The number one single today in 1968:
The number one single today in 1971 is …
Britain’s number one single today in 1985:
Today in 1997, Danbert Nobacon of Chumbawamba was arrested and jailed overnight in Italy for … wearing a skirt.
The Fraser Institute has issued Economic Freedom of North America 2012, its eighth annual report on how North American states and provinces (minus Mexico) are doing in economic freedom.
Wisconsin doesn’t fare well. In fact, by the Fraser Institute’s standards, there is less economic freedom south of the U.S.–Canada border than in the Great White North: “Canadian provinces now lead US states in average economic freedom, with the provincial average at 6.8 compared to 6.7 out of 10 for US states.”
To quote Canadian singer Alanis Morrisette, isn’t it ironic? Canada’s politics have always been assumed to be farther left than American politics. Canada has single-payer health care, which has resulted in thousands of Canadians fleeing to the U.S. for health care. Canada has a value-added tax; the U.S. does not.
But, as a comment points out:
Canada’s healthcare system from day one had means of lowering cost, or controlling costs. That is why Canadian prescription drugs cost less. Canada has looked at ways to profit off their resources. They cut business taxes to invite businesses to come there and to boost small business growth. Canada moved more to the right economically. And if you look at the countries showing growth at this time they have all moved towards the right economically. Countries you would not think as conservative countries, China, Russia.
Another adds:
40 years ago, Canadians didn’t have any real property rights. They started changing that piece-by-piece throughout the 70’s, just as Americas eco-nazism was just taking root. In the last 40 years, Canadians have CARED enough about economic freedom to do something to get it. The fact that America has now been passed up by Canada should surprise no one, and the fact that it took them so long should make us weep at how good we had it.
If you count the respective influence of the federal and Canadian governments, based on 2010 statistics Wisconsin ranks 40th out of the 50 states and 10 Canadian provinces. Based only on state and local governments here and provincial and municipal governments north of the border, Wisconsin ranks 43rd.
The index measures economic freedom in four areas:
Wisconsin ranked 31st in size of government, 43rd in size of state and local government (since we rank fifth in state and local taxation by another measure, that’s not ironic at all, is it?), 45th in “takings and discriminatory taxation,” 47th in that category measured at the state/provincial and local level (see previous parenthetical phrase), 30th in labor market freedom, and 39th in labor market freedom at the state/provincial and local level. At best, Wisconsin is in the middle of the North American pack; at worst, Wisconsin is a bottom-quarter state; and in each of those categories if you take the federal role out, Wisconsin’s ranking drops.
Why is this important?
Not only is economic freedom important for the level of prosperity; growth in economic freedom spurs economic growth. …
The econometric testing shows that a one-point improvement in economic freedom at the all-government level increases per-capita GDP by US$13,276 for US states and by US$7,584 (CA$7,963 using a conversion rate of 1.05) for Canadian provinces. At the subnational level, a one-point improvement in economic freedom increases per-capita GDP by US$7,641 for US states and by US$7,679 (CA$8,063) for Canadian provinces.
A 1.00% increase in the growth rate of economic freedom at the all-government level (e.g., from 4.00% per year to 4.04% per year) will induce an increase of 0.97% in the growth rate of per-capita GDP for US states and an increase of 0.65% in the growth rate of per-capita GDP for Canadian provinces. A 1.00% increase in the growth rate of economic freedom at the subnational level will induce an increase of 0.74% in the growth rate of per-capita GDP for US states and 0.64% increase in the growth rate for Canadian provinces. …
Consumers who are free to choose will only be attracted by superior quality and price. Producers must constantly improve the price and quality of their products to meet customers’ demands or customers will not freely enter into transactions with them. Many billions of mutually beneficial transactions occur every day, powering the dynamic that spurs increased productivity and wealth throughout the economy.
Restrictions on freedom prevent people from making mutually beneficial transactions. Such free transactions are replaced by government action. This is marked by coercion in collecting taxes and lack of choice in accepting services: instead of gains for both parties arising from each transaction, citizens must pay whatever bill is demanded in taxes and accept whatever service is offered in return. Moreover, while the incentives of producers in a competitive market revolve around providing superior goods and services in order to attract consumers, the public sector faces no such incentives. Instead, as public-choice theory reveals, incentives in the public sector often focus on rewarding interest groups, seeking political advantage, or even penalizing unpopular groups. This is far different from mutually beneficial exchange although, as noted earlier, government does have essential protective and productive functions.
