Tag: crony capitalism

Milton Friedman on Business’s ‘Suicidal Impulse’

By
David Boaz

In a Wall Street Journal column titled “Silicon Valley’s ‘Suicide Impulse’” (Google the title if you can’t access it), Gordon Crovitz cites Milton Friedman’s speech to a Cato Institute conference in Silicon Valley in 1999:

In 1999, economist Milton Friedman issued a warning to technology executives at a Cato Institute conference: “Is it really in the self-interest of Silicon Valley to set the government on Microsoft? Your industry, the computer industry, moves so much more rapidly than the legal process that by the time this suit is over, who knows what the shape of the industry will be? Never mind the fact that the human energy and the money that will be spent in hiring my fellow economists, as well as in other ways, would be much more productively employed in improving your products. It’s a waste!”

He predicted: “You will rue the day when you called in the government. From now on, the computer industry, which has been very fortunate in that it has been relatively free of government intrusion, will experience a continuous increase in government regulation. Antitrust very quickly becomes regulation. Here again is a case that seems to me to illustrate the suicide impulse of the business community.”

You can find the full text of Friedman’s talk here.

For more on business’s suicidal impulses, see “Why Silicon Valley Should Not Normalize Relations With Washington, D.C.” by entrepreneur T. J. Rodgers; “The Sad State of Cyber-Politics” by Adam Thierer; and my own “Apple: Too Big Not to Nail.”

Topics: 
Regulatory Studies, Telecom, Internet & Information Policy

French President Demands and Gets Firing of Opposition Editor

By
Walter Olson

According to the New York Times, French Socialist president François Hollande demanded and received the dismissal of the editor of Le Figaro, the country’s leading conservative newspaper. If that sounds impossibly high-handed, consider the background, as reported in the Times:

The publisher, Serge Dassault, is a senator from [ousted President Nicolas] Sarkozy’s political party [and thus opposed to Hollande]. But Mr. Dassault also heads a major military contractor, and there was widespread speculation that [Figaro editor Étienne] Mougeotte’s ouster was meant to put the Dassault group in good stead with the new president.

For an American reader, it would be natural to turn the page with a murmur of thanks that such things don’t go on in our country. Don’t be so sure:

[Since-convicted Illinois Gov. Rod] Blagojevich, Harris and others are also alleged [in the federal indictment] to have withheld state assistance to the Tribune Company in connection with the sale of Wrigley Field. The statement says this was done to induce the firing of Chicago Tribune editorial board members who were critical of Blagojevich.

And in 1987, at the secret behest of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA), Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-SC) inserted a legislative rider aimed at preventing Rupert Murdoch from simultaneously owning broadcast and newspaper properties in Boston and New York. The idea was to force him to sell the Boston Herald, the most persistent editorial voice criticizing Kennedy in his home state. Kennedy’s and Hollings’s actions drew criticism in places like the Harvard Crimson and from syndicated columnist R. Emmett Tyrrell, but no national furor developed.

One moral is that we cannot expect our First Amendment to do the whole job of protecting freedom of the press. Yes, it repels some kinds of incursions against press liberty, but it does not by its nature ward off the danger of entanglement between publishers and closely regulated industries, stadium operators, and others dependent on state sufferance. That’s one reason there’s such a difference in practice between a relatively free economy, where most lines of business do not require cultivating the good will of the state, and an economy deeply penetrated by government direction, in which nearly everyone is subject to (often implicit) pressure from the authorities. France has been unable to avoid the perils of the latter sort of economy. Can we?

Topics: 
General, International Economics and Development

21st Century U.S. Trade Policy Should be Pro-Market, not Pro-Business, Pro-Labor, or Pro-Lobbyist

By
Daniel J. Ikenson

The difference between the trade policy we have today and the trade policy we should have is like the difference between crony capitalism and free-market capitalism. The sausage grinder that is U.S. trade policy serves politicians and rewards lobbyists and gate-keeper bureaucrats, who have the gall to presume entitlement to limiting Americans’ options and picking winners and losers.

