevent justice from being served.

Second, allow individuals to produce goods and compete for buyers in a free and open market. Producers will compete for buyers through price, quality, and quantity. Producers will diligently strive to gain in edge in one -- or all -- of these categories, in an effort to draw more buyers and earn more profit. As each producer gains a temporary edge, other producers will rush to imitate the innovation. What starts as an innovation by one producer will quickly become the norm for an entire industry.

This cycle will repeat over and over and over again in each sector of the market. Electronics (iPod vs Zune), automobiles (American vs Japanese), furniture (getting nicer all the time), homes (getting bigger all the time), lighting (incandescent bulbs vs compact fluorescents), and more. What once was inconceivable quickly becomes the new base line standard.

At least, that's the way things normally work. Every so often, a spanner gets thrown into the works. The story of Creekstone Farms Premium Beef provides a nice illustration.

The U.S. Agriculture Department tests beef for mad cow disease. However, the USDA has a limited budget and Americans eat a lot of cows every year. As a result, less than 1% of all slaughtered beef is actually tested for mad cow disease. Creekstone Farms sells a premium grade of beef. They'd like to offer buyers another incentive to choose their beef over their competitors. They decided to gain a competitive edge by testing all of their beef for mad cow disease and certifying every cut mad-cow-free.

This would have given Creekstone Farms a decided advantage in the market for premium beef. Their competitors were worried about losing buyers to Creekstone. Rather than compete with their own innovations, they lobbied the USDA to crack down on Creekstone's innovation. The USDA ruled that no beef producer could perform more testing than the U.S. government performed.

Creekstone is fighting the ruling in court, for their right to innovate and compete in a free market.

For the moment, the forward progress of wealth and living standards has been stopped by the U.S. government. Companies that would rather lobby than innovate control the regulatory system. Do you still believe that government regulation makes the world a better place? I don't.

(Hat tip to Coyote Blog.)

The U.S. Postal Service raised it's rates for first-class mail today. No longer will you be able to buy a $0.39 stamp. The day of the $0.41 stamp is upon us. The rate hike is annoying, but ultimately not all that relevant to my life. Aside from thank-you notes and renewing license plates, I don't really use the Postal Service.

However, the USPS isn't just raising rates on first-class mail. The Postal Regulatory Comission also decided to change the way it calculates rates for periodicals and magizines:

Starting in July, postal rates for some publications will rise by as much as 30 percent, and a growing number of critics say the new rates will saddle small, independent publishers with inflated costs and betray protections granted by the founding fathers to the press.

The U.S. Postal Service gave periodicals a special class of mail more than 200 years ago and averaged rates to make it cheaper to send a magazine than a letter, while still giving publishers first-class service.

The cost to the Postal Service of sending periodicals has also risen disproportionately to other types of mail over the past 10 years.

Very basically, here's how the changes in rates are calculated: The average cost increase to periodicals is 11.7 percent, but this rate skews lower or higher for many based on price-based incentives created to push publishers to streamline their mailing operation.

A 758-page document details the plan, which plugs many variables into a pricing equation: packaging, co-mailing, co-palletting, pounds, pieces, shape, sacks, drop-shipping, points of entry, distance traveled and editorial weight versus advertising weight.

Confused? So are many publishers. It doesn't help, they say, that the computer software created to help them solve this equation won't be available until mid-June.

Both sides agree that the issue is, at its core, an ideological debate between those who believe periodical postal rates should be averaged for all to protect the democratic dissemination of information and those who see averaging as a subsidization that hinders efficiency.

It's also a fairly pointless debate. The only reason it's happening at all is that periodicals have exactly one choice for delivery: the USPS. There is no competition for first-class mail delivery. By law, anyone who tries to compete with the USPS in first-class mail delivery commits a crime. Publishers are forced to use the government monopoly, instead of using whichever company gives them the best combination of price and service.

It's time to end these pointless, stupid debates over the best way to calculate postal rates. Allow Fed-Ex, UPS, DHL, and other carriers to compete with the USPS. Let publishers choose their own mail carrier. Some carriers might have rates that are less expensive than current Postal Service rates. Other carriers might have rates that are more expensive than current Postal Service rates. Regardless, they would be rates that publishers choose to pay, based on their unique needs. Everyone would get the best combination of price, speed, and service that they need.

Right now everyone gets the same combination of price, speed, and service -- whatever the Postal Regulatory Comission decides is best for the nation.

How un-American.

