Two Asbury Park, N.J., police officers are facing charges of conspiracy, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, criminal mischief, and unlawful possession of a weapon for vandalizing vehicles of a man who filed a complaint against them. Prosecutors say Stephen Martinsen and Thomas Dowling put on disguises, slashed the tires, and broke windows of vehicles owned by Ernest Mignoli in two separate incidents. They say Dowling hurt his hand putting it through the window of one vehicle. Prosecutors have declined to state what the nature of Mignoli’s original complaint was.
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Two Asbury Park, N.J., police officers are facing charges of conspiracy, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, criminal mischief, and unlawful possession of a weapon for vandalizing vehicles of a man who filed a complaint against them. Prosecutors say Stephen Martinsen and Thomas Dowling put on disguises, slashed the tires, and broke windows of vehicles owned by Ernest Mignoli in two separate incidents. They say Dowling hurt his hand putting it through the window of one vehicle. Prosecutors have declined to state what the nature of Mignoli’s original complaint was.
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In Orwell’s dystopian fiction 1984, the government’s mission through the Ministry of Truth is to supply its people with news, entertainment, books, films, plays and songs, packed with the information it wants the people to know. It constructs lies to fit the narrative it wishes to establish and sets about rewriting historical documents so they match the constantly changing current party line.
Have we slept walked our way into 1984 with the curious witchhunt of Julian Assange?
From the time Wikileaks published Collateral Murder in 2010, exposing the slaying of Iraqi civilians at the hands of merciless US Apache soldiers, in what became the biggest news story of its time, the United States has wanted Julian Assange silenced and forgotten.
He has lived in a state of confinement since May 2010 when he was arrested and jailed in the United Kingdom, lived under house arrest for a further 18 months in England and then sought political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy from June 2012 .Yet many people think Assange was in a position where he could simply walk free.
Has there been a well crafted smear campaign to dehumanise Assange and coax the public into forgetting him? How else could he have been detained within two tiny rooms devoid of sunlight for more than six years without public commentary and concern? The apparent dismantling of Assange’s character and disinformation has been thorough. Most people do not know the specifics of his case, but “believe” he is an arrogant rapist and an ungrateful, badly behaved houseguest, smearing faeces on the embassy walls and being cruel to his cat. These disputed claims are now so well accepted it’s inconceivable that they could actually be lies.
The one surety about Assange was that he did publish secret State documents and videos. Embarrassing yes, but surely not indictable in a country that protects freedom of speech in its constitution. Never mind the fact that Assange is an Australian citizen, but far from protecting him against being tried for espionage in America, the Morrison government’s public statements have been limited to assurances that he is being treated like any other citizen with ongoing consular assistance.
Are we being served by our “free media’ in its reportage of the Wikileaks expose and the subsequent treatment of Julian Assange?
Instead of seeing the 2016/17 Democratic National Committee (DNC) email leaks as important data on presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, the prevailing narrative by the mainstream media was that Wikileaks’ handed the presidency to Donald Trump. Although the voter count showed Clinton had the majority by just over 3M votes and that Trump’s win had more to do with the American Electoral College system, the focus remained on the now debunked “Russiagate.”
Julian Assange before his internet was taken away in 2018
In March 2018, the Ecuadorian government imposed new conditions on Assange, removing all forms of communication and restricting his social visits. He was then unable to do any further work with Wikileaks and had limited connection with the outside world. His silencing was almost complete.
In April this year, Ecuador’s illegal breach of Assange’s asylum followed with his immediate arrest by UK police and a 50 week sentence in a maximum security prison for breaching bail. News organisations had been alerted to Assange’s imminent arrest by Wikileaks press releases but these were ignored. Ironically the images of the world’s “most dangerous man” being hauled from the embassy were supplied by only one agency, Ruptly, a branch of Russia Today. Without this footage how might this story have been reported?