What does this all mean?
The 10 states at the bottom of the all-government index [including the federal government] were West Virginia, New Mexico, Mississippi, Vermont, Montana, Hawaii, Maine, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Alabama. Their average per-capita GDP in 2010 was $38,017 (in constant 2010 dollars) compared to an average of $48,319 for the other 40 states. The top 10 states were Delaware, Texas, Nevada, Wyoming, Colorado, South Dakota, Georgia, Nebraska, Illinois, and North Carolina. Their average per-capita GDP in 2010 was $51,737 compared to $44,889 for the lowest 40 states. …
The average per-capita GDP in 2010 of the top three provinces on the all-government index, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland & Labrador, is $57,298 (CA$60,163) compared to $34,901 (CA$36,646) for the three lowest provinces, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and Quebec, with the Canadian average at $43,688 (CA$45,872) (Statistics Canada, 2011).
Wisconsin, remember, has trailed the national average in per capital personal income growth since the late 1970s. That is through Republican and Democratic governors, and through Republican- and Democratic-controlled Legislatures as well as Legislatures with split party control. Wisconsin would have done better with smaller government, lower taxes, and less regulation than we presently have. The data demonstrates the ties between more, or less, economic freedom, and more, or less, economic growth. As one of the comments points out:
Label these states as “blue” or “red.” No discernible pattern. Both sides are irresponsible and wealth-choking.
That has historically applied to this state, which has never had an equivalent to Ronald Reagan (as president, not as California governor) with an equivalent interest in killing Govzilla. The cultural reasons may include the dominant ethnic groups that settled the state (Germans and Scandinavians, neither home countries of which have ever been known for small government), and in part because of the people that came to Wisconsin from other states, none, again, known for small government or libertarian leanings, except, of course, with alcohol.
There are implications for the next session of the Legislature. Gov. Scott Walker promises “massive” tax reform. Through the 2010 election, the 2011 and 2012 editions of Recallarama, and the Nov. 6 election, Republicans have control of both houses of the Legislature. So Walker and the GOP need to do things that improve, not take away from, economic freedom — cut taxes, reduce the size and scope of government (as in a 2013–15 budget smaller than the 2011–13 budget), and permanently (that is, through constitutional amendment) restrict state and local government growth.
The number one single today in 1969 reached number one because of both sides:
The number one album today in 1986 was Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s “Live/1975–85”:
The Chicago Tribune’s Steve Chapman:
To say we need more enforcement to seal the border is like saying we should re-invade Iraq. In the first place, we’ve already ramped up enforcement in every way imaginable. In the second place, it hasn’t solved the problem — and in fact has largely backfired.
We don’t need “comprehensive” legislation. What we need is realism: Accept that millions of foreigners are living here illegally and are not going to “self-deport” — and that we (and they) will be better off if they gain the protection of the law.
The draconian measures needed to get rid of them all are no longer politically possible, if they ever were. And they probably wouldn’t work anyway.
G.K. Chesterton wrote that “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.” Enforcement enthusiasts think the same is true of their preferred option. From them, you would think every migrant sneaking across the Arizona border only had to get by an unarmed attendant sitting in a folding chair and playing Angry Birds on an iPhone.
In fact, the southern border increasingly resembles the Berlin Wall. Border security has become the poster child of big government programs that conservatives typically abhor. It never succeeds, and every failure becomes the rationale for additional funding.
Since 2001, the U.S. Border Patrol budget has tripled. The number of agents, which was about 4,000 in 1992, has ballooned to some 21,000 today. But the number of apprehensions has fallen by two-thirds in the past five years. …
What’s it gotten us? The number of undocumented foreigners living here rose steadily until 2008, when the busted economy made America a less alluring destination. It’s not fair to say that the illegal population grew in spite of our sternest efforts to reduce it. It’s more accurate to say it happened because of those efforts.
In the old days, most people who came illegally didn’t stay for long. They showed up, worked for a while and returned home. But when border crossings became more difficult, perilous and expensive, many of them chose to remain in this country permanently rather than leave and risk not being able to get back. …
“It was thus a sharp decline in the outflow of undocumented migrants, not an increase in the inflow of undocumented migrants, that was responsible for the acceleration of undocumented population growth during the 1990s and early 2000s, and this decline in return migration was to a great extent a product of U.S. enforcement efforts,” wrote Princeton scholars Douglas Massey and Karen Pren in a recent issue of Population and Development Review.