My telephone service is about to get more expensive -- thanks to the FCC.

The Federal Communications Commission voted to boost the amount that cell-phone companies must pay to a fund that subsidizes phone service in rural areas, and to require Internet-based phone companies to contribute to the fund for the first time.

Under the FCC's proposal, cell-phone and other wireless providers would have to contribute as much as 3.9 percent of revenue from customers for the third quarter, while providers of Internet-based phone service would have to contribute as much as 6.8 percent of revenue.

We use Vonage for our telephone service. As an "Internet-based phone service", I expect they'll have to jack rates by a couple of percentage points in the next month or so. I'm close to getting another cell phone. Looks like that'll be getting more expensive as well.

How long has it been since rural phone service has truly needed a subsidizing? All that's happening now is that people who choose to live in the sticks get artificially cheaper telephone service -- at my expense. Hope they're enjoying it.

The Wisconsin State Journal has a decent article on the pitfalls of regulation. The article correctly points out that many regulatory investigations are simple abuses of power and that regulation targets anyone with innovative, new, or disruptive ideas.

I do have one comment, however. The article points out that the state legislature makes decisions about what to regulate.

"What often happens is that constituents contact their local legislators and talk to them about the need," Martin said. "Often the professions themselves approach the legislator, asking to be regulated."

True enough. But there is a good reason why professions ask to be regulated -- and it's not for the good of the consumer. Professions can face competition from new businesses, new practitioners, or new ways of doing something. By regulating a profession, the members of that profession can ensure oversee who enters the profession. They can ensure that no new methods of doing business are introduced without their approval. They can limit the number of new practitioners that enter the profession. In short, they can limit competition and better insure their own business success. This is not aimed at protecting the consumer, but at protecting the existing businesses or practitioners.

After all, are you really at risk from unlicensed barbers or interior designers? In Wisconsin, these privileged workers are protected from undue competition. I seriously doubt that Wisconsin consumers were ever really at risk from either profession.

Instead of using our oil ourselves, we may soon be watching Cuba use them on behalf of China and India. Does something about that sound wrong? It sure does to me.

We can do something about the potential encroachment on our oil fields by lifting the bans on off-shore drilling and increasing the domestic production of oil and natural gas. The Times notes that we could become self-sufficient for energy for the next generation just on the known oil and gas reserves off our shores, and that does not count the ANWR preserve. The commodities market for oil would deflate with the US running on its own energy production, greatly reducing the revenue to potentially dangerous regimes. At the least, we can shed our trade with Venezuela and the Middle East, focusing on imports from Canada and Mexico instead, and extending the life of our reserves in the process. That would send a message that we have the will to reach self-sufficiency as well as remind some regimes how much they rely on American petrodollars and the inflated price of oil for survival.

Instead of providing for our own needs -- thus lessening our dependence on Venezualen oil and Iranian oil -- we're content to "protect the environment" and ignore our energy needs. While I have my (large) differences with the Republicans in Washington, the Democrats increasingly seem to be bent on stupidity.

Instead, we will probably continue to dream up conspiracy theories about greedy oil companies which have few investment choices, given the restrictions on drilling and refining that the US has imposed on the domestic industry. And while we travel through the fascination of paranoia, we will allow our economic and military rivals to steal our reserves out from underneath us -- literally -- and pretend that their drilling somehow doesn't carry the same environmental problems as our drilling would.

(A tip o' the hat to Captain Ed. The analysis is his, I'm just passing it along.)

The California Legislature thinks you're too dumb to own an ultrasound machine. Here's why:

"I've seen the images, and they are amazing," Mr. Lieu, referring to ultrasound pictures, said in a telephone interview after the Assembly vote. "I could watch for hours. That's the problem. Someone could leave it on the belly all day long and do harm without even knowing it."

Some studies have shown that when used improperly, the ultrasound machine can heat internal organs and the fluid inside a womb, possibly causing neurological damage to a fetus, Mr. Lieu said.

Is Mr. Lieu afraid that he's a moron or that the voters are morons? I trust that the American populace is smart enough to use ultrasound machines responsibly. Mr. Lieu just thinks you're an idiot who will strap one on and leave it running for the next 8 hours.

Fortunately, one California legislator actually uses his brain:

"We can't legislate everything, and this is certainly one of those things that we're going down the path of just really binding our society with a billion little laws," said Assemblyman Dave Cogdill, a Republican from the Central Valley.

