What a bizarrely polarized world we live in.
This week, Mike Bloomberg, (artist's rendering shown above - without his nurse's uniform) took time out from working in the diamond mine with his friends Happy, Sleepy and Doc, to send a team of undercover operatives to buy guns in Arizona. It's perfeclty legal for them to buy guns in Arizona so astoundingly, they succeeded.
They made sure they got exactly the same make, model and magazine, that was used by what's his name, that crazy guy who shot the congresswoman. And they did this to demonstrate to all Americans how the firearm laws in Arizona don't comply with those in New York City - a city which is in a completely different state... 1500 miles away. I'm sure the salons of the upper east side were all a twitter with metro-sexual chortling at the way the southwestern rubes were so easily duped.
Maybe next they can demonstrate that the laws about bicycle helmets and salt consumption are different in Vancouver British Columbia than they are in New York. I know - it's in a different country - but surely that won't make any difference to Mayor Mike. I mean... if the lower salt content can prevent just one Canadian case of high blood pressure, then it will all be worth it right?
It's no secret that Mike Bloomberg doesn't think his political influence should be restricted to New York City just because of the piddling detail that it's the only place that he was actually elected to anything. But it strikes me as amazing that the biggest city in the country STILL isn't big enough for the ego of such a tiny little man. He honestly must have the smallest penis in North America to be so desperately driven to tell other people how to run their lives. What an arrogant jerk.
Then on the same day that I hear about nurse Bloomberg's adventures in the southwest, my buddy Craig sends me this little trinket. It seems that five South Dakota lawmakers have introduced legislation to require any adult 21 years or older, to buy a firearm sufficient to provide for their ordinary self defense. Here's the classic quote from Re. Hal Wick - R-Sioux Falls:
“Do I or the other cosponsors believe that the State of South Dakota can require citizens to buy firearms? Of course not. But at the same time, we do not believe the federal government can order every citizen to buy health insurance,” he said.
If I ever get the chance I think I'd like to buy Rep. Wick a beer, he seems like my kind of politician. I don't get out to Sioux Falls much so I guess I'll just send him a campaign contribution instead. That's something all politicians can appreciate.
As for the lilliputian Mayor Bloomberg, I think I'll stick to pointing and laughing.
8 comments:
Tom,
You sound like pretty jaded, er, realistic, guy.
So how many Bloomberg liberals are there in hedge funds?
And why did Wall Street give so much money to Obama? I know some of it is simple protection, but come on, they didn't see who he was?
metrosexuals,...
chortling?
You prefer sniggering? (I wrote it late in the day and I'm usually better in the mornings)
That question is easier to ask than to answer Mr. Bond. As for the money, campaign contributions come in two flavors, protection money, and rent seeking. As a rule - think of hedge fund money as protection and bank money as rent seeking, and you'll be about 90% there. They gave a bunch to Obama because I could have run against McCain and won.
The ratio of liberals in hedge funds varies. In supporting roles I’d say that people who lean to the left are in a majority, simply because the geography is the defining factor. But true ‘doctrinaire’ liberals are a rarity. With regard to the decision makers, my experience is that right leaning people outnumber left leaning about 8 or 9 to 1.
Liberals are all about the idea that they know better than everyone else. There is an element of that in this job as well, but in my experience it’s rare to find someone who would be described as truly progressive, unless their politics are defined by some other issue. I know a guy who is married to one of the leading attorneys in the country for the ‘green movement. He tends to lean further left than most. The guys I know who are homosexuals (no one really cares about your personal life on Wall Street because you aren’t supposed to have one) tend to lean further left than most too.
And, as you've said before, you have to actually 'prove' every 90 days or so that you are indeed smarter than most everybody else. Or else you get fired. Backing up the talk with the walk tends to concentrate the mind.
2) Got any thought on ETFs versus regular mutual funds? I have been reading about them and I just don't get it.
Great blog. Regards to Derb.
I don't mind the chortling--it just put me less in mind of effete cosmopolitan-sippers than of their ironic foil, the "southwestern rubes."
In this amusing essay (http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2004/02/hitchens200402) Christopher Hitchens writes about all the petty and annoying NYC laws one can easily, innocently, unknowingly break. He writes of Bloomberg as "that most pathetic and annoying figure—the micro-megalomaniac." I think of it whenever Bloomberg does something silly or sinister or pointless or sanctimonious or self-aggrandizing--i.e., often.
On the rent-seeking/protection money business, don't mind if I add that many organizations supported Obamacare even though such support appeared, prima facie, self-destructive. For example, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (read: BIG Pharma), the AMA, and the AARP all supported the "reform." The cases of the AMA and the AARP are a bit more complicated because they're not simply self-interested profit-maximizers in the sense that many drug companies are. As for the broad corporate support, it's not as self-denying as it looks. Once private businesses' managements assume a government takeover to be inevitable, jockeying for a prime position in the soon-to-be-government-decided corporate order ensues with alarming speed. If businesses play the game skillfully, they can get special contracts, carve-outs, waivers, etc. As the cliche says: if the the government will decide who wins and who loses, it's the government--not, say, the consumers or the shareholders--to whom new entreaties for profit and approbation must be made. It's a sad and pitiful capitulation to watch, but it happens whenever our elected representatives arrogate more power to themselves and the agencies they direct.
This brings to mind the distinction between pro-business and pro-free market. The former allows favors to be dispensed to select "winners," at the expense of their competitors and (nearly always) their services' consumers; the latter gives favors to no business and instead allows all businesses to compete for voluntary customers through the price and quality of the products they offer. If your business can get the government to vote it a big bonanza, you will (unless you exercise the restraint a free market needs in order to endure) bear any burden in order to ensure the primacy of your enterprise and the enlargement of your fortune.
Of course, assuming new regulations don't give out any favors--or that your business hasn't gotten one--large companies are usually more able to cope than small ones, simply because they can afford to use more resources to comply with the added complications and restrictions placed upon them. This can, of course, work the other way around (see, for example, this interview with Richard Epstein: http://reason.tv/video/show/1449.html). That's one reason why it's often baloney whenever politicians talk about helping "the little guy" or even the neverendingly praised "small business owner." Unfortunate though it is, many Democrats and Republicans have convinced voters that regulations favor and protect people of lesser means, while in fact the opposite is true. They must even believe it themselves. As with many issues, Milton Friedman was great at explaining how the laws of an intrusive government almost always favor large conglomerates over individual economic actors (actresses, too!).
I think Tom mentioned in a comment some time ago that, in the next few years, large companies will likely do well relative to smaller ones because of "regulatory arbitrage" for which they're much better positioned than the small guys. Did I get you right on that one, Tom?
You did Mark - right on the money. (Although I'm a little confused how this all ended up on a post about Bloomberg and guns... but no biggie.) In the end government policy good or bad, (pro-growth or not) is all about who decides. In most cases, the government would really prefer it's them. They give power back to individuals only grudgingly after trying everything else.
You write about the medical issues like an insider. If so, you have my sympathies.
Thanks for the compliment, and yea, we ended up pretty far afield on this one. (Oops!)
As usual, my attempt at concision and, uh, economy of language didn't work out so well...
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