In a country that exalts freedom, the default trade policy should be free trade. But it’s not. Why?

The public has been trained to accept that special interests—companies seeking exemptions from competition; unions demanding that citizens ”Buy American”; investors and intellectual property holders demanding the U.S. public assume part of its business risks; enviros insisting on measures that punish developing countries for being poor—are rightly entitled to negotiate, abridge, impair, or sacrifice those freedoms in the name of Team USA.

So how are we free if decisions about how, with whom, and how much we transact with foreigners are decided by parties in Washington, who profit from denying us that freedom?

Trade policy should be about maximizing the freedom of Americans to choose, and distinctly not about bestowing certain advantages on particular companies, industries, or special interests. Trade policy should be about maximizing opportunities for Americans as consumers, workers, and investors, and not about impeding those opportunities.

In a globalized world where businesses are mobile and, ultimately, untethered to a homeland, what is the point of policymakers going to bat for U.S. producers? Usually, policies adopted to assist particular companies or industries handicap or subvert companies and industries upstream or downstream in the supply chain, or in other sectors. What even defines a U.S. producer anymore? GM builds more vehicles in China than it does in the United States.  Should Washington and Beijing both claim GM as national treasures and craft policy to serve its needs?

No. Policy should be neutral with respect to the goals of particular companies and industries, and designed to attract investment and human capital, and to maximize opportunities for Americans to partake of the global economy. Trade policy should be about ensuring certainty and eliminating policy-induced frictions in supply chains. As I wrote in this article (21st Century Economy Deserves Better Than 16th Century Trade Policies), which expounds upon the thoughts in this post:

This 21st century economic reality demands better than trade policies rooted in 16th century mercantilist dogma. It demands policies that are welcoming of imports and foreign investment, and that minimise regulations or administrative frictions that are based on misconceptions about some vague or ill-defined “national interest”.

Topics: 
Trade and Immigration

Political Support for Energy’s Loan Guarantees

By
Tad DeHaven

Several weeks ago, 127 House Republicans joined 155 Democrats to defeat an amendment introduced by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) that would have shut down the Department of Energy’s Title 17 loan guarantee program. That’s the program that gave birth to Solyndra, which has come to symbolize the failure of the Obama administration’s crony capitalist policies.

Why would members of Congress, and Republicans in particular, continue to support this federal boondoggle incubator? A new paper from Cato adjunct scholar Veronique de Rugy that looks at the Energy loan guarantees explains:

One reason is it serves three powerful constituencies: lawmakers, bankers, and the companies that receive the subsidized loans. Politicians are able to use loan programs to reward interest groups while hiding the costs. Congress can approve billions of dollars in loan guarantees with little or no impact to the appropriations or deficit because they are almost entirely off-budget. Moreover, unlike the Solyndra case, most failures take years to occur, allowing politicians to collect the rewards of granting a loan to a special interest while skirting political blame years later when or if the project defaults. It’s like buying a house on credit without having a trace of the transaction on your credit report.

Veronique notes that most of the money for the loan guarantees issued under section 1705 of Title 17 have gone to large and established companies:

These include established utility firms, large multinational manufacturers, and a global real estate investment fund. In addition, the data shows that nearly 90 percent of the loans guaranteed by the federal government since 2009 went to subsidize lower-risk power plants, which in many cases were backed by big companies with vast resources. This includes loans such as the $90 million guarantee granted to Cogentrix, a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs. Currently, Goldman Sachs ranks number 80 on the list of America’s Fortune 500 companies.

In recent testimony before the House Budget Committee, Chris Edwards and I also discussed the crony nature of the president’s “green” energy subsidies:

President Obama’s green energy programs illustrate how corporate welfare creates corrupting relationships between businesses and politicians. The Washington Post found that “$3.9 billion in federal [energy] grants and financing flowed to 21 companies backed by firms with connections to five Obama administration staffers and advisers.” It also noted that the “main players in the Solyndra saga were interconnected in many ways, as investors enjoyed access to the White House and the Energy Department.” According to the New York Times, Solyndra “spent nearly $1.8 million on Washington lobbyists, employing six firms with ties to members of Congress and officials of the Obama White House.”

