2 PARAGRAPHS 4 LIBERTY: #252 "TIMELESS TRUTHS"

Issues and ideas come and go, but many “Timeless Truths” always remain.  What are some of these?  Here is a short Libertarian list:

·         The Law of Unintended Consequences: Life is complicated, and almost every time a law or regulation is passed it results in some or even many negative consequences that were not intended.  An example?  The minimum wage laws directly put many people they were intended to help out of work.  Why?  Because the reality is that some people are not (yet) worth $15 per hour.

·         The Law of Diminishing Returns: If a little is good, a lot is better?  Well, most of the time it is not.  Ask any managers or owners of companies.  Sometimes there are slight imperfections or flaws in products that could be addressed and fixed.  But after a while it is simply not cost effective to spend an extra $100,000 to fix a problem that ultimately will only cost a customer or the company combined only a much smaller total amount in delays or problems.  

·         The answer to most questions is: It Depends!  Once again, life is complicated.  So, for example, in answering the question “Should cheating at cards be a crime?” The answer is “It depends.”  Why?  If a person is playing for money and cheats, that would be a fraud and could, depending upon the circumstances, appropriately result in criminal prosecutions.  But if people were playing solitaire at home, they might be cheating themselves but, otherwise, they should be left alone.  So unless one is talking about a situation involving core values, (Should we sponsor another Holocaust?  The answer is not “It depends!) the realistic answer is as stated above.

·         The Law of Supply and Demand: The First Rule of Economics is that there are never enough goods and services to meet the demand, and the First Rule of Politics is to ignore the First Rule of Economics.  Thus Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand” of economics is always a part of every commercial transaction, and always will be.  This means that people acting in their own economic self-interest – both as producers and buyers – will always be a part of the equation.

·         Murphy’s Law: “If anything can go wrong, it will.”  O’Rourke’s Corollary to Murphy’s Law: “Murphy was an Optimist.” 

·         Incentives Matter: If people are able personally to profit in some meaningful way from their work and other actions, they are much more likely to pursue them.  Of course, this rule applies equally to negative sanctions like punishments.

·         Dr. Milton Friedman: “We should judge our programs by their results, not their good intentions.”  Following that advice would bring a positive revolution to governmental programs.

·         Dr. Milton Friedman again: “There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch.”  When I buy my contact lenses solution the box includes a plastic lens holder “at no extra charge.”  But, since this “gift” holds about three times as much solution as the one I normally use, and probably costs the manufacturer a maximum of two cents, if only one person in ten uses it, the result will be the purchase of more solution and, thus more profit for the manufacturer sponsoring the “gift.”  So, yet again, TANSTAAFL applies.

As my US History Professor Dr. Keith Berwick at UCLA once told us in his lecture, “There is a definite limitation to the profitable elaboration of the obvious.”  So, with that, I will stop.

Lament of the Week: “Dear Algebra, Please don’t continue to insist that I find your X because she’s not coming back.  And don’t ask Y.”

Judge Jim Gray (Ret.)

2012 Libertarian candidate for Vice President, along with

Governor Gary Johnson as the candidate for President

Please listen to our weekly radio show entitled “All Rise! The Libertarian Way with Judge Jim Gray” as we discuss timely issues, and show how they will be addressed more beneficially by employing Libertarian values and approaches.  You can hear it every Friday morning at 7 Pacific/10 Eastern by going to www.VoiceAmerica.com, clicking on the Variety Channel and then upon the word “live.”  You can also hear past shows on demand as well.  And, by the way, these 2 Paragraph columns are now on my website at www.JudgeJImGray.com, Facebook and LinkedIn at judgejimgray, Twitter at judgejamesgray, and wordpress at judgejimgray.wordpress.com  Please visit these sites for past editions, and do your part to spread the word about the importance of Liberty.  In addition, my new book entitled “2 Paragraphs 4 Liberty: Solutions that are Practical, Effective, Responsible, Libertarian, is now available at Amazon.com.   Please read and discuss it with friends, and send in a review.

2 PARAGRAPHS 4 LIBERTY: #201 "UNALTERABLE LAWS"

        Regardless of what legislatures, courts or juries say, there are some laws in life that always affect human conduct that are unalterable.  One of these laws is the Law of Supply and Demand.  This law certainly can be affected by other laws, regulations and mores, but it can never be repealed.  One explanation for this is that, to the degree that people have Liberty to make choices, they will always consider their own self-interest when it comes to spending their money, time or labor.  Of course, some of those self-interests can be altruistic, but at least to some degree, this law always affects human conduct.  And no educated person is unaware of this reality that Incentives Matter! 
  
            The second is the Law of Unintended Consequences.  This law demonstrates that, no matter what the good intentions are of the people making rules or passing laws, there are often to even a great extent other consequences that provide results that are unforeseen and frequently negative.  Dr. Milton Friedman proposed the best antidote to this law by suggesting that we should judge programs by their results, not their good intentions.  Some good examples of those results are minimum wage laws that purport to want to increase wages for low-paid workers.  But the blunt reality is that some people’s labors, most often those of young people and other unskilled laborers, simply are not worth the increased expense to their employers.  So, as a result, they lose their jobs or don’t get hired in the first place.  Is this a bad thing?  Actually, most sociologists would agree that it is far better for society, for example, to have 100 people at work earning $10 per hour than 65 people earning $15 per hour.  Other similar laws of purportedly good intentions are rent-control laws, which attempt to keep rents below market rates.  Those laws work fine, at least temporarily, for the fortunate few people who already have apartments at the lower rates.  But landlords mostly will do anything they reasonably can to maximize their profits.  (Remember, Incentives Matter!)  So they will attempt to evict lower-paying tenants, or convert their apartments into condominiums or even parking lots that will bring a market rate of return on their investments. And they most certainly will not invest in building new apartments.  So all of this results in a decrease in the supply of apartments, which further exacerbates the problem.  And this is normal human conduct.  So listen to Milton Friedman.  Regardless of good intentions, and even voters’ perceptions of those intentions, the only fair yardstick of good laws is their actual results.  If people were to understand this basic concept, this would be a positive revolution in our country.   
  
            Quote for the week:  “Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must undergo the fatigue of supporting it.”  Thomas Paine

Judge Jim Gray (Ret.)

2012 Libertarian candidate for Vice President, along with

Governor Gary Johnson as the candidate for President

By the way, these columns are now on Facebook and LinkedIn at judgejimgray, Twitter at judgejamesgray, and wordpress at judgejimgray@wordpress.com.  Please visit these sites for past editions, and do your part to spread the word about the importance of Liberty.