It appears the news media is choosing not to report much of Assange’s ongoing plight. Strange, given he was once feted for his courage and innovation, winning the Sydney Peace Prize and one of Australian journalism’s coveted Walkley awards. The case against Assange concerns the criminalisation of journalism at a time when media organisations in his own country are under siege. Federal Police raided the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in June for reporting alleged warcrimes by Australian forces in Afghanistan. This followed search warrants being executed at the home of Murdoch media journalist Annika Smethhurst over a leaked plan to allow government spying on its citizens. The coverage included detailed reporting of detectives rifling through her underwear drawer.
Contrast this with the lack of reportage on some important aspects of the Assange case.
In May, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer visited Assange in Belmarsh Prison producing a damning report which was widely circulated, but surprisingly had little impact.
“It was obvious that Mr. Assange’s health has been seriously affected by the extremely hostile and arbitrary environment he has been exposed to for many years. Most importantly, in addition to physical ailments, Mr Assange showed all symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture, including extreme stress, chronic anxiety and intense psychological trauma.
Mr Melzer’s report included this extraordinary claim:
“In 20 years of work with victims of war, violence and political persecution I have never seen a group of democratic States ganging up to deliberately isolate, demonise and abuse a single individual for such a long time and with so little regard for human dignity and the rule of law. The collective persecution of Julian Assange must end here and now!”
How could such a grave statement not have triggered further investigation and commentary other than by independent journalists? Melzer’s horrific diagnosis involves the life of a western journalist going to a western jail for doing his job.
UN Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer discussing Julian Assange
In July 2019 US Federal District Judge John Koeltl dismissed a DNC lawsuit against Wikileaks, emphasizing the “newsworthiness” of Wikileaks publishing activities describing them as “plainly of the type entitled to the strongest protection that the First Amendment offers.”
“If WikiLeaks could be held liable for publishing documents concerning the DNC’s political financial and voter-engagement strategies simply because the DNC labels them ‘secret’ and trade secrets, then so could any newspaper or other media outlet,” — Judge Koeltl
Even today an online search of reportage of this Federal court judgement appears to show an absence by Australia’s main media outlets such as the ABC, Nine news media and News Corporation. Would it influence the public perception of Julian Assange if more knew a US Judge considered his work to be worthy?
Recently multi-awarding winning journalist Mark Davis gave an eyewitness account refuting claims Assange was reckless and that he carelessly dumped documents endangering the lives of many. Instead he reported the Wikileaks founder took great care to redact and protect innocent people named in the trove of documents released as part of the Afghan war logs. Davis said he considered Assange acted with journalistic integrity.
Mark Davis via @CNLive
Where was the mainstream reportage of the Davis testimony? Social media posts of articles by independent journalists appear to be the most reliable way to keep up with the unfolding Assange story. These are primarily shared within circles of advocates and independent media which limits their reach and sometimes creates questions about their accuracy.
This means the majority of people wont know how shocked veteran Australian journalist John Pilger was after seeing Assange in prison last month. They wont know his health is said to be deteriorating while confined to his single cell for almost 21 hours a day. Nor will they know that he gets just two social visits a month and is denied the opportunity to prepare with his US lawyers for his upcoming extradition trial.
Do not forget Julian #Assange. Or you will lose him.
I saw him in Belmarsh prison and his health has deteriorated. Treated worse than a murderer, he is isolated, medicated and denied the tools to fight the bogus charges of a US extradition. I now fear for him. Do not forget him.
John Pilger joined with musician Roger Waters to organise a rally this week in London to honour their friend, calling for the UK government to resist the US extradition request.
About 1000 people gathered in front of the Home Office to listen to an emotional Waters sing his hit song “Wish You Were Here”. Just as Julian Assange couldn’t hear the tribute from his cell at nearby Belmarsh, the majority of people did not hear of this public event.
The general public will likely miss the plea by Gabriel Shipton, Assange’s younger brother, who read a letter at the rally that he’d written to Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison. His concerns about his brother’s welfare and the PM’s silence, have largely gone unnoticed by mainstream media. More silencing? More forgetting?