Would that the rest of the legislators took a hint. Wouldn't it be simpler to just outlaw everything and force voters to ask for permission before doing anything? It sure looks like that's the road we're headed down.

Senate Democrats are, apparently, in favor of making sure gas stays expensive. How else do you explain this FoxNews story:

Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne's nomination for interior secretary could run into trouble from Senate Democrats who want to use it as a bargaining chip to stop more oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

[Sen. Bill] Nelson [D-Fla], citing the potential for environmental damage, said Wednesday he would "keep all my options open" for delaying the nomination. "I have nothing personally at all against Governor Kempthorne," Nelson said after meeting with Kempthorne, a former senator.

When we need as much oil as we can possibly get, the Senate is more concerned with making sure we can't use any of our own.

From today's Wisconsin State Journal (Federal health insurance bill draws wide opposition):

Senate Bill 1955 would let small businesses and trade associations band together and offer group health coverage on a national or regional basis. No law precludes them from doing that now, but a patchwork of state insurance mandates makes it cost-prohibitive and logistically impractical, said Craig Orfield, spokesman for Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., the bill's lead sponsor.

Currently, each state decides which benefits insurance companies must offer. In Wisconsin, the mandates include mammograms, alcoholism treatment, child wellness services and chiropractic care.

Some people are opposed to the bill:

The cancerous tumor in Nancy Restivo's breast was no bigger than a grain of salt when a routine mammogram discovered it in 1994. She credits the mammogram - paid for by her insurance company - with saving her life.

"I'd want that kind of coverage for as many people as possible," said Restivo, 59, a retired Janesville teacher.

I have a question for Ms Restivo. Your health insurance is more expensive because it covers all routine mammograms. For some people, that extra coverage makes their health insurance too expensive to afford. Do you want that kind of coverage mandated for everyone with health insurance if it means that some people will not be able to afford health insurance? Would you prefer that more people have basic health insurance or that fewer people have comprehensive health insurance?

I'm not sure yet whether or not I support this bill. On the whole, I'd prefer that the Federal government stick its fingers into as few pies as possible. I think regulation is best done by the states, not by Washington. On the other hand, this may be one of the few Senate bills that is actually permitted under the Constitution's Interstate Commerce Clause.

Yesterday, the price of a gallon of gas in Madison jumped up to $2.79 a gallon. I have every expectation of seeing it go higher over the next several weeks and months. Why is it so expensive? Well, there are several factors at play.

First of all, the demand for gasoline is starting to increase. The weather is getting warmer and people want to travel more: to the park, to the grocery store for cookout supplies, to State Parks for get-togethers, to the Wisconsin Dells, etc. Simple supply and demand: as the quantity demanded increases, the price will tend to increase as well.

Secondly, the supply of gasoline may be decreasing. Many cities and regions regulate the type of gasoline that can be sold and used. They require one blend of gasoline for winter driving and another blend of gasoline for summer driving. As the refineries switch from winter production to summer production, supplies of gasoline will drop. It will take time for the refineries to fully gear up for the summer blend of gasoline. Until that happens, supplies of the summer blend will be limited. As the quantity supplied decreases, the price will tend to increase.

Thirdly, taxes. Every person in the U.S. pays 18.4 cents a gallon in Federal gas taxes. We Wisconsin residents are privileged to pay another 31.1 cents a gallon in state gas taxes. I pay a total of 49.5 cents a gallon in taxes. That means that 17.7% of the price of gas is tax related.

Fourthly, gasoline additives. Federal regulators are concerned with reducing the amount of pollution produced by gasoline. To accomplish this, they require that oil refineries put pollution reducing chemicals into the gasoline. MTBE used to be the preferred additive. However, in March of this year, federal regulators started requiring all oil companies to use ethanol instead. This is, or will be, a problem. Midwest ethanol producers were already struggling to keep up with the demand for ethanol before it was mandated as an additive for all gasoline sold in the United States. The demand for ethanol is now far, far greater than it had been. In additional, ethanol is more expensive to transport and to store than MTBE was. To put it bluntly, this "simple regulatory change" could add another 30 cents to the price of a gallon of gasoline.

Finally, balkanized gasoline markets. For most products, supplies can move freely from one region of the country to another. If there is a shortage of (for instance) wood in New Orleans, New Orleans businesses can buy more wood from other areas of the country. If there is a shortage of steel in Manhattan, construction firms can buy more steel from Indiana. The gasoline market doesn't work this way, unfortunately. Many cities and states mandate unique blends of gasoline. California has a very strict set of requirements. Milwaukee has another set. Buffalo has a third set and New York City has yet another. Most of the Midwest requires different gasoline than most of the East Coast.

