Opponents of the proposal brought up two arguments against urban chickens: First, that chickens would be dirty, noisy, and wild; and second, that chickens would lower property values. Urban chicken supporters answered both objections very well.

Opponents told horror stories about disgusting chickens, but they failed to show that chickens are any worse than the birds that already live in Columbia. If chickens harbor pestilence and filth, then so do all the sparrows and pigeons that fly around unmolested. Chicken supporters pointed out that other pets like dogs can carry disease or leave waste, and Columbia has no trouble regulating dog ownership so that most people are satisfied. No one is asking the city to ban all dogs for sanitation reasons; chickens should be equally tolerable.

The Columbia ordinance prohibits roosters, which should go a long way toward preventing noise disturbances. One Realtor who spoke predicted that wild roosters will find a way into the coops despite the owners’ best intentions. I find it hard to believe a rooster could break into a coop that, by law, is made of sturdy fencing with a wire net on top — unless the rooster had access to power tools.

Then there’s the possibility that escaped chickens will flock in the streets. Again, the opponents haven’t shown that chickens are more likely than other animals to cause problems; owners of any kind of pets can be irresponsible. As one councilman said, chickens aren’t the nuisance — people are. Those people are the exception, and Columbia can deal with them on an individual basis. Urban chicken supporters have lots of ideas for reducing the number of wild chickens: A private organization has offered to teach people how to care for chickens, and it’s volunteered to help place abandoned birds in new homes. One graduate student pointed out that unwanted chickens can be sold on Craigslist.

It’s clear that chickens are no more of a nuisance than dogs or cats. However, some Columbia residents — namely, Realtors — say that chickens are uniquely harmful because people think of them as farm animals. They claim that the chicken ordinance will lower property values, and that chickens next door to homes on the market could quash sales. These Realtors overlook the fact that the ordinance doesn’t override neighborhood associations’ covenants or landlords’ policies, which can exclude chickens. Chickens are not about to move into a community of mansions and destroy the value of the surrounding estates. And, as several commenters indicated, some people would actually prefer to buy a house in a city that allows chickens.

The only time chicken enthusiasts lost me was when they appealed to “sustainability” and “food security.” I can’t imagine how building a chicken coop could be fun, either. But whether I agree with the chicken owners’ ideology is not the point. People should be free to pursue their ideals and passions so long as they aren’t hurting anyone else. Chicken raising meets that criterion.

The post Urban Chicken Victory in Columbia appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Few parents are eager to move to remote parts of Alaska, so the districts are in for a struggle if they stick to that strategy. Here’s a better idea: These districts could convert to charter schools, like the district in rural Oregon that reopened as a charter. The Alaskan districts wouldn’t be able to physically bring in many new students to class every day — the bus ride would be too long. But they could enroll additional students online. The districts could continue to hold classes in person, while conducting parallel lessons over the Internet for students who live far away.

The post Alaskan Schools Should Consider Charter Status appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

I discussed this article with two of my best friends while returning from a golf vacation in Michigan yesterday. Although both of them, as lawyers, work in a heavily licensed profession, each thought the example provided in the article amounted to government control run amok. (As an aside, each also agrees that their own profession is overly regulated, but neither went so far as to support totally ending licensure for attorneys. Even I don’t go that far for that particular profession, so we all basically agreed. Given that licensing leads to higher costs, which can then lead to a shortage, I will change my opinion if you can find me one person in the entire country who thinks the modern United States does not have enough lawyers.)

But back to the article. There are so many terrible quotes that I have to settle on just one or two. How about:

Going with an unlicensed mover leaves consumers little or no recourse if the outfit overcharges, items go missing or there’s damage, Bonnema said.

How about the entire civil court system at your disposal for each of these examples? Has the reporter ever heard of small claims court? The sentence should have read “leaves consumers less recourse,” because there is no licensing board to complain to, but there are still plenty of options for the market to work itself out. One such market-correcting force is discussed at the end of the article, but in a negative — not positive — manner. While discussing somebody who had a bad experience with an unlicensed mover, the article reports:

A customer posted a complaint about him on Craigslist after chairs were damaged during a move.

Traditionally, service-oriented businesses increase market share through the word of mouth of trusted people. You might be more inclined to select a plumber because of your neighbor’s recommendation. Now, websites like Craigslist, which often have extensive review sections, are playing more of that role in the market. This is something to be celebrated, not feared. (Note: I wussed out on linking to the “Craigslist” section that would have been the funniest.)

Nowhere does the article discuss the positive aspects of consumers having more choices at lower prices for this particular service. Nor does it offer any criticism of this (emphasis added):

The Illinois Commerce Commission employs 10 police officers in the northern region, four more than last year, said Craig Baner, commander of operations. The officers flood high-traffic moving areas during the busy months and target unlicensed movers.