On September 7 on Twitter, Julian Assange’s name was trending when people started sharing an interview with celebrity and activist Pamela Anderson.
Anderson appeared on the American ABC’s long running talk show The View. As she was talked over and drilled for information, the former Baywatch star kept her cool as she schooled her fellow panellists with facts about Assange’s case and countered their claims, calling them smear and lies.
Here was a story that combined celebrity and controversy, but it has barely received mention in the Australian press?
At a recent press freedom conference in England, Special Envoy for Media Freedom, Amal Clooney, spoke of the alarm felt by journalists around the world at the Assange US indictments which “criminalises common practices in journalism that have long served the public interest.” If this is true who are the concerned journalists and why aren’t we hearing from them?
Not only has the UK government silenced Assange in prison, but the last decade of his life appears to have been censored. Who is steering the narrative in a near vacuum of information and repeated disinformation? Is there are a modern day “Ministry of Truth” behind the ongoing media blackout of one of the most influential and controversial people of our times?
“Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they rebelled they cannot become conscious” — George Orwell
“Now Is The Time To Plan For The Next Recession,” Think Tank Urges Britain
Britain isn’t ready for a recession and must consider new innovative countercyclical buffers when it arrives, the Resolution Foundation, a think-tank, said on Monday.
Researchers at the foundation said the Bank of England (BoE) would have difficulty fighting off a recession because interest rates are already near the zero lower bound.
In the last recession, the BoE was able to cut interest rates from 5% to near zero. Now rates are .75%, which means the next round of cuts will have minimal stimulative effects on the real economy.
A foundation spokesperson said quantitative easing delivered about two-thirds of support to the economy during the last recession by reducing longer-term interest rates. But with GB10Y already near the zero level, quantitative easing might not be as effective as before.
“Today even long-term rates are now very close to zero, with 10-year government borrowing costs now below half a percent,” a foundation spokesperson said.
The think-tank warned that deep interest rate cuts into negative territory along with quantitative easing could have very little stimulative effects, which means the BoE currently has a depleted tool kit ahead of a recession that could strike in the near term.
The foundation said global central banks and countries are actively reviewing tools available for central banks amid the threat of a worldwide recession. It said the UK and BoE have been slow to review their policy tool kits, has called for a thorough evaluation of the available tools.
Researchers asked the government and central bank officials to review the pros and cons of a higher inflation target.
The think-tank also called for shovel-ready infrastructure projects and direct payments to households to cushion the economy during the upcoming downturn.
“Now is the time to plan for the next recession – because the one thing we know for certain is that it will happen,” James Smith, Research Director at the Resolution Foundation, said.
“The UK today faces the highest recession risk since the financial crisis, and lower-income households are now more exposed to a downturn than they were back then.”
The foundation’s report comes as Britain’s economy contracted in Q2 for the first time in seven years as the cloud of uncertainty brought by Brexit discouraged business investment and prompted some consumers to put off major purchases as well.
For the three months ended June, GDP contracted 0.2% compared to the previous quarter, according to the Office for National Statistics. That’s lower than what experts had expected (they had forecast growth to be flat). The biggest drag was a drop in manufacturing output, which caused the production sector to shrink by 1.4%. Construction also weakened while critical service sector yielded no growth at all.
The contraction marks the first time the economy has shrunk since 2012.
The contraction comes amid rising fears that Britain could crash out of the European Union on Oct 31 without a deal as negotiations with the EU remain at an impasse. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has committed to leaving on Oct 3. with or without a deal, causing the economy to weaken and likely usher in a recession.
Denmark has experienced 10 bombings since February. The latest took place on August 27 in a residential complex, Gersager, in the Greve area, very close to Copenhagen. No one was injured, but the building was seriously damaged. This year, the Swedish city of Malmö has experienced 19 bombings. An August 16 editorial in the Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende said:
“No one wants Swedish conditions where shootings and bombings have reached an extreme degree. In addition to conflicts in the gang environment, there have been bombing attacks against police stations as well as courthouses, a town hall and the Swedish Tax Agency in Malmö in recent years.”