All of these requirements are mutually exclusive. Milwaukee drivers can't use Buffalo gas and California drivers can't use gas from New York City. If New York City faces a gasoline shortage, there is no one to buy extra supplies from. Thus, the price of gasoline will sharply increase in New York City -- but nowhere else. If New York City drivers were free to use gasoline from other regions, then New York City gas station owners could simply import more gasoline from Upstate New York, New Jersey, or other surrounding regions. Sadly for NYC drivers, it is illegal to do so and they simply have to suffer with higher gas prices.

These five factors: increasing demand, (temporary) decreasing supply, taxes, federally mandated gasoline additives, and balkanized markets have a large influence on the price of a gallon of gasoline. Of those five factors, three are government created. Sad to say, your government has a larger influence on the price of gasoline than the oil companies do. As a matter of fact, over the years, the Federal government alone has "earned" more money from gasoline than the oil companies have.

As you drive this summer and watch the steady climb of gasoline prices, remember who to blame. Your state and federal representatives will tell you that greedy oil executives are ripping you off. What your representatives won't tell you is that their own greed will have more influence on the price of gasoline than that of the oil executives. What your representatives won't tell you is that their rules and regulations concerning what gasoline you can put into your car will affect the price of gasoline far more than the greed of oil executives. They won't tell you, so you will have to remember -- and hold them accountable for their actions.

Madison's smoking ban claimed its first (business) victim yesterday. The Hammer Time bar on Madison's East Side announced that it will be closing on April 15. Bob Tague and Carla Hammerschmidt, the current owners, blame the loss of business, caused by the smoking ban.

The Wisconsin State Journal attempts to spin the story as nothing major -- just another bar, already in financial difficulty, that was forced to close:

But financial difficulties already plagued the location when the current owners ... bought it in June 2004.

When the couple bought the bar, formerly known as Vial's Lake Edge Tavern, the asking price reflected $58,800 in needed repairs, money owed to vendors and back taxes, according to court documents.

But the history of financial difficulties at the location, along with the decision to buy a tavern business after the ban was approved, led some observers Wednesday to doubt the connection between the ban and the shutdown.

It's true, Tague and Hammerschmidt took a risk by buying the bar. It needed repairs, still owed taxes, and the ban had already been approved. This is something to applaud. Had they succeeded in renovating the bar, they would have kept jobs in the neighborhood (possibly creating new jobs along the way) and kept taxes flowing to the City Council.

The Council chose to make that renovation harder than it had to be. Instead of supporting local business, supporting private property rights, and supporting people's moral right to choose whether or not to expose themselves to cigarette smoke, the council chose to hamstring local businesses and limit their competitiveness. As a result, Tague and Hammerschmidt will lose their investment. The bar employees will lose their jobs. And the city of Madison will lose another tax-paying business.

The bar may have failed even without the smoking ban. But the smoking ban made success far harder than it otherwise would have been. It would be nice to have the City Council stand up and take responsibility for the results of their ban. But they won't. It's far easier to make moral stands than to face the results of those stands. And Madison voters have shown that they're perfectly willing to accept that behavior from their Aldermen. Indeed, many Madison voters seem to positively relish doing the same thing.

To those voters: Enjoy your moral certainty. While you're celebrating the success of the ban, I'll be thinking of the employees and employers that you're hurting. One of us has the right to the moral high ground. I'm not certain it's you.

[tags]smoking ban, regulation[/tags]

Will Wilkinson presents his Health Care Fantasia that includes the following prescriptions for cheaper health care: decartelization of doctors, abolishing the FDA, offering real insurance markets, creating a health care ideas futures market, creating electronic diagnostic services, allowing people to have big health care savings accounts, and forcing people to have a catastrophic insurance plan. Along with those ideas, he takes a stab at solving the problem of uninsured citizens. I support all of his ideas. Rather than making me repeat what's good, just go read it for yourself.

Last year, Arnold Kling presented his idea for a Medical Guidelines Commission that would:

consist of, say, seven members drawn from the disciplines of medical research, medical practice, statistics and actuarial science, and economics. It would have a staff with similar expertise to evaluate research and to oversee grants to stimulate research where none is available.