Doesn’t anyone else think that perhaps the resources of 10 police officers could be put to better use in Chicago than in tracking down unlicensed movers? Am I on crazy pills, here? Ten cops for moving-specific licensing issues!

I could go on and on, but I’ll end here after directing you to some of the more scholarly work we’ve released about the harmful effects of occupational licensure in Missouri and across the country.

The post Atrocious Article About Occupational Licensure From the Chicago Tribune appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The term “wealth” gets thrown around a lot. Like “public good,” however, economists mean something specific when they talk about wealth. It is not just money; it is anything that people want. When a person has more of what they want than they did a year ago, we can say that they are wealthier. If they have more of what someone else wants, we can also say that they are wealthier if they are then able to trade with the person who desires their things and thus get more of what they want.
The question of what people want is somewhat normative (econ jargon meaning “opinion-based”), but some examples will help here. Fishing, farming, and hunting are all ways of obtaining very simple forms of wealth: food, or the stuffs to make it. Besides food, people want clothing and shelter almost universally. Thus, making or trading those things can create wealth.

This point requires some explanation. The term “create wealth” is by no means a misnomer. Any time a person exerts effort to make some materials a little bit more useful or desirable to others, they are creating wealth. As an example, oranges on a tree in Florida aren’t of much use to us in Missouri. When someone makes the effort of picking, packing and trucking them here, they have created wealth.

Trade is another way to create wealth. Any time a person trades something they have for something else, economists tend to assume that they gave up one thing for another thing that they valued more. Because trade usually happens between two people (or two families, businesses, etc.) we can assume that they each feel like they got more out of the trade than they put in, or else they wouldn’t have traded.

Adam Smith more or less invented the modern study of economics when he published “The Wealth of Nations” in 1776. It’s safe to say that no economist today disagrees with his fundamental assertions that societies are made wealthier through specialization and trade (I thought about linking to eBay and Craigslist here, but the fact is that most people do their trading face to face, at the store, etc.).

Today, and for many years now, human civilization has been able to support a standard of living well above subsistence for many people. Specialization and trade, coupled with the concomitant improvements in technology made possible through the application of science to business, have made our current level of total wealth possible. It is also possible to destroy wealth, however. When willing traders are forbidden to trade by force or by law, wealth is destroyed. Property destruction is by far the most obvious form of wealth destruction (not counting campfires or other destructive acts where the destruction itself has value).

I have tried to explicitly avoid mentioning money so far. Though it is essential to our current degree of specialization, money is not truly necessary for specialization and trade — it’s just very convenient, and uneclipsed in efficiency as a medium of exchange.

Try thinking about wealth in the terms I’ve laid out here. Imagine the wealth you create for yourself, your friends and family, your employer. See whether you can think of any forms of wealth destruction that I didn’t mention. I look forward to any and all comments pertaining to this important free-market concept: wealth.

The post Economics Forum 2: Wealth appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The article says that Internet sales are on the rise for the second straight year, hitting $204 billion annually (which again is probably an overestimate), while traditional brick-and-mortar stores are continuing to lose money.  In 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court said that the state couldn’t collect a sales tax from a particular business unless it had a physical presence in that state — but Congress could lift that ban at any time. As we stand on the razor’s edge of a serious economic downturn, I believe it’s a mistake to institute new tax policy that would dampen consumer spending even more.

The article seems to totally disregard why Internet sales are up.  When the market is allowed to operate without interference, this allows a clearer view of what the invisible hand is doing. Things are cheaper online largely because they don’t involve sales tax, and are subject to fewer labor costs, but online products also often come with free shipping — and there is no added personal cost of travel to and from a store. The combination of these factors — the ease of shopping from home, paying less, and easily finding desired products — makes clear why Internet sales are on the rise. These are also good reasons for local stores to place their inventory online and lobby for lower taxes — not push for more taxes. Although placing a tax on Internet sales (whether by the local, state, or federal government) may appear to level the playing field, at least from the brick-and-mortar perspective, it really serves as a protectionist measure for local stores without benefiting consumers.

As a sidenote to the whole idea of Internet taxation, the logistics of how this would work are almost unfathomable. Would officials simply tax online purchases for traditional stores like Best Buy or Walmart and exempt purely Internet-based sales on sites like Amazon and Overstock? How would they track sales for sites like eBay and Craigslist? Are they going to send revenue agents out to track each sale?  Does the state have the authority to tax beyond its boundaries? Would this have to be a federal tax, pursuant to the Constitution’s commerce clause? Does the state realize that forcing commercial activity underground only promotes organized crime? These are are just a few things to think about when contemplating such an idea. Rather than spurring the creation of a new market for illicit online sales, the government should be in the business of fostering legitimate commerce.

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