What do St. Louis police chiefs and the rapper 50 Cent have in common? Honestly, not too much, but they both possess a lot of bling bling. Apparently, the St. Louis police chief is sporting a $5,900 gold plated badge on his uniform, and his posse (top cops) are wearing $1,987 badges. The news of these superfluously ostentatious badges has spread all around the country — even people in big-government Boston are shaking their heads.

With this type of money, the whole police force could purchase Power Ranger badges and just morph when someone calls 911.

According to Sports Illustrated:

Next season, San Francisco Giants fans buying single-game tickets for an April game against Milwaukee might pay half as much as they would for a weekend game with the rival Los Angeles Dodgers later in the year.

The club is trying something new with ticket sales in a few tough-to-sell upper-deck outfield sections of its waterfront ballpark for 2009: cost based on demand.

The walk-up sales price for up to about 2,000 seats could even go up or down on game day.

Granted, this is only an experiment in San Francisco, but what if the St. Louis Cardinals decided to do this as well? I would love for you to comment.

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.

The Show-Me Institute’s very own David Stokes was interviewed by David Nicklaus of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for an article discussing the topic of licensing in the state of Missouri. While Missouri has been ranked to have the least amount of licensing restrictions, Stokes was still able to show how regulation can affect the economy by focusing on the massage therapy industry, which is a licensed profession in Missouri but not in Kansas.

His latest case study compared the prices of the metropolitan Kansas City market on both sides of the state line, and compared Springfield to Wichita. Unsurprisingly, the data show that Missourians pay a higher cost for massage services, a situation likely caused by market regulation. Stokes is quoted in the article as saying:

“This is a system designed to limit competition for the people who have the current licenses,” Stokes asserts. “That’s the only reason. Everything else is a smoke screen.”

I agree with David Stokes 100 percent. It baffles me how people try to argue for occupational licensing by saying that it is a form of consumer protection. Although his study demonstrates some of the ancillary benefits that licensing can provide, such as reduced search costs when trying to find a competent practitioner, government officials aren’t in a position to determine whether those benefits are worth the higher market costs that reduced competition brings. Ultimately, the primary thing being protected is the income of a particular set of licensed professionals.

I could easily prolong this post, but interns at the Show-Me Institute don’t get that long of a break. So excuse me while I go to Kansas to get a massage — it’s been a loooong day!

Harry S. Truman once said, “A politician is a man who understands government [...] A statesman is a politician who’s been dead 10 or 15 years.” With every passing year, more politicians become insulated in bureacracy, isolated from reality, and more out of touch with the very constituents who put them in office. Many people fear things would not get done if we limited terms and the amount of time people have in office; it’s hard enough trying to learn the ins and outs of government as it is, right? Well, these ins and outs would not exist if we expanded term limits.

According to a Missourinet article, an organization known as Term Limits for Missouri has filed paperwork in efforts to place term limits on all statewide offices. The head of the organization issued a press release, saying, “It’s better for democracy to have citizen elected officials not bureaucrats who stay in office for decades.”

I am pretty positive on my stance concerning term limits. However, some free-market thinkers differ on the issue. I would love for all of you to respond with your opinions on the subject.

By way of John Combest, I saw an article in the Southeast Missourian that would tickle Nick Naylor pink. Ten years ago, Big Tobacco settled a lawsuit with the states agreeing to pay $294 billion over 25 years to fund health care and smoking-cessation programs. Unfortunately, there were no strings attached to the way the 46 states spent these settlement funds. According to the article, less than 4 percent of the money was used for the programs they were intended for. This is far from the first time government has misused funds. It’s the same old bologna, just a different flavor.

An article in the Columbia Tribune informed everyone that aid would be available to residents who were victims of the September storms. According to the article, the assistance will be available to the insured, the uninsured, and citizens that lived in the federally designated flood plains.

With this news, I would just like to revisit an summer op-ed written by Matt Simpson, which discussed the incentives of flood relief. Does subsidizing and funding reconstruction efforts REALLY ease the pain caused by floods?

After attending an Institute for Humane Studies workshop this past summer, I established a firm economic foundation. My professor reduced the whole field into one single sentence: The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.

This lesson is further validated by economist Henry Hazlitt, who believed that many of the economic fallacies in the world today stem from one or two issues: Looking only at the immediate consequences of an act or proposal, or looking at the consequences only for a particular group — to the neglect of others.