The piece was published after the Danish Tax Authority in Copenhagen was bombed on August 6, destroying its façade; one person was injured. Two Swedish citizens were charged with the attack. “The Swedish suspects have names that indicate that they have a different ethnic background than Swedish, but there is as yet no knowledge of the motives that may have driven them,” Berlingskewrote.
A few days later, on August 10, Copenhagen experienced another bombing that caused material damage, this time against a police station in Nørrebro.
Shortly after the bombings of the Danish Tax Authority and the Copenhagen police station, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen held a press conference. The government, she said, views the bombings “as an attack on our authorities and thus also our society”. She added that the government plans to strengthen the border with Sweden. “We have a challenge. It should not be the case that you can travel from Sweden to Denmark and place dynamite in the middle of Copenhagen”. She stressed that the border “has our full attention. And it needs to be strengthened”.
While the motives behind the Danish bombings are apparently unclear, Swedish journalist, Joakim Palmkvist, who has been following crime developments in Sweden, toldTV2 Nyheder that there are certain similarities between the bombings in Denmark and Sweden: Whereas the bombing targets in Sweden have often been residential complexes, businesses or restaurants, the police have also been targeted several times. Most recently a town hall was targeted in Landskrona and hit by a large explosion. According to Palmkvist, Swedish police believe that these bombings are due to mainly two motives: Blackmail, when criminals want money or services from their victims; or as revenge against the police for moving against the criminals.
Sweden is exporting not only its bombings to Denmark. Gang crime, with its shootings and murders, has also traveled across the border. In July, three Swedes were arrested in Stockholm on suspicion of a double homicide of two Swedish men in the Danish city of Herlev on June 25: a Swedish gang leader and another man had been shot dead. The two men were reportedly killed in Denmark as part of a conflict between the Swedish gangs “Dödspatrullen” (“the death patrol”) and ‘Shottaz’.
Although the dramatic escalation has been imported from Sweden, Denmark is experiencing its own problems with crime, especially that committed by male migrants. As reported by Berlingske Tidende in April:
“The figures [from the report for 2018 from Statistics Denmark, the national statistics agency, ‘Immigrants in Denmark in 2018’] show that crime in 2017 was 60% higher among male immigrants and 234% higher in male non-Western descendants than the entire male population. If one takes into account, for example, that many of the descendants are young, and Statistics Denmark does so in the report, the figures are 44% for immigrants and 145%for descendants, respectively. If further corrected, for both age and income, of immigrants and descendants from non-western countries, the figures are 21% and 108%”.
As for the nationality of the criminal migrants, Berlingske Tidende reported:
“At the top of the list are male Lebanese who, as far as [their] descendants are concerned, are almost four times as criminal as average men, when [the figures are] adjusted for age. [That is] sharply followed by male descendants from Somalia, Morocco and Syria. The violence index is 351 for descendants from non-western countries. They are 3.5 times more violent than the population as a whole. Descendants from Lebanon have an index of violent crimes of 668 when corrected for age.”
On August 25, a 31-year-old woman, Karolina Hakim, was shot to death in broad daylight in Ribersborg, a peaceful, relatively affluent area of Malmö. The murder sent shock waves through Sweden, not least because the woman was holding her newborn baby in her arms. The man who was accompanying the woman, reportedly the father of her child, is mentioned in Swedish media as having been part of a spectacular robbery in Denmark in 2008, for which he was sentenced to eight years in prison.
Only two days later, an 18-year-old woman was shot to death in an apartment in Stockholm.
Denmark is still relatively far from having reached the kind of crime epidemic that is currently plaguing Sweden. However, given the proximity of the two countries, the open borders and the apparent free flow of criminals across the borders — not to mention Denmark’s own crime level — there seems little to stop the situation in Denmark from getting out of control and becoming increasingly more like Sweden.
