Plausibly Undeniable
The Dallas County Commission — faced with a choice between saddling developers with reams of red tape or stepping out of the way and letting them go to work — did the right thing. This despite the maneuvering of South Dallas’ worst enemy. Laissez-faire, boys.
(Down worry about John Wiley Price; I’m sure he’ll find someone else to shake down.)
Amazing quote from the story:
State Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, had asked commissioners to support the project, saying it was needed to help development.
…
He told commissioners that opposition to the plan was coming from those with “profit reasons.”
Like that’s a bad thing. What he’s saying is, how dare the first group of people to actually make a difference in South Dallas — private developers — worry about getting a return on their investment?
Tool.
Dave Levinthal has the highlights of a sitdown between the DMN edit board and supporters of a plan to build a $550 million convention center hotel in the second worst hotel market in the country.
Bottom line: They don’t consider themselves bound by the will of the voters in an upcoming May referendum, nor do they plan to respect any potential court order or injunction.
Just — wow. And damn.
Would an April construction date, then, effectively render irrelevant a likely May referendum on whether Dallas may build this particulay publicly owned hotel?
“Yes,” Mr. Leppert said during a meeting Tuesday before The Dallas Morning News’ editorial board.
And what if an anti-hotel organization, namely Citizens Against the Taxpayer-Owned Hotel, decides to sue the city or seek a court injunction?
“Anyone can sue on anything. But we feel like we’re in a good position,” Mr. Leppert said. “We will continue to move forward on the schedule we’ve identified.”
Do I need to add anything?
From Harvard University economist Jeffrey Miron, via Reason. Well played.
Maybe I’m reading this wrong, but this looks downright disturbing. The Institute for Urban Policy Research at the University of Texas at Dallas measures Dallas’ improvement based on how different neighborhoods are growing more alike. That is, measured by differences in income, crime rates, education, housing values, and other stuff. So much for “diversity.”
What’s weird is they consider it a good thing if, say, some of the wealthier neighborhoods were to lose some wealth and were closer in income averages to poorer neighborhoods. Or if the same crime that plagues Pleasant Grove were to plague everywhere else in Dallas. (It works the other way too — if the worse neighborhoods were improving and more like the better neighborhoods, also good.) Whether everyone gets better or worse makes no difference; they care about everyone being more alike.
The goal — presumably their ideal — is equality of life and equality of outcome, which is…unsettling.
It’s like those goobers who worry about the “growing income gap,” which is both a meaningless measure and the last thing people should be concerned about.
That is to say, there is always going to be a gap, and that gap widens even if everyone makes exactly the same percentage gain in income. For example: Dave makes $10,000, Omar makes $100,000. Income gap is $90,000. Both have an increase of 20 percent in their income. Dave now makes $12,000, and Omar makes $120,000. Both are better off, but the income gap has increased to $108,000. And Omar isn’t gaining at Dave’s expense. It’s not like there’s a finite amount of income out there and if Omar makes more, that leaves less for Dave.
Further, that dreaded income gap is a measure of freedom to achieve. It’s not like the government assigns well-paying jobs to rich people and crappy ones to poor people. And there’s so much income mobility (rich people going broke, poor people becoming middle class, middle class people getting rich) going on all the time, no one is stuck in a permanent caste.
(And I just know someone is going to say that wages for the middle class have stagnated over the past eight years. Don’t try it, or I swear I will ban you from the Internet. Yes, middle class wages have stalled, largely because of the 2000 recession (Clinton), 9/11, Bush’s lousy economic policies and his, contrary to popular opinion, refusal — yes, refusal — to deregulate. Eight years is cherry picking a too small sample — income and wealth have increased dramatically across all levels going back to the end of World War II.)
Sam Merten and I have a lot in common, not the least of which is our affinity for the suburbs and mutual disdain of regular shaving. We also share a healthy skepticism of the city of Dallas getting into the hotel business. But now I’m going to have to kill him.
Today it’s Sam’s turn to dig up some inconvenient facts about the supporters of the $550 million taxpayer owned hotel project. And he finds a doozy. I mean, it made Councilman Mitch Rasansky say, “Oh, Jesus Christ,” which is kinda funny if you know Mitch. Read all about here.
(That’s it, Merten. I challenge you to a throw-down.)
My friend Radley Balko explains it all too well.
Which brings me back to why the Republicans need to get throttled: A humiliated, decimated GOP that rejuvenates and rebuilds around the principles of limited government, free markets, and rugged individualism is really the only chance for voters to possibly get a real choice in federal elections down the road.
Of course, there’s no guarantee that’s how the party will emerge from defeat. But the Republican Party in its current form has forfeited its right to govern.
Read the full column here.
This is a bit depressing, but hardly surprising. From this month’s issue of The Atlantic (which features an awesome new look for the old girl and a great column by Virginia Postrel.)
Jackboot JunkiesPeople living under the yoke of corrupt governments tend to want … more government regulation. It’s a vicious cycle: in trusting societies, people act civilly and expect less government interference. In distrustful societies, people act selfishly and expect tighter regulation. But more government corruption leads to less-trusting societies, and citizens will generally “prefer state control to unbridled production by uncivil firms”—even when they know their leaders are crooked.
—“Regulation and Distrust,” [PDF] National Bureau of Economic Research
Given the choice between conspiracy and incompetence, I usually chalk up what the federal government does more to the latter. But it makes you wonder about the mess the government created with the housing market through Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and going all the way back to the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). It’s almost like they planned this, knowing they could cash in on “disaster socialism.”
In fact, it looks exactly like that.