Today’s economic lesson is about the St. Louis Board of Aldermen and its proposal to limit payday loan stores in the area, as reported by the Post-Dispatch. Payday loans are short-term loans that are intended to cover borrowers’ expenses until their next pay period. According to many consumer advocate groups, payday loan stores are predatory — they prey on uninformed consumers and dish out loans with a vague screening process, making it easy for any Joe Six Pack to take out a loan.

Personally, I can’t stand them. Payday loan stores can take people who are already in an economic hole and turn their situations into economic craters. In spite of this, the stores represent a last resort for people who operate with little or no economic safety net. Let’s not forget, there is a market out there that really can take advantage of payday loans. Eliminating stores removes market competition, so that stores still operating end up offering even less favorable terms, or more restrictive screening. This would put those consumers in an even bigger bind. In the Post-Dispatch article, Tom Linafelt, a spokesman for Quik Cash, even stated, “Laws to restrict the opening of new stores actually help companies like his because they lessen competition.” Unfortunately, this guy is right.

Justin Hauke, a former Show-Me Institute policy analyst, wrote a piece on this topic back in 2007. Rather than pass new regulation, legislatures should get to the root of the financial problems surrounding payday loans, by encouraging programs that increase financial literacy (preferably in high school) or that seek alternative sources of short-term financing — such as lines of credit, or credit unions. No matter what, Economics 101 teaches us that we should look past the immediate consequences of an act, or the consequences for a particular group, so that we don’t neglect others.

Way to go, class. You earned your sticker for today.

Mr. Crosby Kemper III, co-founder and chairman of the board for the Show-Me Institute, was profiled in the Kansas City Pitch last week. While he has accomplished much in his life, we are grateful for the work he has put in to our organization. Back in 2005, Kemper, along with Rex Sinquefield, recognized the importance of a state-based think thank for Missouri. He has since been instrumental in the board’s development, and remains a vital voice in determining the path of the institute in its efforts to improve Missouri.

Feel free to check it out. If you enjoy the GQ-style picture here, just hold tight. The swimsuit calendar is coming out this summer.

Back in October, I discussed some of my thoughts about Proposition 1. Just to refresh your memory, Saint Louis County was faced with a new annual tax of one quarter of a cent to fund programs for the mental health and well-being of area youth. Well, the proposition passed on Tuesday by an overwhelming 61 percent of the vote. Now, St. Louis County tax dollars will help to collect $40 million to create a steady stream of funding for emergency shelters, transitional living programs for older youth, outpatient substance abuse treatment, and services to teen mothers.

Here at the Show-Me Institute, we truly love the kids. The purpose of my op-ed was to just open up new alternatives to old problems. It would have been really interesting to see if/how the community might have come together to support at-risk youth through charitable tax credits. Whether or not we could have collected $40 million just from charitable giving is debatable. Nonetheless, it think it could help strengthen some of that social fabric that we seem to have lost in our society.

Unlike most of the staff here at Show-Me, I do not have an economics background (I am sure many of you might be able to tell. Wink wink, Vroman). I did, however, major in sociology as an undergrad, and am currently studying social policy in graduate school. One of my favorite books of all time is Bowling Alone, by Robert Putnam. The book talks about many issues, such as the drastic decrease in civic engagement in the United States, and the demise of social capital. I always thought that social capital and civic virtue were closely related. The only difference is that social capital focuses on the fact that civic virtue is most powerful when it is embedded in a sense network of common social relations. A society of many benevolent but isolated individuals does not have a strong social fabric. Thus, forcing a tax on St. Louis County will not solve the issues plaguing the region’s youth.

This is evident from the reaction of the campaign manager of Putting Kids First, who “praised St. Louis Countians’ concern for children.” Making people pay taxes for youth programs does not show that the constituency cares. It just shows that they are obedient taxpayers. Only close interactions enable people to build communities and allow them to commit themselves to each other, therefore knitting social fabric.

It’s that time of year again — election time in Missouri. There really is not too much to blog about today. If there was, you wouldn’t be able to read it anyway, for I am sure most of your day would be consumed with standing in poll lines and watching the results of the elections. There are many initiatives on the ballot; feel free to visit Policy Pulse and our main website to educate yourself about some of the issues.

I just wanted to make note that one of our policy analysts, David Stokes appeared on Dateline NBC last night, campaigning for his preferred candidates on his own time in Chesterfield, Mo. Feel free to check out the clip.