Tell me, which is worse: a cartoon camel that encourages kids to smoke, a creepy clown that encourages kids to eat unhealthily, or an anthropomorphic letter “e” with a green mustache that encourages kids to use an inefficient fuel source that drives up the costs of food and fuel?

Sure, the latter of the three isn’t pure evil, but he still makes me uneasy. Edgar the “E” Man is the new mascot for EPIC, the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council. With a round short body, an inflatable mustache, and a hat that looks like it was stolen from Luigi, Edgar travels the land promoting ethanol to all the impressionable little minds that need molding. Yes, there is a form you can fill out to have Edgar appear at your party. He even has a Facebook account.

Is it possibly taking things to far to use an inflatable letter “e” to promote ethanol by manipulating children? Before you know it, we’ll see Eli the Eminent Domain Eagle and Karl the Tax Kredit Kangaroo. I just pray that Chester Cheetah, Captain Crunch, and the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man can form some sort of mascot union, and keep Edgar the “E” Man out.

In a new report, The American Tort Reform Foundation has placed St. Louis and St. Louis County on the “legal hellhole watch list.” I think Philip Corboy Jr., the head of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association, stated it best: ”The report is just a Christmas gift for the insurance industry and the big business lobby.”

Although we are only on the watch list, this report still indicates that we have a lot of work to do in Missouri to achieve meaningful tort and lawsuit reform. It would be a nightmare if our region went back to the days when Madison County was unanimously ranked #1 on the list. If things get any worse, we might have to refer to my colleague’s previous blog post.

Right now, I am a little disappointed in the Kansas City Chiefs. Not because of their 2-12 record, or for them being at the bottom of the AFC West. After receiving $50 million in tax credits from the state two years ago to assist with stadium renovations, the Chiefs had the nerve to ask for another $25 million.

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, ”The professional football team’s owners are seeking the new subsidy to upgrade Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City and finance an indoor training arena in St. Joseph.”

Given the financial climate of our state, money is tight. Plus, our governor-elect is already having trouble in his search for money to fund future projects. While the working poor and retirees can barely afford tickets to go to a game, we are asking them to pay the tab for building new restaurants and luxury suites in the stadium. I think this is terrible. It’s also economically unjustified. Despite the development arguments of those who support government funding for stadiums, the theory and practical research both demonstrate that this type of appropriation is a net loss to society:

Households face budget constraints; they must meet their unlimited wants with a limited amount of income. The arrival of a professional sports team in a city provides households with a new entertainment option. Households that choose to attend games will spend less on other things, perhaps going out to dinner, bowling, or the movies. If the impact of each dollar spent on these forgone alternatives has a larger effect on the local economy than the impact of each dollar spent on professional sporting events, the local economy will contract and income will be lower. Why would the impact of each dollar spent going to a professional basketball game be smaller than the impact of each dollar spent on bowling?

But this is what happens when government throws out tax credits like rice in a wedding.

Come on, Chiefs — time to draw up another play. If you were at least .500, maybe we could talk.

I am going to be appearing with Mark Kinsley on the KZRG 1310 AM morning show on Tuesday (that’s tomorrow) morning at 7:10 a.m. Mark has graciously agreed to put little ‘ol me on for the whole hour, to discuss my recent case study of occupational licensing. You can listen in online from the link above. Because the station broadcasts to both states included in the study, I think this is a great opportunity to talk about the points I make.

I appeared on the morning show with Mark and Kara once before, in February, to talk about tolls and transportation. I am delighted to be appearing again. I encourage you to listen in. They have a great show and we are honored to be a part of it.

Whether you like red light cameras or hate them (although if you’re visiting this site, I’ll guess the latter), no one can argue the fact that they do not discriminate. Whether you’re driving a Pinto, a Hummer, or a Ford Ranger, red light cameras will catch you if you are running those yellows. In that aspect, they were fair — until now. According to this St. Louis Post-Dispatch article,* many policymakers who pushed for these cameras in the first place are failing to pay their fines when they are photographed breaking the law.