Why we should be reluctant to accept these striving newcomers, who almost invariably work hard and stay out of trouble, is a puzzle. The punitive approach is particularly unfair in the case of those who were brought here as children and have become Americans in all the customary ways, through no fault of their own.
But maybe all the talk about tougher enforcement is just a way for our leaders to cover their shift to an overdue accommodation of the illegal immigrants in our midst.
The choice is not between letting them stay and making them leave: We have already proved that we can’t force them out. The choice is between adjusting the law to fit the stubborn facts of life and persisting in measures to make their lives miserable. The latter is a proven loser, in more ways than one.
The number one single today in 1960:
The number one (for the second time) single today in 1963:
The number one single today in 1964:
The number one British single today in 1970:
Today in 1991, Nirvana did perhaps the worst lip-synching effort of all time of its “Smells Like Teen Spirit” for the BBC’s “Top of the Pops”:
Facing stubbornly high unemployment and slow growth, swelling deficits and a divided Congress, President Obama is surely scrambling for an economic elixir. He has often cited the economy of the 1990s during the administration of his Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton, as his ideal. President Clinton managed to keep the economy moving ahead briskly despite repeated foreign currency crises—and despite raising taxes, which should have been an economic drag.
That seems to be Mr. Obama’s plan. As he has said repeatedly, he wants to increase tax rates on “millionaires and billionaires” to “the same rate we had when Bill Clinton was president”—39.6%—”the same rate we had when our economy created nearly 23 million new jobs.”
Dream on. Given increases in state, local, payroll and other taxes since the 1990s, the effective rate is considerably higher. In California—the home of venture capital and of many job creators—the top marginal income-tax rate would exceed 50% thanks to the state’s new 13.3% rate. The top capital gains rate in the Golden State, if Mr. Obama gets his way, would rise past 37%—the scheduled increase on Jan. 1 to 20% plus 3.8% in ObamaCare plus the 13.3%, since the state taxes capital gains as ordinary income. …
Robert Rubin, who took over as Treasury Secretary in January 1995 after 26 years at Goldman Sachs,GS +2.22% understood a thing or two about markets. In particular, he knew that during the inflationary 1970s, weak dollars flowed into commodities instead of stocks and ventures that were vulnerable to shifts in the value of the currency. During the Reagan era, Mr. Rubin and Goldman Sachs thrived by learning that a strong dollar attracts productive investment that drives a growing economy. …
Under President Clinton, Treasury Secretary Rubin told everyone who asked that “the U.S. supports a strong dollar.” And he put the country’s money where his mouth was, pushing a strong-dollar policy that included working with central banks to keep the dollar’s value up by buying and selling currencies and advocating free trade. During Mr. Rubin’s nearly five-year tenure at Treasury, the dollar price of oil and gold dropped; the unemployment rate declined to 4.3% from 5.6%; and the stock market more than doubled. The Clinton economic legacy exists primarily because Robert Rubin acted on what he learned during the 1980s. …
It is no wonder that dollars have fled to fixed assets like gold, bidding the price up to $1700 an ounce from $900 during the Obama administration. Meanwhile, investible cash sits on the sidelines or offshore, waiting for better dollar-based returns.
Mr. Obama doesn’t need Congress to kick-start investment in the U.S. It takes a strong dollar and a new Treasury secretary with credibility as a start. That person will need to persuade Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke or his eventual replacement to end what has come to be called “QE Infinity”—investors’ belief that the Fed will just keep printing dollars and debasing their value by quantitative easing. …
But the real kicker in 2013 will be fracking-induced lower energy costs in the U.S. This is not about heating homes or cheaper driving, though that will help. It is about bringing back aluminum and chemical factories that, seeking lower natural-gas costs, were driven to build factories in Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing countries. A rising dollar—versus other currencies but especially against the price of oil and natural gas—will make a decision to build in the U.S. an easy one. Without support for the dollar, foreign capital will stay offshore until investing in the U.S. feels safe.
A strong dollar has already proven under Presidents Reagan and Clinton to increase investment and then jobs and then profits and then more investment. A weak dollar will delay an investment boom and continue the country’s current plodding path. Inquiring minds and investors wonder which it will be.