Erdogan Breaks Silence: Says The US Sent 30,000 Truckloads Of Weapons To Syria
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has called out the US for delivering more than 30,000 weapon-laden trucks to Syria to support the PKK-linked People’s Protection Units (YPG) terrorist group, reported Press Tv.
#BREAKING Turkey not to remain silent to over 30,000 weapon-laden trucks sent by US to N.Syria as Turkey only country in region to fight, says Erdogan
Speaking at the Justice and Development Party’s meeting in Eskişehir, a city in northwestern Turkey, Erdogan said he wouldn’t sit back in the shadows anymore about a superhighway of weapons supplied by the US, amounting to more than 30,000 truckloads of weapons, equipment, and ammunition to northern Syria to support YPG terrorists.
Erdogan further criticized the Trump administration for its “lack of commitment” to construct a safe zone in Syria along the Turkish border. He added that he would “sort out” the issue with President Trump at a meeting later this month.
“We must resolve this … There are differences between what is said and what has been done,” Erdogan said.
Washington and Ankara have been at odds with one another of who should control northeast Syria, where YPG terrorist and other Kurdish militias have had the luxury of receiving American weapons.
Ankara has viewed the YPG as an extension of its own Kurdish militancy, insisting the US needs to cut ties with the terrorist organization.
Erdogan also criticized the European Union for the lack of support regarding the millions of Syrian refugees.
He said Ankara has already spent $40 billion hosting four million Syrian refugees, adding that a new project could be announced momentarily to resettle one million refugees in northern Syria.
“Our goal is to settle at least one million Syrian brothers and sisters in our country in this safe zone,” said Erdogan. “If needed, with support from our friends, we can build new cities there and make it habitable for our Syrian siblings.”
The European Union has given Turkey $7 billion since 2015 to restrict the flow of migrants. But with Turkey granting millions of refugees asylum status, the migrant problem is worsening through 2019.
“If there is no safe zone we can’t overcome this,” Erdogan said.
Syrians have already begun traveling to Europe again. Turkish and international refugee officials warned about new waves of migrants headed towards the continent. Over 500 refugees landed by vessel in the Greek island of Lesbos earlier this month.
Erdogan also touched on falling interest rates and said they would also lead to lower inflation rates.
“Inflation is falling, so are interests and they will fall even further. The capital market board will convene on Thursday, and I believe interests will fall afterward,” Erdogan said.
Erdogan has just given the world a dose of reality of where some of the weapons used by terrorists in Syria are coming from.
When I buy groceries, I almost always use the self-checkout line. I confess that I did not contemplate the broader social and economic implications of my choice until Tom Chamberlain enlightened me.
Chamberlain, who is president of the Oregon AFL-CIO, last week announced that his organization will soon be collecting signatures for a ballot initiative that would prohibit grocery stores from operating more than two self-checkout stations at a time. His arguments for imposing that restriction point the way to a world in which efficiency-boosting innovations are automatically suspect, no matter how popular they may prove to be.
Chamberlain’s Grocery Store Service and Community Protection Act complains that “self-service checkouts essentially turn customers into unpaid employees.” But if shoppers universally rebelled at the notion of scanning and bagging their own groceries, a law like this would hardly be necessary.
Personally, I prefer self-checkout because I like to organize my groceries logically, which makes it easier to put them away once I get home. And although I am pretty good at chitchat (a skill developed during the years when self-checkout lines were less common), I’d just as soon avoid the effort.
I recognize that other people do not necessarily share my preferences. “Grocery stores provide many people with their primary place of social connection and sense of community,” says Chamberlain’s ballot initiative, which argues that “the increasing use of self-service checkouts…contributes to social isolation and related negative health consequences.”
Since grocery stores with self-checkout lines still provide live cashiers for people who relish small talk, this objection seems suspect. Chamberlain does not want to assure the availability of a social connection at the supermarket so much as limit the options of shoppers who find companionship elsewhere.
Equally dubious is the Oregon AFL-CIO’s claim that “self-service checkouts are often used by teens to purchase alcohol.” When I buy beer or wine in the self-checkout line, an employee comes around to verify my age, so this hardly seems like an insoluble problem.