The Commission would have two main functions:

• Collect and summarize research about the effectiveness of various medical practices. For those of us willing to work with doctors to make our own decisions, this information would be sufficient.

• Issue guidelines that could be taken as recommendations for best practices. These guidelines would serve those people who would be intimidated by statistical research and prefer to be told what to do. The guidelines might also serve as industry-wide benchmarks.

Guidelines would not be carved in stone. Patients and doctors would be free to choose treatments that differ from the guidelines. Moreover, the guidelines themselves would change over time, because medicine is a constantly-evolving art.

The trick to making health care cheaper is to make health care more plentiful. The more patients can do for themselves, the cheaper health care will become (because the demand for doctor provided health care will be lower). The easier it is for people to become doctors, the cheaper health care will become (because the supply of doctors will be higher).

I'd like to draw attention to something that Will mentioned in his post: does setting a broken arm really require a full-fledged MD? Setting a broken arm has nothing to do with the liver, heart, lungs, kidney's, or any of the other subjects that MD's study. Why not open up the market for health care and allow people to specialize in specific areas of expertise (splinting broken bones) without requiring them to obtain a full medical degree?

(Hat tip to Arnold Kling)

In American politics today, there is a simple question that divides us: who makes our choices? Do we make our own choices or do we stand aside and let someone else make our choices for us? This is the question that fuels the debate over school choice, over ethanol mandates, over FDA drug approvals, and over a host of other issues.

There are those that believe that only government employees can be trusted to make decisions. They believe that parents cannot be trusted to choose a school for their own children. They believe that drivers cannot be trusted to choose the best fuel for their vehicles. They believe that patients cannot be trusted to choose which medicines to take. As a result, they established the FDA to pick and choose our medicines for us. They established local School Boards to run the schools, making it as difficult as possible for parents to use non-government schools. They support ethanol mandates, to make us use the fuels they like best.

This governmental paternalism is always presented as a benevolent service. A service that government willingly provides to its citizens. But is it benevolent? Does government paternalism really make our lives better? Are we really better off if the government makes our choices for us?

Let me make this entire issue more personal: do you trust the FDA to make the right decisions about your drugs? Be cautious how you respond. The FDA has two criteria for approving drugs: is it safe and does it work? Every drug must be tested thoroughly -- a process that often lasts 10 years or more. Some drugs make it through these tests and are approved for sale, most don't.

What does it mean when a drug fails its tests? It means that the drug doesn't work more often than it does. It means that the drug hurts more people than it helps. It doesn't mean that the drug never works and it doesn't mean that the drug always causes harm. FDA employees look at the test results and make a decision. Does the drug work often enough, in a safe enough manner to be sold? In some manner, these decisions are arbitrary. There is no hard and fast line that can determine whether or not a drug is appropriate for human usage.

FDA doctors look at all of the variables, all of the tests, all of the evidence and make one decision. This decision is binding on all 300 million American citizens. This decision is no mere recommendation. It is a crime to use a drug that the FDA has not certified as being safe and effective. Both the patient taking it and the doctor prescribing it can be thrown into jail if their usage of the drug does not meet FDA "guidelines".

Is the FDA's decision really that valid? Is it really valid for all 300 million Americans? Probably not. There are tradeoffs involved in the decision to take any drug. Is it going to work? How well will it work? What side effects will there be? How severe will the side effects be? Is there a danger of death? How big is that danger of death? What benefits does the drug offer? How dramatic are those benefits? Are those benefits worth the danger of death? These are questions that don't have a one-size fits all answer. Some drugs may be very dangerous for some patients and very safe for others. Some drugs may have no effect on one person and a life-changing effect for another person. And yet, the FDA makes the same decision binding on both people.

Case in point: yesterday, the FDA heard testimony from patients with multiple sclerosis about a called Tysabri. This drug has been called a breakthrough for the treatment of M.S. Multiple sclerosis is a neurological disease that affects about 400,000 Americans. It wouldn't be surprising if a drug that treats neurological defects has neurological side effects. So it is with Tysabri. Tysabri has been linked to P.M.L. (progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy), a rare but deadly neurologic virus.

On the one hand, we have a drug that's been hailed as a breakthrough treatment for a debilitating disease. On the other hand, we have a drug that can kill those who take it. Should it be available for patients to take or not? The FDA is currently deciding. The FDA is currently deciding whether or not M.S. patients can take a potentially life-changing (and possibly life threatening) drug. Why is the FDA deciding this issue? Why can't these patients make their own decisions? Pamela Clark of Salt Lake City told the agency that "We understand the risks of using experimental drugs, but we also understand the risks of doing nothing." She also reported that "Tysabri had allowed her to walk to a duck pond with her two 5-year-old sons and stand up long enough to cook dinner."