American businesses, of course, have a right to lobby the federal government. But given that reality, Congress throws fuel onto the corruption fire by creating business subsidy programs. When subsidy money flows out the door from Washington to businesses at the same time that money flows back from businesses to Washington for lobbying, it’s no surprise that we get influence-peddling. Corporate welfare undermines honest and transparent governance, and Americans are sick and tired of the inevitable scandals.

Unfortunately, most members of Congress apparently aren’t sick and tired of it.

Topics: 
Tax and Budget Policy

Solyndra: A Political-Energy Company

By
David Boaz

Good reporting shouldn’t go unnoticed just because it appeared during the week after Christmas, so let me draw your attention to a comprehensive article on the front page of the December 26 Washington Post by Joe Stephens and Carol Leonnig:

Meant to create jobs and cut reliance on foreign oil, Obama’s green-technology program was infused with politics at every level, The Washington Post found in an analysis of thousands of memos, company records and internal ­e-mails. Political considerations were raised repeatedly by company investors, Energy Department bureaucrats and White House officials….

The documents reviewed by The Post … show that as Solyndra tottered, officials discussed the political fallout from its troubles, the “optics” in Washington and the impact that the company’s failure could have on the president’s prospects for a second term. Rarely, if ever, was there discussion of the impact that Solyndra’s collapse would have on laid-off workers or on the development of clean-energy technology.

Did you know that when the president visits a factory, his aides tell the workers what to wear? Keep digging in the documents:

Like most presidential appearances, Obama’s May 2010 stop at Solyndra’s headquarters was closely managed political theater.

Obama’s handlers had lengthy e-mail discussions about how solar panels should be displayed (from a robotic arm, it was decided). They cautioned the company’s chief executive against wearing a suit (he opted for an open-neck shirt and black slacks) and asked another executive to wear a hard hat and white smock. They instructed blue-collar employees to wear everyday work clothes, to preserve what they called “the construction-worker feel.”

This story has all the hallmarks of government decision making: officials spending other people’s money with little incentive to spend it prudently, political pressure to make decisions without proper vetting, the substitution of political judgment for the judgments of millions of investors, the enthusiastic embrace of fads like “green energy,” political officials ignoring warnings from civil servants, crony capitalism, close connections between politicians and the companies that benefit from government allocation of capital, the appearance—at least—of favors for political supporters, and the kind of promiscuous spending that has delivered us $15 trillion in national debt. It may end up being a case study in political economy. And if you want government to guide the economy, to pick winners, to override market investments, then this is what you want.

More on Solyndra here and here.

Topics: 
Energy and Environment, General, Government and Politics

Solyndra: Crooked Politics or Just Bad Economics?

By
David Boaz

Amy Harder has a good take on the Solyndra issue in National Journal Daily (subscription required):

Lesser evil: crony capitalism or bad policy?

Energy Secretary Steven Chu is about to find out when he testifies before a House panel on Thursday about the $535 million loan guarantee his department awarded to Solyndra, the now-bankrupt solar-energy company that was, before its demise, the poster child for America’s renewable-energy industry and President Obama’s 2009 Recovery Act.

The White House and the Energy Department say the influence of political donors such as Oklahoma oil billionaire George Kaiser, whose venture-capital firm was the major investor in Solyndra, did not sway any of the administration’s decisions on Solyndra’s loan guarantee, which was funded from the stimulus package.

By denying politics was involved, the administration is saying that its top officials genuinely and continuously thought Solyndra was a good bet—despite numerous warnings raised both inside and outside of the administration—and that the loan-guarantee program was being carefully managed despite oversight reports and an internal West Wing memo that said otherwise.