In case you are not convinced that self-checkout machines lead to social isolation and rampant adolescent alcoholism, the Oregon AFL-CIO, getting closer to the heart of its complaint, also argues that they hurt employees (and union membership) by undermining morale, eliminating jobs, and replacing full-time with part-time positions. Furthermore, “the increasing use of self-service checkouts has a disproportionate negative impact on people of color.”
Evidently shoppers who use the self-checkout line are not only antisocial; they may also be racist, or at least racially insensitive. Yet Chamberlain’s logic condemns not just self-checkout stations at grocery stores but all manner of innovations that boost efficiency, reduce prices, and increase consumer satisfaction.
As my Reason colleague Christian Britschgi recently noted, the self-service grocery stores that Americans have come to take for granted since the early 20th century, which allow them to pick their own purchases rather than relying on clerks to fetch them, likewise eliminated certain jobs while saving time and money. Grocery shoppers, especially those of modest means, also have benefited from the enormous increases in agricultural productivity that reduced food prices while making it possible to feed a growing population even as the number of Americans working on farms fell from 12 million in 1910 to fewer than 2 million today.
If “lost jobs” were a sound reason to dictate what products and services businesses may offer, we would have to do without a long list of modern conveniences, including ATMs, vending machines, fast-food restaurants, computers, smartphones, streaming video, electronic books, and online retailing. Yet such innovations are ultimately good for employees as well as consumers: They may eliminate jobs, but they also create jobs both directly and indirectly, leaving consumers and businesses with more money to spend and invest.
Assuming that the AFL-CIO’s initiative qualifies for the 2020 ballot, can we count on Oregonians to see through its economic illogic? Since it is still illegal in most of Oregon to pump your own gas, maybe not.
With most services, you get to shop around, but rarely can you do that with government-run schools.
Philadelphia mom Elaine Wells was upset to learn that there were fights every day in the school her son attended. So she walked him over to another school.
“We went to go enroll and we were told, ‘He can’t go here!’ That was my wake up call,” Wells tell me in my latest video.
She entered her sons in a charter school lottery, hoping to get them into a charter school.
“You’re on pins and needles, hoping and praying,” she said. But politicians stack the odds against kids who want to escape government-run schools. Philly rejected 75 percent of the applicants.
Wells’ kids did eventually manage to get into a charter called Boys’ Latin. I’m happy for them. I wish government bureaucrats would let all kids have similar chances.
Wells was so eager for her sons to attend that she arranged to have one repeat the sixth grade.
“That was the moment where I most despised Boys’ Latin,” the son told me.
But the boys’ attitude quickly changed, says their mother. “Before Boys’ Latin, I would come home and say, ‘Read for an hour, read a book,’ and their response would be, ‘Why? What did we do?’—like reading was a punishment!”
But after they started at Boys’ Latin, she found books scattered around the house. Suddenly, her boys were reading without her pressuring them.
She also was surprised to discover her son on the phone at 10 p.m. at night—talking to a teacher. Boys’ Latin teachers often volunteer to help students with homework—even at night.
Other differences: Charter students spend more time in school—from 8 a.m. to 4 or 5 p.m., and they have to take Latin.
“Why?” I asked Boys’ Latin co-founder David Hardy. “Nobody speaks Latin.”
“We picked Latin because it was hard,” he answered. “Life is hard. In order to be prepared, you have to work hard. We want to get that into the psyche of our students.”
It works. Boys’ Latin students do better on most state tests than kids in government-run schools. Hardy says, “We’ve sent more black boys to college than any high school in Pennsylvania.”
But people who work in government monopolies don’t like experiments that show there’s a better way to do things. Philadelphia and other cities are rejecting new charter applications. Philadelphia rejected Hardy’s plan to open a Girls’ Latin.
“They realize that if we continue to take children away, they won’t have jobs,” says Hardy.
