Gerard Joseph Lebreque talks with Cascade Policy Institute about his struggles with regulations on juniper and his life in rural Oregon.
His work can be found at: http://www.creationsbyjoseph.com/
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Rural Freedom Project – Juniper Entrepreneur
Posted in Cascade Website, Environment, Land Use, Rural Freedom, Video
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Predicting TriMet’s Death Spiral
The Oregonian had a good page-one story on Sunday about the TriMet death spiral. The agency is steadily devolving from a transit district to a retirement and health-care center, with unsustainable fringe benefit costs that now far exceed the mere cost of wages.
However, this problem has been known for a long time. I wrote about it in a cover story for Brainstorm NW magazine in June 2003, and have testified about it to the legislature, the TriMet board, and various other bodies repeatedly since then. The history of this issue is a case where dozens of people had opportunities to do something about it over a 20-year period, but refused to do so. Most of them served on the TriMet board, and never raised a finger to reject the union contracts. The current board is making the same mistakes, agreeing to every goofy recommendation put forward by staff without showing a shred of independent thinking. Taxpayers and transit riders deserve so much better.
Posted in Cascade Website, John Charles, Transportation
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Still, No Plan(ners) required
In 2003 the Portland Business Journal editorialized about how Portland needed a grand economic plan – soon. I responded, arguing that, no, what we needed was freedom – and soon.
Today, The Oregonian made a similar central planning case in its lead editorial, Greater Portland Inc. helps build economic teamwork. Here is my posted response, condensed from my 2007 Commentary, No Plan(ners) Required:
Central planning suffers from what logicians call the fallacy of composition: assuming that what is true of the parts is true of the whole. Planning is a good thing for individuals, families and firms. But there is no collective mind in a city, state or nation that can do for the whole what countless individuals and organizations can do better for themselves.
Business and government leaders have been creating overlapping and competing plans for Oregon’s economic future for years. Greater Portland Inc. may consolidate some of these plans, but planning is still the operating assumption; and it’s still wrong.
With all this planning, one would expect the Oregon economy to be booming, but it’s not. If we could all just agree on one direction for economic development, everything would be fine. Right?
There are good reasons why there cannot and should not be just one plan. In Portland, for example, some people want tax incentives to attract business, while others want more business taxes to fund our schools. Some want Major League Baseball, while others want to invest in engineering schools. Some want to cut our use of petroleum products in half, while others want more roads to help diesel-burning trucks get goods to market. To the planners such contrasting talk sounds like chaos, when in reality this is how free people get things done.
The smartest people in the room, be they business leaders or politicians, are not able to make collective decisions for everyone in our economy because they simply don’t have the needed information and wisdom. As individuals we all have our own interests and needs, and we satisfy those interests and meet those needs by voluntarily interacting with others in our society.
The best way to boost the collective fortunes of society is to remove the central planners so we can freely boost our own fortunes.
Oregon may love planners, but we need freedom more than central plans. And we need it soon.
Posted in Cascade Website, Oregon Economic Opportunity, Steve Buckstein
Tagged economics, economy, planning
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So you want to go to Harvard for free?
Come fall 2012, you can!
You don’t need to be in Boston because the courses will be offered online, along with courses from the Massachusetts Institute for Technology, commonly known as MIT.
The two schools announced Thursday that they would be taking their coursework to the world, including not just instructional materials but discussion forums, short videos, and laboratory simulations, all under the guidance of university professors and teaching assistants.
The joint program, called edX, expects to offer certificates of mastery for individual courses completed, rather than traditional diplomas.
The universities hope to measure and study the students who choose to take the online courses so they can learn more about… learning.
A Boston Globe article cited Harvard President Drew Faust as saying:
“Through this partnership, we will not only make knowledge more available, but we will learn more about learning. Anyone with an Internet connection anywhere in the world can have access.’’
The president of MIT, Susan Hockfield, shared similar sentiments at Thursday’s press conference:
“You can choose to view this era as one of threatening change and unsettling volatility, or you can see it as a moment charged with the most exciting possibilities presented to educators in our lifetimes.’’
Harvard and MIT aren’t the first high-ranking schools to offer their educational services to people online for free. Stanford began offering a series of free engineering classes to online students last fall.
Recently, the Cato Institute released an article making a case for alternative methods of learning at the college level, including options with low or no cost to the student. The cost of a traditional college degree has ballooned, and many students graduate with massive debt while having made insignificant gains in knowledge and proficiency. If subject proficiency can be gained in more effective, less expensive ways, isn’t it time to try?
Kathryn Hickok contributed to this article.
Posted in Kathryn Hickok
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What is the Cascade Policy Institute?
Ever thought to yourself: What in the world is a think tank and why should I care about it? Then you need to check this out! Learn about what we do at the Cascade Policy Institute and how you can get involved.
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Kathryn Hickok interviewed on the value of motherhood
We sat down with Cascade’s Publications Director, Kathryn Hickok, to discuss her latest commentary, “Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing.”
Click here to read her commentary.
Posted in Video
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Taking on the Taxi Cartel
Are limos and towncars better than taxis? Well, that’s certainly a matter of opinion. But, the fact is that by city law Portland limos and towncars are required to cost more than taxicabs. Customers are also required to wait at least an hour before they can be picked up by a limo or towncar.
According to the Huffington Post, phone requests for services from these limo and towncar companies in the downtown Portland area have dropped 70 percent since these city regulations were created in 2009.
So what happened when Fiesta Limousine and Towncar.com wanted to offer discounts to their customers on Groupon to help bring back business?
The same day these promotions went online, however, city regulators forced the companies to cancel the deals and refund every one of their customers, threatening Towncar.com and Fiesta Limousine with a combined $895,000 in penalties and suspension of their operating permits. All of this for the “crime” of charging their customers prices that government deems are “too low.”
Now, the Institute for Justice is taking on the case by suing the City of Portland.
Portland cannot constitutionally seek to protect taxicab businesses from competition at everyone else’s expense. On April 26, 2012, IJ teamed up with Towncar.com and Fiesta Limousine and filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon to vindicate the right of Portland’s limo and sedan operators to earn an honest living free from excessive government regulation.
Posted in Cascade Website
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Steve Buckstein explains Oregon’s slipping economic outlook
We sat down with Cascade’s senior policy analyst, Steve Buckstein, to talk about his latest commentary describing Oregon’s falling on the Rich States, Poor States rankings.
The ranking system looks at the economic outlook for each state based on policies controlled by state legislators, not the national or world economy.
Posted in Steve Buckstein, Video
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Caine’s Arcade: A Dream Come True
Don’t you love innovation?
Look at this young boy, Caine Monroy. He’s nine years old, and yet he has the entrepreneurial spirit to create a small business with a few cardboard boxes and a great imagination.
The boy’s cardboard arcade, which has gained national attention in the past few days, has amassed over $100,000 for a college fund started in his name. Even the business mogul Forbes.com predicts Monroy will be a billionaire in 30 years.
Imagine what else man could create if not hindered by skepticism and government restrictions on our dreams.
“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”- F.A. Hayek.
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Steve Buckstein discusses his latest commentary “Do You Feel Exploited by Apple?”
In his latest commentary, Do You Feel Exploited by Apple?, Steve Buckstein asked a group of students if they felt exploited by Apple after buying Apple products. They didn’t because they chose to make those purchases.
See how Steve relates this choice to a need for competition in public education.
Posted in Steve Buckstein, Video
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