Bookmarks for September 13th from 07:58 to 13:09

These are my links for September 13th from 07:58 to 13:09:

• Say Anything » Study: Cash For Clunkers Didn’t Generate Any New Car Sales – “Cash for clunkers, put simply, didn’t induce people to buy cars. It just changed the timing of car purchases they were going to make anyway.” – This is exactly how all the stimulus was packaged, and part of the reason that this kind of thing doesn’t work. It takes tomorrow’s money and spends it today and then puts us in debt. The only people that make out here are the banks that get more money in interest, and the government, which gets to be in control of when you made your purchase.
• Say Anything » If Barack Obama Thinks Education Is The Responsibility Of All Americans, Why Does He Oppose School Choice? – “If education is the responsibility of “all Americans,” and not just the government, then why not empower all Americans (especially those with children to educate) with the ability to choose what kind of an education those kids get? Because right now we have a government-dominated education monopoly where parents (except those rich enough to opt-out) are forced to send their children to the nearest public school often with little recourse when those schools prove to be somewhat less than satisfactory.” – The answer, of course, is that Pres. Obama is beholden to the unions, and though what he says is “education” what he’s really saying is that he supports public schools. True school choice would spell the end to these anachronistic institutions and empower the individual, which is not what the government wants.
• Vox Popoli: Calling the bankers’ bluff – “A growing number of the people whose homes are in foreclosure are refusing to slink away in shame. They are fashioning a sort of homemade mortgage modification, one that brings their payments all the way down to zero. They use the money they save to get back on their feet or just get by. This type of modification does not beg for a lender’s permission but is delivered as an ultimatum: Force me out if you can. Any moral qualms are overshadowed by a conviction that the banks created the crisis by snookering homeowners with loans that got them in over their heads.” — I actually heard a similar statement on the radio just the other day. Many banks are allowing squatters to stay in their homes because the value of the houses which they haven’t been paying can still be said to be the price of the mortgage as long as the people still are there. If they foreclose, it could go to 0– not good for them.
• Vox Popoli: Contra the bricklayers – Mankind will do whatever it can to promote self, even while they’re saying that they’re promoting others. That’s why government cannot and should not be trusted, and that’s at the core of Vox’s libertarianism: “We libertarians most certainly do NOT believe that people will do the right thing if left to their own devices, rather, we believe that since most people will do the wrong thing if given power over others, it is in the interests of everyone to make sure that the force multiplier offered by government to those people is as small as possible.”
• Vox Popoli: Mailvox: economics and immigration – “Because people primarily use banks as a place to store their money. They aren’t going to take the risk of stuffing their cash under a mattress and only one in a thousand Americans utilizes precious metals as a store of value, so the Fed has realized that it can crush depositors with impunity without having to worry about mass withdrawals. In other words, what you’re describing is theoretically possible but realistically implausible. If people aren’t withdrawing their money because two percent of the banks are failing every year, they’re not going to withdraw it over zero interest either.” — Interesting. If everyone took their money out in cash and forced banks to compete for holding on to our money, what would happen?