Instead of approving more charters, the education establishment just says, “Give us more money.”
But get this: Philadelphia schools already spend $18,400 per child, about half a million dollars per classroom. With that money, they could hire five experienced teachers for every class. But they don’t. So, where does all that money go?
Bureaucracy, says Hardy. “They have a director of special ed and assistant director of special ed…director of high school athletics and an assistant…lot of overhead.”
The establishment’s new attack on charter competition is: Charters drain resources from public schools.
It’s a clever argument, but it’s a lie. Charter schools are public, too, and Philadelphia, like other cities, gives charters less money than it gives to schools the city government runs. In Philadelphia, charters get only 70 percent as much. So government schools actually save money when a kid leaves for a charter.
Even if charters got equal money, says Wells, “you can’t tell me that charter schools take funding from public schools! Every parent pays taxes that fund the school system. If I choose for my child to go to a charter school, then that’s where my taxes should go!”
She’s right. So why aren’t more charters approved?
“It would mean a whole lot less union jobs,” Hardy says. “The unions are not going to be for that.”
It’s not just unions. Education bureaucrats love working in a monopoly where they are basically guaranteed jobs. Bad charter schools close, but government-run schools almost never do—no matter how badly they treat kids.
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When I buy groceries, I almost always use the self-checkout line. I confess that I did not contemplate the broader social and economic implications of my choice until Tom Chamberlain enlightened me.
Chamberlain, who is president of the Oregon AFL-CIO, last week announced that his organization will soon be collecting signatures for a ballot initiative that would prohibit grocery stores from operating more than two self-checkout stations at a time. His arguments for imposing that restriction point the way to a world in which efficiency-boosting innovations are automatically suspect, no matter how popular they may prove to be.
Chamberlain’s Grocery Store Service and Community Protection Act complains that “self-service checkouts essentially turn customers into unpaid employees.” But if shoppers universally rebelled at the notion of scanning and bagging their own groceries, a law like this would hardly be necessary.
Personally, I prefer self-checkout because I like to organize my groceries logically, which makes it easier to put them away once I get home. And although I am pretty good at chitchat (a skill developed during the years when self-checkout lines were less common), I’d just as soon avoid the effort.
I recognize that other people do not necessarily share my preferences. “Grocery stores provide many people with their primary place of social connection and sense of community,” says Chamberlain’s ballot initiative, which argues that “the increasing use of self-service checkouts…contributes to social isolation and related negative health consequences.”
Since grocery stores with self-checkout lines still provide live cashiers for people who relish small talk, this objection seems suspect. Chamberlain does not want to assure the availability of a social connection at the supermarket so much as limit the options of shoppers who find companionship elsewhere.
Equally dubious is the Oregon AFL-CIO’s claim that “self-service checkouts are often used by teens to purchase alcohol.” When I buy beer or wine in the self-checkout line, an employee comes around to verify my age, so this hardly seems like an insoluble problem.
In case you are not convinced that self-checkout machines lead to social isolation and rampant adolescent alcoholism, the Oregon AFL-CIO, getting closer to the heart of its complaint, also argues that they hurt employees (and union membership) by undermining morale, eliminating jobs, and replacing full-time with part-time positions. Furthermore, “the increasing use of self-service checkouts has a disproportionate negative impact on people of color.”
Evidently shoppers who use the self-checkout line are not only antisocial; they may also be racist, or at least racially insensitive. Yet Chamberlain’s logic condemns not just self-checkout stations at grocery stores but all manner of innovations that boost efficiency, reduce prices, and increase consumer satisfaction.
As my Reason colleague Christian Britschgi recently noted, the self-service grocery stores that Americans have come to take for granted since the early 20th century, which allow them to pick their own purchases rather than relying on clerks to fetch them, likewise eliminated certain jobs while saving time and money. Grocery shoppers, especially those of modest means, also have benefited from the enormous increases in agricultural productivity that reduced food prices while making it possible to feed a growing population even as the number of Americans working on farms fell from 12 million in 1910 to fewer than 2 million today.
