UK Judge Encourages Squatters, Wants List of Empty Homes

I try to pay attention to what is going on in the United Kingdom, as much of our political inheritance (Magna Carta, common law, etc.) comes from the home country.  So this story from the UK's Daily Mail comes as a mild shock,

"Squatters should be encouraged because they bring empty homes back into use, a judge said yesterday....She ordered a list of empty homes in North London to be made public to the Advisory Service for Squatters, an East London-based organisation known as the ‘estate agency for squatters’."

So much for property rights.

Joel Kotkin on California's Decline and Fall

From the Daily Beast comes this piece by Joel Kotkin on California's decline and fall ("The Golden State is Crumbling").  It serves is a good companion to the Victor Davis Hanson pieces that I linked to yesterday.  Hanson and Kotkin are observing the same phenomena at work:  Hanson in the Central part of the state and from a more conservative perspective and Kotkin in the Southern part and a more liberal perspective.  I find it interesting that they come to such similar conclusions,

Both commentators see the end of progress, in the usual meaning of the word.  Hanson observes the end of the great road, dam and water projects.  Kotkin identifies the proximate cause of this urge to de-civilization,

"California's dominant ruling class—consisting of public-employee unions, green jihadis, and Democratic machine politicians—has no real use for science as [former University President] Coit saw it: as a way to create prosperity for its citizens.  Instead, the prevailing credo of the state has been how to do everything possible to return to its pre-settlement condition, with little regard for what that means to the average Californian."

Kotkin's solution:  regime change.

Manhole Covers and The Fall of Rome

At Pajamas Media, classicist Victor Davis Hanson chronicles the decline and fall of our once great Republic in a series of eye-witness accounts from central California.  One particular passage caught my eye this week, a followup to his post the previous week reporting on the theft of manhole covers by city staff to be sold as scrap,

"This week?  An epidemic of the theft of honorific bronze plaques from the walls of the city’s schools, civic centers, and public buildings—the sort of commemoration for good deeds that are the stuff of civilization.  It reminds me of Procopius’s description of post-Roman Italy in the 6th-century AD, when lost Ostrogoth and Visigoth souls drifted amid the great cities of the Old Romans, cannibalizing the ancients’ marble, bronze, and lead clamps, and melting down monuments for lime."

The Danger of One-Party Rule, Part 2

Today's Minneapolis Star Tribune includes a story about an upcoming special election for the Minnesota State Senate.  Headlined "Minneapolis sees diminished clout at Capitol", it ranges far and wide in an effort to explain the City's diminished influence at the state legislature.  The article mentions the 2010 Republican takeover of both houses and key retirements that reduced the local delegation's seniority.

Yet the article bravely refuses to discuss the two most obvious points to be made regarding Minneapolis and its experience in the 2011 legislative session.  First was the multi-billion budget deficit, which resulted in reductions to local government aid and school aid across the state.  The article makes it sound that budget cuts to Minneapolis were purely the result of Republican spite.

More importantly, the article fails to mention that the City, from school board members to U.S. Senate, has not a single Republican representative at any level of government.  A few days ago, in an earlier post I discussed the dangers of one-party rule.  The Star Tribune quotes another State Senator, saying "We're a liberal city and liberals are not in charge."  Indeed.

Liberalism in Minneapolis is now a victim of its own success.  The district with the upcoming special election cast only 11 percent of its votes for the Republican in 2010.  Also that year, the local congressional district went more than two-thirds for the democratic candidate.

With liberalism holding a complete monopoly on power, the City has no advocate to press its case in St. Paul or with the Republican House of Representatives in Washington, DC.

It's now up to the people to decide.  Stick with liberalism in overwhelming numbers and watch the City's decline continue or create a more competitive political environment where both parties have a stake in the success of the state's largest city.

Minneapolis is no outlier on this point, pick any "blue" state where a single metropolitan area dominates the landscape--Illinois, Maryland, Michigan--and we find a similar situation.  A one-party liberal domination of the urban area, to the extent that Republicans/Conservatives feel they can safely steer clear and have nothing to lose. 

For some weeks now, I have been beating the drum for the idea that it is important to create an environment where the "wrong people" have the incentive to do the "right thing."  It's even more important than getting the "right people" elected to office.  Liberals in Minneapolis have succeeded spectacularly in getting the "right people" elected (from their viewpoint).  They are now faced with problem of getting the "wrong people" to help them.  Good luck!

Green Jobs and Wealthy Suburbs

In Friday's Wall Street Journal, Stephen Moore contributes an opinion piece (subscription required) on " 'Green Jobs' vs. Real Energy Jobs".  He makes the point that investment in conventional energy produces many more jobs, per dollar of government subsidy, than the clean energy economy touted by the Obama Administration.