“As time went on, there was a growing concern because of the cash-flow,” Chu said in an interview with NPR on Tuesday. “And so we certainly were watching this and looking at this very closely. And eventually we recognized they were in deep trouble.”

Yet, throughout the two years Solyndra was borrowing money from federal coffers, the DOE essentially stayed the path right up until the bitter end when the California-based manufacturer went bankrupt in September. When Solyndra was on the brink of bankruptcy in late 2010, DOE decided to restructure the loan to try to keep the company afloat.

Meanwhile, in today’s congressional hearing, Energy Secretary Steven Chu insisted that “the final decisions on Solyndra were mine, and I made them with the best interest of the taxpayer in mind… . I did not make any decision based on political considerations.” This came on a day when the front page of the Washington Post reported:

In the two years preceding its collapse, Solyndra and its biggest investor aggressively asserted themselves in dealings with the Obama administration, pushing Energy Secretary Steven Chu to visit the company’s headquarters to help it raise private money and later suggesting it would file for bankruptcy if the Energy Department rejected its proposed rescue plan… .

“The DOE really thinks politically before it thinks economically,” a Solyndra board member wrote in December to George Kaiser, an Obama fundraiser whose family funds owned a third of the company.

Topics: 
Energy and Environment, General, Government and Politics

Eisenhower’s Lament

By
Christopher A. Preble

Spurred on by a new release of documents from the archives, the past few weeks have witnessed a renewed interest in the military-industrial complex (MIC), the term forever associated with Dwight David Eisenhower.

Or, at least, that should be the case. Eisenhower – the West Point graduate, career military officer, and hero of World War II – was one of the first to ever use the phrase, in a televised Farewell Address to the nation on January 17, 1961. Over the years, however, the MIC has become a mantra for progressives and left liberals, usually used in tandem with an assault on private enterprise, writ large, or as part of an elaborate conspiracy theory that equates crony capitalism with market economics. The left’s capture of the term has enabled too many on the right to dismiss it out of hand.

That is unfortunate. Dwight David Eisenhower was no liberal; far from it. And though the neoconservatives have attempted to expunge Ike from our collective memory, it is appropriate that his legacy is enjoying yet another revival. For what it’s worth, I’ll be doing my small part, at a half-day conference next month, and throughout 2011, to offer a perspective on the military-industrial complex that might appeal to devotees of limited, constitutional government.

This work will focus not just on Ike’s farewell address, but also on one of his first public addresses, the Chance for Peace Speech, delivered before the American Society of Newspaper Editors in April 1953. Taken together, the speeches highlight two of Eisenhower’s enduring concerns: opportunity costs, money spent on the military cannot be spent elsewhere; and the political and social costs of the United States becoming a garrison state, the creation of a permanent armaments industry, Ike feared, had already precipitated major changes in the nation’s economy, and threatened to change the nation itself.

Speaking in January 1961, during one of the darkest periods of the Cold War, Eisenhower viewed the MIC as a necessary evil. He viewed the threat posed by the Soviet Union and its sometime communist allies as sufficient justification for maintaining a large standing army, and a vast and technologically advanced Air Force and Navy. He also presided over a dramatic expansion of the nation’s nuclear arsenal, and realized (belatedly) that he had far too little control over those weapons and the men tasked with using them.

But I suspect that the permanence of the MIC would be most disturbing to President Eisenhower, were he with us now. Twenty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Americans today spend more on the military than at any time since World War II, and more than twice as much – in inflation-adjusted dollars – than when Ike left office. The general-president clearly failed to convince his fellow Americans of the need to limit the military’s growth. For all practical purposes, the MIC won.

Here’s hoping that many Americans will rediscover Eisenhower, and take heed of his warning, starting in 2011. They could start by supporting efforts to refocus our military on a few core objectives and reduce the Pentagon’s budget.

Topics: 
Foreign Policy and National Security, Tax and Budget Policy