If “lost jobs” were a sound reason to dictate what products and services businesses may offer, we would have to do without a long list of modern conveniences, including ATMs, vending machines, fast-food restaurants, computers, smartphones, streaming video, electronic books, and online retailing. Yet such innovations are ultimately good for employees as well as consumers: They may eliminate jobs, but they also create jobs both directly and indirectly, leaving consumers and businesses with more money to spend and invest.
Assuming that the AFL-CIO’s initiative qualifies for the 2020 ballot, can we count on Oregonians to see through its economic illogic? Since it is still illegal in most of Oregon to pump your own gas, maybe not.
With most services, you get to shop around, but rarely can you do that with government-run schools.
Philadelphia mom Elaine Wells was upset to learn that there were fights every day in the school her son attended. So she walked him over to another school.
“We went to go enroll and we were told, ‘He can’t go here!’ That was my wake up call,” Wells tell me in my latest video.
She entered her sons in a charter school lottery, hoping to get them into a charter school.
“You’re on pins and needles, hoping and praying,” she said. But politicians stack the odds against kids who want to escape government-run schools. Philly rejected 75 percent of the applicants.
Wells’ kids did eventually manage to get into a charter called Boys’ Latin. I’m happy for them. I wish government bureaucrats would let all kids have similar chances.
Wells was so eager for her sons to attend that she arranged to have one repeat the sixth grade.
“That was the moment where I most despised Boys’ Latin,” the son told me.
But the boys’ attitude quickly changed, says their mother. “Before Boys’ Latin, I would come home and say, ‘Read for an hour, read a book,’ and their response would be, ‘Why? What did we do?’—like reading was a punishment!”
But after they started at Boys’ Latin, she found books scattered around the house. Suddenly, her boys were reading without her pressuring them.
She also was surprised to discover her son on the phone at 10 p.m. at night—talking to a teacher. Boys’ Latin teachers often volunteer to help students with homework—even at night.
Other differences: Charter students spend more time in school—from 8 a.m. to 4 or 5 p.m., and they have to take Latin.
“Why?” I asked Boys’ Latin co-founder David Hardy. “Nobody speaks Latin.”
“We picked Latin because it was hard,” he answered. “Life is hard. In order to be prepared, you have to work hard. We want to get that into the psyche of our students.”
It works. Boys’ Latin students do better on most state tests than kids in government-run schools. Hardy says, “We’ve sent more black boys to college than any high school in Pennsylvania.”
But people who work in government monopolies don’t like experiments that show there’s a better way to do things. Philadelphia and other cities are rejecting new charter applications. Philadelphia rejected Hardy’s plan to open a Girls’ Latin.
“They realize that if we continue to take children away, they won’t have jobs,” says Hardy.
Instead of approving more charters, the education establishment just says, “Give us more money.”
But get this: Philadelphia schools already spend $18,400 per child, about half a million dollars per classroom. With that money, they could hire five experienced teachers for every class. But they don’t. So, where does all that money go?
Bureaucracy, says Hardy. “They have a director of special ed and assistant director of special ed…director of high school athletics and an assistant…lot of overhead.”
The establishment’s new attack on charter competition is: Charters drain resources from public schools.
It’s a clever argument, but it’s a lie. Charter schools are public, too, and Philadelphia, like other cities, gives charters less money than it gives to schools the city government runs. In Philadelphia, charters get only 70 percent as much. So government schools actually save money when a kid leaves for a charter.
Even if charters got equal money, says Wells, “you can’t tell me that charter schools take funding from public schools! Every parent pays taxes that fund the school system. If I choose for my child to go to a charter school, then that’s where my taxes should go!”
She’s right. So why aren’t more charters approved?
“It would mean a whole lot less union jobs,” Hardy says. “The unions are not going to be for that.”
It’s not just unions. Education bureaucrats love working in a monopoly where they are basically guaranteed jobs. Bad charter schools close, but government-run schools almost never do—no matter how badly they treat kids.
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