What struck me about Moore's column was an anecdote involving my old hometown of Arlington County, Virginia.  Arlington received $300,000 of stimulus money to pay for a solar power installation on a library, saving $14,000 a year in electricity costs.

Moore wonders "why the feds are giving one of the five wealthiest counties in America free money."  I wonder why Arlington got a so much better deal than my new hometown of Edina, Minnesota.

The Arlington project produces a payback period of 21 years.  Edina's project clocks in at 153 years.

Firefighters and bike coordinators

An update on the the the controversy of Minneapolis firefighters and bike coordinators.  Earlier this week, it came to light that the City was going ahead to hire a "bike coordinator" at a salary of up to $84,000, even while laying off 10 firefighters.  Now comes an update that the City Council and the Mayor have reached a compromise to save 4 of the ten firefighters' jobs.  But the City Council voted 11-2 to move ahead with hiring the bike coordinator.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune quotes Mayor R.T. Rybak,

" 'We did something today you didn't see at the Capitol or in Washington--we compromised,' Rybak said after the meeting."

I sure hope the Mayor was joking.  The Mayor and the City Council are all members of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party, with the exception of one Green Party member.  Democrats compromising with Democrats should not be considered an achievement.  An intra-party agreement, that retains the same misplaced priorities that each side began with, does not serve the people well.

Now that these controversies are behind them, perhaps the Mayor and City Council can return the hard, but unglamorous work of keeping taxes low, regulation rational, and infrastructure sound for citizens and employers.  Oh, who am I kidding.

Try, Try, Again

I guess you have to give them credit.  They know what they know and know nothing else.

On a day when the federal government announced the U.S. economy produced zero new jobs last month.  On a day when the Obama Administration postponed new EPA rules on ozone to save American jobs.  It was reported that in the City of Minneapolis new recycling rules were extended to businesses and non-profits.  (Current rules apply only to households).  Local CBS News reports,

" 'The new ordinance supports our City goal around a healthy environment and sustainable future,' said Minneapolis city councilmember Elizabeth Glidden."

No word on how sustainable the economic environment will be for Minneapolis employers into the future.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune quotes the Mayor, R.T. Rybak,

"Wherever you live, work, learn, worship, play or do business in Minneapolis, you will be able to recycle."  Hiring will remain optional, however.

The point here is not that recycling is bad, but that Minneapolis, like other governmental bodies, spends its limited resources on these sorts of efforts (recycling police), rather than the less glamorous work of making the locality a place where entrepreneurs may want to establish and grow businesses.

 

Picking Losers and Losers, Part 2

Nobel prize-winner economist Gary Becker has a column in the Wall Street Journal on "The Great Recession and Government Failure."

With the high profile failures of a number of government-favored "green" projects in the news, it was interesting to get Dr. Becker's take on the subject of the origins of the current financial crisis.  As for the relative efficiency of markets vs. government interventions, Dr. Becker favors markets,

"The main reason is not that individuals in the private sector are intrinsically better than government bureaucrats and politicians, but rather that competitive pressures discipline market behavior much more effectively than government actions."

Water Water Everywhere...

...But not a drop to drink.  The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that the City of Minneapolis' water utility is losing water at four times the rate previously reported.  The City's loss rate of 15.75 percent is substantially above the 10 percent standard recommended by the American Water Works Association.
The newspaper reports that "the city can't say where all of it is going." 

But don't you think that you should be so cavalier with your water use.  Wasting natural resources is a great sin, for which the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources wants consumers to pay punitive rates.  For example, in my town, the Minneapolis suburb of Edina, water rates increase as a customer's usage increases, with the top rate more than double the lowest rate.  This pricing structure is known as "inverted block" or "tiered" rates.  Meant to promote water conservation, it serves more as a tax on large households, as the rates don't distinguish between a home with a single resident or a family of 9.

But a water utility, like Minneapolis, is under no obligation to conserve, nor is it subject to a penalties for wasting water.  Conservation for thee, but not for me.

Political Allocation of Capital: Picking Losers and Losers

The news that Green Energy darling Solyndra is filing for bankruptcy should surprise no one.  The political allocation of capital is less and less an exercise in the the government picking winners and losers and more and more an exercise in picking losers and more losers.  In any event, it's a half billion dollars of public money down the drain.

What is surprising is that some believe that it wasn't enough.  From a blog at the San Jose Mercury News comes two local California legislators who are quoted as wishing that the government had done more for this company.  From the blog,

“Although there has been criticism of the amount of public funding received by the company, we must recognize that our fiercest foreign competitors often receive substantially more assistance from their own governments.”

I'm speechless.