I don’t know how I’m expected to follow this law when even the lawmakers don’t. Apparently, civil liberties are something to worry about only when your own are threatened.

*If you squint hard enough at the top right corner of the photo in the article, you can kind of see my apartment.

I highly recommend an article in last week’s New Yorker magazine for anyone interested in a deeper understanding of the challenges facing our education system. Or just for anyone who cares to read about how difficult it is for professional football scouts to predict which college quarterbacks will perform well in the National Football League. You’ll be surprised to see how the two topics are related.

Malcolm Gladwell, the bestselling author of The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference; Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking; and Outliers: The Story of Success, begins with a scout trying to determine whether Mizzou quarterback Chase Daniel has the tools to be a successful pro quarterback. Of course, the answer is that nobody knows, but despite this ignorance, NFL franchises guarantee tens of millions of dollars to untested signal callers in hopes that they have found the proverbial needle in the haystack.

How does this relate to education? It is just as impossible to predict which aspiring teachers will turn out to be effective in the classroom, yet public schools across the nation are similarly forced to make long-term commits to teachers before they have any idea of whether they have what it takes to help kids learn. As with the NFL, the stakes are very high because research has shown that the quality of a student’s teacher has an enormous influence on that student’s learning — far more than factors such as class size or facilities, or even a school’s overall reputation. But because of agreements struck with teachers’ unions, most public schools find it very difficult to terminate teachers that prove to be ineffective. Thus, a few poor hiring decisions can cripple a school’s efforts to teach its students.

Gladwell’s article offers amazing insight into these challenges, and even proposes a few novel solutions that might make it easier for our nation’s schools to identify and retain the talented teachers who are vital to our children’s educational success. You owe it to yourself to give this article a read.

On this day in 1791, the United States ratified the first 10 amendments to its new Constitution.  These provisions were adopted to ensure that the federal government would be limited in its ability to infringe upon its citizens’ liberties. Later, the addition of the Fourteenth Amendment meant that state and local governments were also prohibited from violating the liberties to which citizens of the United States are entitled. Just in case you haven’t read them in a while, here are the amendments:

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Amendment I – Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

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Amendment II – A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

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Amendment III – No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

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Amendment IV – The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

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Amendment V – No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

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Amendment VI – In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

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Amendment VII – In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

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Amendment VIII – Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

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Amendment IX – The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

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Amendment X – The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The St. Louis Police Department recently performed a service to residents who don’t want to spend time trying to pawn their old weapons for less than $50. How’s this for logical analysis:

“It’s certainly worth the effort,” said Lt. Col Tim Reagan, the department’s chief of detectives. “You can’t give a scientific evaluation of how many crimes it solves or prevents by doing this. But you can say if a gun is not on the street, then it can’t be used. You can say that if a gun is in our possession, then it can’t be used in an unlawful act or cause an accident.”

Well, that’s true. Although it does make you wonder why there’s a limit of five guns per person. If buying back five guns per person gets them off the streets, why not buy back 20? Those guns would be in police hands so they couldn’t be used on the street in 20 hypothetical crimes!

The detective makes it sound like crimes occur because a gun just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. So, the department buys some guns, and those particular guns won’t be used in crimes. But a buyback doesn’t stop criminals from procuring more weapons (in fact, it helps them out with some cash).

The $50,000 would be better spent on tracking down criminals and getting them off the streets. A person who is seeking to harm others is far more dangerous than a machine with no brain or volition of its own. The next time the department wants to spend money, it should “buy back” the criminals.

This is off-topic for us, and not even related to Missouri — but it’s close to Missouri and very, very interesting. So I feel the need to throw a major recommendation for my buddy, the ArchPundit, who has been kicking (bleep) in covering a certain story taking place across a big river in a bordering state that does not have personal property taxes. …

We probably didn’t give enough coverage on this blog to Kansas City’s ban of smoking in public places. Needless to say, the policy was enacted and is now being challenged in court. The Star has the story here. I will try to do a better job of following the case from here forward, although we did have an excellent general write-up on the issue at the beginning of the year.