Tysabri has made Pamela's life better. It's allowed her to enjoy life again. She weighed the risk and decided that the benefit of the drug was worth the risk. Unfortunately for Pamela, she's not allowed to make that decision. She has to wait for the FDA to make the decision for her.

Do you think that's right? Do you think that Pamela should be prevented from deciding for herself? Do you think that her illness distorts her judgment in such a way that she is incapable of making her own decision? Would your answer change if you were in Pamela's shoes? Are you willing to turn control of your life over to government employees?

It's time to make a choice.

Madison's liberals spend a lot of time talking about helping the poor and improving the lives of the poor. This is, bluntly, a load of hogwash.

The Capital Times published another article about Wisconsin Health Care for All and their plan to offer health care to everyone in the city of Madison. In this article, I learned that most of the group's members are former Kerry campaign members. They were, understandably, depressed after Senator Kerry's loss in the 2004 election:

"We decided that we wanted to keep working," said Barbara Spar, who teaches human resources management at Madison Area Technical College. "We wanted to be for something. We wanted to use our energy instead of being depressed."

They decided to use their energy to implement universal health care on a local level -- Madison, specifically. As I wrote previously, the group wants to implement their plan by requiring all businesses in Madison to pay a portion of their payroll into an insurance fund. Businesses that already provide healthcare will be exempt from this new "fee".

The group boasts that they have an economist as one of their leaders: John Kalfayan. Therefore, group members are certain that their plan will not hurt businesses in Madison or lead to layoffs. Quite possibly they're right. If they are able to implement their plan, I have every confidence that no existing businesses will close. Furthermore, I'm fairly confident that no one will be laid off as a result of this plan.

That's not to say that this plan will good for everyone. This is one small group of people that would be hurt by this plan: those who have few marketable job skills. As an economist, I would expect that Mr. Kalfayan is familiar with the idea of "marginal utility". Simply put, marginal utility is the value that someone gets from the last unit of something. Think of it this way: for a hungry man, a single burger has great value. A second burger would be appreciated, but a little bit less than the first burger was. A third burger would be okay, but he might not miss it if it wasn't there. A fourth burger might even be ignored. The fourth burger then has a much lower marginal utility than the first burger did.

The same principle holds true in business. As businesses hire more employees, each employee will have a lower marginal utility to the business. If it is too expensive to hire an additional employee (for instance, if the employer must provide healthcare in addition to minimum wage), the business may choose to make do with the employees they already have. Thus, while this healthcare plan may not cause any layoffs it will, quite possibly, prevent new jobs from being created.

There is another factor that will come into play. As employees become more expensive, businesses will choose to hire only the best employees. If this new "healthcare fee" causes the minimum wage to rise from $5.50 an hour to $5.94 an hour, the employer will only hire employees who can contribute more than $5.94 an hour to the bottom line. This means employers will only hire someone who is fully trained and competent.

What about less qualified applicants? What about people who might have had trouble holding down a job in the past or who have limited work experience or who simply require a lot of on the job training? The answer is simple: it will be much harder for them to find work. They will be passed over in favor of applicants who can justify the higher pay scale.

Implementing this healthcare plan would remove the lowest rung from the economic ladder. Implementing this healthcare plan would lead to businesses squeezing out applicants who are inexperienced or under-qualified. For these people, Wisconsin Health Care for All is not offering a choice of a job without healthcare benefits or a job with healthcare benefits. No, for these people, Wisconsin Health Care for All only offers the choice of a job with healthcare or no job at all. Which do you think a desperate man would prefer: a job without healthcare or no job whatsoever?

I know which option I would prefer. The simple fact of the matter is, this plan would neither help the poor nor make them better off. It is a purely cosmetic fix that will have large, hidden repercussions. While Madison's liberals will pat themselves on the back for the workers they've helped, they'll be completely oblivious to the people they've hurt.

I'd rather focus on why Madison's businesses can't voluntarily offer health insurance. I have a sneaking suspicion that it might have something to do with the fact that only four states in the nation have higher taxes than Wisconsin. Unfortunately, that problem will only be made worse by taking a new payroll "fee" from local businesses.