{"id":91,"date":"2007-07-16T01:22:13","date_gmt":"2007-07-16T09:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/?p=91"},"modified":"2007-07-16T01:22:13","modified_gmt":"2007-07-16T09:22:13","slug":"hope-for-my-readers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/hope-for-my-readers\/","title":{"rendered":"Hope for my readers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The pervasive collectivist instinct discussed in certain posts here may seem discouraging to some of you<\/a>, but take heart. I believe that the future belongs to those who love freedom. The evidence, though all around us, is sometimes disguised as braying by government officials. To wit:<\/p>\n

It’s simply unconscionable from an ethics standpoint for this company to go in from this unfair bargaining position…It’s just exploiting a desperate town.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The company in this case is Google; the town is Lenoir, NC; and the complainant is a former North Carolina judge now running for Governor. He’s bellyaching that Google negotiated away most of the taxes they would have to pay as a condition for locating some of its vast computer systems in Lenoir. He’s pandering to residents who feel their town was “bullied into the deal and deprived of potential revenue.” Never mind that “potential” in this case means non-existent. They didn’t have those revenues, and never would if they failed to attract an employer like Google. So, the real complaint is that they had to compete for Google.<\/p>\n

Actually, Lenoir did once have those revenues, but they lost them in the competition<\/a> to keep their previous local industry. Alas, this is not really news<\/a>. Localities always have to compete, and not just in the U.S. This competition is simply getting more visible, all over the world<\/a>. That’s economics.<\/p>\n

People who lose jobs to competition don’t like the laws of economics any more than people who fall and hurt themselves appreciate the laws of physics. But there is no point pretending they’re not real, or that the government can override<\/a> them. Economic relationships and consequences are becoming increasingly transparent, to the point that anyone<\/a> can see them. Eventually, taxation and regulations will be competed down<\/a> to the lowest level needed to competitively provide essential services. Yes, troubled readers, we may very well be on the path toward libertarian Nirvana. All you have to do is live long enough<\/a> to see it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The pervasive collectivist instinct discussed in certain posts here may seem discouraging to some of you, but take heart. I believe that the future belongs to those who love freedom. The evidence, though all around us, is sometimes disguised as braying by government officials. To wit: It’s simply unconscionable from an ethics standpoint for this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-invisible-trade-offs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}