The number one album today in 1965 was Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass’ “Whipped Cream and Other Delights”:
The number one single today in 1966 was this one-hit wonder:
The number one British album today in 1976 was Glen Campbell’s “20 Golden Greats”:
I’m not sure I agree with all of Tim Stanley‘s conclusions, but they are interesting:
Two recent events have renewed my faith in conservatism’s eccentricity. The first was Secession 2012!, wherein thousands of Americans responded to Obama’s win by collectively threatening to leave the country. The endless online debates about the legal validity of such a move illustrated how historically literate the average American actually is – while the revelation that the leader of the Alabama secession movement was doing it to get his topless car wash back showed just how deliciously bloody minded they can be, too. “From my cold, dead hand…”
The second curio came from England, where the Anglican Synod voted down an attempt to introduce women bishops. It was a reminder that there are one or two people left in the British Isles for whom religion isn’t just about cake sales for Africa. There are very few of these traditionalist dinosaurs still walking the Earth, as the narrowness of the defeat showed. But by compelling Parliament to intervene and forcing Left-wing journalists to write about theology (Wikipedia must have crashed with all the traffic), they have truly become a grain of sand in Heaven’s eye. …
By contrast, isn’t it remarkable how liberalism has become the ideology of the establishment? There was a time when to be a conservative was to want to preserve the ethos of a country’s great institutions: finance, culture, church, education. Today, however, those institutions are largely in the hands of liberals. For instance, I am old enough (just about) to remember when the stereotype of an Anglican priest was an angry old man from Tunbridge Wells who would write frequent letters to The Times complaining about smut on television. Today, the cliché is a liberal-minded guitar-strummer of indistinct gender with more cardigans than sense. Crucially, the social democratic consensus has inhabited even those institutions that are explicitly conservative. Today’s Conservative Party is really just yesterday’s Liberal Party, while the Republicans are only as Right-wing as they appear because their base compels them to be. After the defeat of Mitt Romney (the most centrist nominee since Gerald Ford – discuss?), the Grand Old establishment has largely bought the line that the only way to win 2016 is to embrace immigration reform, tax increases and culture war surrender. On the US Right, for every Reagan you can find a Rockefeller.
Perversely (and fascinatingly) this recasts unreformed conservatives as counter cultural rebels. Finding themselves locked out of the very institutions that they once cherished, they are now the folks with the pitchforks banging on the castle gate. At best, they have become a force for philosophical leverage. In the UK, the electoral success of UKIP has made the Conservative Party reconsider its position on Europe. In the US, it is the Tea Party and not the mainline GOP that raises the conservative standard – and it is probably thanks to the Tea Party that the House Republicans are stressing entitlement reform over tax increases. And within the Anglican Church, it was the laity that helped defeat women bishops – not the overwhelmingly liberal clergy. Therein lies the greatest irony of all. Most religious conservatives highly prise obedience to priests, yet here they are defying the priestly establishment. In defence of traditional authority, Christians are now forced to defy traditional authority. In a final, delicious twist, this compels liberals to become the brutal enforcers of the status-quo – the latter-day Inquisition. The world is turned upside down.
The number 14 single today in 1958 was this singer’s first entry on the charts, and certainly not his last:
Today in 1967, the Beatles’ “Hello Goodbye” promotional film (now called a “video”) was shown on CBS-TV’s Ed Sullivan Show. It was not shown in Britain because of a musicians’ union ban on miming:
One death of odd note, today in 1973: John Rostill, former bass player with the Shadows (with which Cliff Richard got his start), was electrocuted in his home recording studio. A newspaper headline read: “Pop musician dies; guitar apparent cause.”
Today in 1969, John Lennon returned his Member of the Order of the British Empire medal as, in his accompanying note, “a protest against Britain’s involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam and against ‘Cold Turkey’ slipping down the charts.”
The number one single today in 1972 should have been part of my blog about the worst music of all time:
Today in 1976, The Band gave its last performance, commemorated in Martin Scorsese’s film “The Last Waltz”:
The only birthday worth mentioning today is Percy Sledge:
There is no record I can find for the specific birthday, other than November, for Dennis Coffey. But Coffey wrote a ’70s instrumental that deserves his mention sometime this month:
One death of odd note today in 1974: Nick Drake, a 26-year-old singer/songwriter, of an overdose of an antidepressant. Two years before his death, Drake recorded an album, “Pink Moon,” that is apparently considered a classic in Britain. Twenty-six years after Drake’s death, Volkswagen used the title track, “Pink Moon,” in a TV ad, and within a month Drake had posthumously sold more records than he sold in the previous 30 years.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 