I have always seen both sides of the issue, but because I worked to pass a smoking ban in the St. Louis County when I worked for Kurt Odenwald, I am not going to be a hypocrite now and come out against them. Especially because I see very good arguments for smoking bans — and if it were up to me, and me alone, I would institute a loose one in the county (i.e., some bars could opt out, cigar clubs could still exist, that type of compromise). Pretty much everyone else here at the Show-Me Institute will disagree vehemently with me, but, heh, this is one of the examples of why I am not a libertarian.

So, it will be interesting to see the result in Kansas City, because the issue will return to St. Louis at some point, and probably soon. You can put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Missouri’s budget crisis is certainly in the news, so some legislators are trying to innovate their way out. According to an article in the St. Louis Business Journal (snippet from the online version), a tax on Internet-based sales will be proposed in the Missouri General Assembly in January.

The bill is called the “Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement Act,” and has already been pre-filed, so it can be found on Policy Pulse in a search with keywords from the bill’s title. Why can’t it be found by searching the keyword “Internet” or “e-commerce?” Well, this bill doesn’t only tax Internet sales. It is a complete overhaul of the Missouri sales tax system, in which tax becomes assessed at the point of delivery, rather than at the point of purchase. As pointed out in the Business Journal’s article:

Missouri currently has a total of 2,173 local sales taxing jurisdictions. The only other state with a higher number of such bodies is Louisiana.

The article is not too friendly to the idea proposed in the bill, and points out the difficulties of administering such a tax system.

This proposed legislation is also an attempt to bring Missouri in line with a larger movement, the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement; here’s a list of current participating states. In the Business Journal, Sen. Joan Bray, the bill’s sponsor, said, “Kansas went through the process and Washington state is going through the process.” Here is a decent article that discusses Washington’s recent change, and the SSUTA. From the article:

In 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled states could not force businesses to pay a sales tax unless the company has a physical presence in the state.

This federal ruling means that membership and participation in the SSUTA is voluntary, and 22 states have already joined in at least some capacity.

I am opposed to this proposal for Missouri not only because of the high cost of implementing and enforcing the measure, but also because of the limitation that this represents on the free choice provided by the Internet. It is currently possible to buy many things you need or want on the Internet at prices that are competitive with local stores, even after shipping costs are considered. This is a tremendous boon for people who don’t happen to live near a major metropolitan area, and a nice opportunity to comparison shop from far and wide. A tax on Internet sales is yet one more way that legislatures are attempting to restrict the wonderful boon that Internet commerce represents, for buyers and sellers alike.

One of our two terrific interns, Calvin, and I had a great talk on the way back to the office from City Hall today. (We were there to distribute copies of our recent studies to the Board of Aldermen, the mayor, etc., but that does not relate to this post.) Calvin and I share very similar beliefs about questions like social capital and interaction, best described in the famous book Bowling Alone.

Somehow, the talk turned to shoeshines, and we began to think of the many great things about getting a shoeshine. When you get your shoes shined at a place like Andre’s in Clayton, you: A) improve the value of an asset, in that your shoes will look more professional and better handle wear and tear; and, B) have a very pleasant time in the process, because shoeshine proprietors tend to be good conversationalists, like bartenders, or perhaps you’d just quietly enjoy the newspaper; and, finally, C) get both of these things for what we all consider to be a very inexpensive price — about $7.

So, I ask you, before I leave to go get a shoeshine, what are some other things that have these three qualities? There are lots of serves with which you spend a little money to improve the value of something you own, but it is usually not fun to go to the dry cleaners. There are countless ways to have a pleasant experience for a little money, like going to a nice bar, but they generally don’t improve the value of anything. Lastly, there are clearly things that improve the value of an asset, and are fun, but are not considered inexpensive — like golf lessons.

My initial inclination is that a car wash is the closest thing to a shoeshine. For people who enjoy yard work, gardening might fit here, too. A small investment in seeds and hand tools can lead to hours of enjoyment in your yard, improving the value of your property. Haircuts could almost make it — but for women, at least, a trip to the stylist is not cheap. Let me know your thoughts. …