America - asinine preponderance of regulation, and Powerball

I'd love to play the Powerball lottery and win over a billion dollars.  Being Canadian I can play, I just could not collect the prize if I won it.  Why? Stupid regulation in a country that's top heavy with regulation and lawyers (no offense to William A. Jacobson intended) prevent it.

Here's the problem.  The Powerball lottery, which I completely understand I have no chance of winning, is not restricted to Americans.  Anyone can buy a ticket, and anyone in fact, can win it.  The problem is that while you can buy a ticket, and you can return to Canada with the ticket (or any other country for that matter), you are not legally allowed to bring the ticket back into the United States to collect your winnings.  The ticket can be confiscated at the border.

An obscure law prevents you from bringing the ticket back in.  It's immoral. Lottery tickets are specifically mentioned.  It's quite ironic since the ticket originated in the United States.

Border guards have been "nit-picky" about it;

At least one B.C. man has run into problems in the past for trying to take lottery tickets into the U.S.

Conda Reddy says he had nine B.C. lottery tickets confiscated while trying to cross the border in December. The agency has since returned the tickets, as well as his Nexus card, which was taken during the incident.

"...if (border crossing guards) want to be nitpicky, they could enforce that obscure law and take them," he said. "They have the right to."

Lottery officials are scrambling to  try and ensure Canadians can buy the tickets and not have to worry about confiscation if they return to collect winnings with the tickets.  Good on them.  They're seeing the bigger picture - free revenue from foreign suckers players.  They're also seeing more.

What some Americans don't realize is that the Powerball lottery is a big story outside of the United States too.  And the rules allowing foreigners to play but preventing them from winning - after having spent money in America to participate - makes America look petty and bureaucratic.  It's been allover the news up here. 

And it all comes down too to much overly intrusive regulation.  A rule that is overly specific and while perhaps even good intentioned, clearly unworkable identifies a gap.  A multi-state lottery that generates revenue for states at odds with border security which is with the idea of free commerce, and just being neighborly is a sign of over-regulation or at least poorly thought out regulation.

Fix it.  I want to give you a little bit of my money for a chance to dream, America.  It's free money for you.  True, the lotteries here are not taxed at all, but they don't ever get north of $60 million.  Plus, I can guarantee you that if I won a billion dollars (or more), I'd try my hardest to repatriate the money with America.  I'm sure with that kind of money your broken immigration system would let me in to become a citizen very quickly. I'd be totally happy with being an American. I bet I'm not alone in any of that thinking.

One other thought - if you want to sell more, particularly outside of America, consider making it possible to purchase tickets  online.  I get it, the buyers could be from ISIS, but all you have to do is add just one more law that lottery winners must be vetted by Homeland Security prior to collecting their winnings.... (see what I did there?)

Meanwhile - good luck to everyone with Powerball tickets for tonight, sincerely.

Yellen downloads belt tightening onto banks

Let me get this straight, Quantitative Easing (printing more money) is okay, but big banks should be required to hold more money to weather financial shocks.  Setting aside the notion that stricter reserve requirements for banks run counter to quantitative easing efforts,  is Yellen actually expecting a financial jolt? Is she downloading the belt tightening onto banks?  What's driving this?

...They said it could be a sign that the Fed under Yellen will take a more aggressive stance on bank regulation.

In her speech, Yellen said further actions to address risks, such as requiring firms to hold more capital, would likely apply only to the largest, most complex banks. But she suggested that other requirements could be applied more broadly to medium-size banks and non-bank financial institutions.

Karen Shaw Petrou, an analyst who heads Federal Financial Analytics in Washington, said Yellen also appeared to be signaling a desire to ensure that in tightening rules for big banks, regulators don't just drive risky behavior into less regulated areas of the financial system. These areas are often called the shadow banking system.

"The threat is if all you do is regulate the big banks, the risk will move to the non-banks," Petrou said. "Yellen is signaling that the Fed will seek to address that problem."

It sounds like it might be more about regulation and control as far as the drivers of this thinking goes. But the timing is oddly curious. 

Thought for the day - freedom

People take their freedom for granted and they assume the freedom they have today is the same as it was yesterday.  When regulation piles upon regulation and people ignore it they are in the same predicament as a frog in a pot of water that is slowly being brought to a boil.  They don't notice what is happening until it becomes too late.

I saw this image on Facebook today and it captures the thought quite well.

Yes, laws are needed, but too many laws are a more insidious danger than too few.

Republican Governance Mistakes

Back in 1994 the GOP came to power with a lot of enthusiasm, hope and a will to create change after decades of Democrat rule in the legislative branch of government.

With that Democrat hegemony of power, that at times extended to the executive branch as well, a number of traits were sure to develop regardless of the level of sincerity of Democrats to serve the nation. After decades a sense of entitlement develops. There becomes a sense that the government really is a single party government and the opposition is mere window dressing or a prop or a place to wrangle some votes during internal party legislative power struggles.

Free Market or bust

A recent Rasmussen poll indicates that,

As the incoming Obama administration and the Democratic congressional leadership scramble for ways to right the U.S. economy, 70% of U.S. voters say a free market is better
than one managed by the government.

Just 15% say a government-managed economy is best, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Fifteen percent (15%) are undecided.

But indicative of the mixed feelings that beset many of the nation’s leaders, a majority of voters (52%) also believe there is a need for more government regulation of big business, although 35% disagree. Thirteen percent (13%) aren’t sure. (Last month, just 26% of adults were at least somewhat confident that U.S. policymakers knew what they were doing with regards to the economy).

Two disturbing things show through in these numbers for me. Firstly, 15% of Americans are apparently socialists or communist or useful idiots for the other two categories. A government managed economy is best? As Jerry Seinfeld would say "Who are these people?" Secondly, and perhaps scarier, is the fact that 52% of the population believe there is a need for more regulation of big business.

The surest way to kill business is to over regulate it. You think the federal government isn't complicit in the problems facing America's automakers? Corporations shouldn't be getting away with fraudulent or otherwise criminal or unscrupulous behavior. But there are already laws on the books for these things. A better way to look at it is that perhaps the government needs to look not at more regulation but smarter regulation, or better enforcement of existing regulations.

How is it that so many people - in this case a plurality of Americans - do not understand that American greatness was created by free markets, with the role of government limited to ensuring public safety and compliance with laws to prevent unfair business practices that hurt competition or consumers? At 52% that means some conservatives feel that way too. When basic principles such as free market get so eroded, it's hard not to think apocalyptic thoughts about the future of America. Luckily there's enough intelligence and perseverance around to reverse the trend through education and dissemination of better ideas.