Pun Salad

… these guys?

Also of note:

• Speaking of which… Jeff Maurer notes the latest candidates for rusty-razor belly-shaving, all 100 members of the US Senate: Republican, Democrats Unite to Do Dumb, Bad Thing.

  It often seems that politics exists in a perpetual stalemate, with Republicans and Democrats unable to find common ground. So, it was notable this week when both parties put aside their differences to advance a Senate bill by unanimous vote! WOW! Deadlock is NOT a foregone conclusion! The cynics are wrong — Republicans and Democrats can still come together to do big things!

  If only the thing that they did hadn’t been a huge pile of elephant shit that will make America worse. Unfortunately, it was — the Senate’s “no tax on tips” bill advances a concept supported by virtually no economist in the world. The one thing that our leaders can agree on seems to be that America needs more loophole-ridden legislation that sounds like something that would win fourth prize in a “how I would make America better” grade school essay contest. The Senate bill would complicate the tax code, worsen a tipping epidemic that has already reached the level of a biblical plague, and pander to the working poor without actually helping them. The fact that the Senate joined hands to do this doesn’t warm my heart so much as make me want to move to a cabin in the woods and throw mud at anyone who tries to bother me.

  Later in the article: "The strongest argument for this bill seems to be 'It won’t actually do anything.'"

• If you can stand one more article on Biden… Let it be by Steve Hayes, on Mortal Sin.

  In an interview last week, Joe Biden’s national security adviser claimed he was stunned to see his boss’ disastrous debate performance in June 2024. “What happened in that debate was a shock to me,” Jake Sullivan said. “I think it was a shock to everybody.”

  Seeing the president incapable of completing sentences and lost in a tangle of words may have been shocking for someone who routinely avoids the news. But it wasn’t surprising to anyone paying even casual attention to Biden over the past several years. And it certainly wasn’t a surprise to Jake Sullivan.

  On December 9, 2022, more than 18 months before the debate that would end his political career, Biden forgot the names of two White House senior officials. One of them was Jake Sullivan.

  Jake now says he "doesn't recall" this.

  He has a pretty cushy position at the University Near Here. I don't know what it actually involves, or how much it pays, but I'm hoping it involves public forums where he can be questioned about this.

• Meet the new boss… … same as the old boss, as reported by Jack Nicastro: Andrew Ferguson is taking up Lina Khan's antitrust work at the FTC.

  On February 26, new Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Andrew Ferguson announced the creation of the Joint Labor Task Force, continuing former Chair Lina Khan's departure from what is known as the consumer welfare standard.

  Congress established the FTC in 1914 to prevent unfair competition and deceptive business practices. This has primarily meant "protecting Americans in their role as consumers," according to Ferguson. The FTC enforces the Clayton Antitrust Act, which outlawed price discrimination between customers, exclusive dealing, interlocking directorates, and mergers or acquisitions that "substantially reduce competition."

  But Khan was more interested in Americans' role as producers than consumers. In 2022 she signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the National Labor Relations Board to "protect workers against unfair methods of competition, unfair or deceptive acts or practices, and unfair labor practices," such as restrictive contract provisions. In August 2023, Khan signed a similar MOU with the Department of Labor recognizing both agencies' shared commitment to protecting workers from deceptive earnings claims, restrictive noncompete and nondisclosure contracts, and the "impact of labor market concentration."

  I've been dumping on Lina Kahn for around 4.5 years. (First example of many here.) It looks like we'll have someone else to kick around now.

• What governments can do well: kill people and stage publicity stunts. Robert F. Graboyes has an interesting essay at his substack: Central Planning Meets Socialist Realism. It is in response to a reader's question (paraphrased): Why did central planning work for the Allies in World War II, and not anywhere else? Roberg begins:

  Of course, WWII America was not a Soviet-style planned economy, but 50% of the economy was government, and the government did exert an unusually heavy influence over the private sector during that period. So, a central planning enthusiast can plausibly argue that the U.S. had a quasi-centrally planned economy and that it was a rousing success. But the key to that success (versus the Soviets’ 75-year failure) was that in WWII, America had a single, clear, time-limited, objectively verifiable goal—survival. Everything else was secondary. There was essentially universal agreement among Americans of all political groupings with that urgent and temporary goal. Given the extreme threat posed by the Axis Powers, Americans were willing to endure great sacrifices they would not ordinarily tolerate. And they were willing to put aside much of the self-interested behavior that characterizes more normal times.

  A shared goal in the face of external threat can temporarily provide a burst of bureaucratic efficiency and selflessness that is unsustainable for more than a few years. In 2006, I attended a lecture by Burt Rutan, the aviation pioneer who built the first successful private-sector manned spacecraft—Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipOne. In his lecture, Rutan explained why NASA (which he called “NAY-SAY”) went from nothing to manned lunar landings in eleven years and then sank into a dreary 34-year (now 53-year) doldrums in manned spaceflight. He argued that in NASA’s fertile decade, Americans viewed the Soviets as a constant and lethal threat and saw the space program as a tool for beating the Communists into submission. NASA operated like the central planner’s dream, with everyone working relentlessly, minimal bureaucratic squabbles, high tolerance for risk, absence of self-serving behavior. Plus, the American people were overwhelmingly willing to hand over to NASA whatever resources were necessary to do the job.

  It's interesting and insightful all the way through.

• Defending the indefensible. Aaron Kheriaty and Jeffrey Tucker attempt to explain: Why Trump’s Prescription Drugs Order Promotes A Freer Market.

  For the same pharmaceutical products, U.S. prices can be anywhere between two and ten times higher in U.S. markets compared to prices across the border. Nor is importation allowed, even though this would drive prices toward equilibrium by facilitating market competition.

  This problem has persisted for decades. U.S. taxpayers and health insurance subscribers subsidize pharmaceutical products for the rest of the world. While many politicians have denounced this problem, and sworn to fix it with a genuine competitive market, the barriers have traced to the same source: entrenched industrial interests that like the rigged monopolistic system of price gouging as it is.

  I'm dubious. But see what you think.