It’s all about where you draw the line

An interesting passage from Clayton Cramer’s blog on what happens when the government tries to “stick it to the rich”:

There is one problem driving not just HP, but a lot of other U.S. companies to constantly slashing workers. In 1993, Democrats in Congress showed how much they hated "rich people" by passing a law that prohibited corporations from deducting as business expenses any annual salary exceeding one million dollars–and the salaries of the next four highest paid officers. So large corporations started to compensate officers with stock options instead. This created a strong incentive for officers of the corporation to keep the stock price rising for the next few quarters–even if it destroyed the long-term viability of the company. Note that this didn't actually prevent corporations from compensating their officers quite generously. And in truth, Democrats weren't really trying to prevent that–they were just pretending to be on the side of the little guys, while continuing to cozy up to corporate fat cats. It just created perverse incentives for how to run a large corporation.

A company that is developing complex products will need several years from the start of the process to the point where the product starts to bring in revenue. Think of this as a tunnel: you put money in one end of the tunnel in 2004; it turns into a return on investment in 2008. The products that you start developing in 2005, won't give a return until 2009. Ditto for 2006 to 2010, 2007 to 2011, and 2008 to 2012. If your focus, because of your stock options, is driving up the stock price over the next several quarters, the temptation to go for short-term improvements is very, very strong.

Cutting spending this year may impair profitability in 2012–or maybe it won't. It's hard to tell. But you can almost guarantee that cutting spending on long-term projects this year will drive up the stock price for the next quarter or two. This is why layoffs often lead to higher stock prices. Corporate officers whose primary income is derived from stock options have a strong incentive to cut costs right now. I don't think that stock options are necessarily a bad thing. But it does encourage a short-term view of how to run a company.

On a different note (but from the same blog): Holy Crap. How is this guy a major party nominee?

Not much to add beyond the headline, except: why do so many people fear those who obey the law?

With leftist politicians, the answer is plain: They don’t like the “little people” having too much power, and they certainly don’t want them to be too self-reliant. Liberals’ er… socialists’ entire power base is built on people depending on government for what they need. The “public safety” claims are a sham, repudiated time and time again by real-world crime statistics anywhere gun control laws have been instituted or loosened. Ban guns, violent crime goes up. Allow concealed carry, violent crime goes down. Why? Criminals prefer disarmed victims, because they don’t like getting shot.

And to the Mayor of Washington, DC: Thank you for being a damned fool and pushing Keller all the way to the top.

So, I was a Fred Thompson supporter, but he dropped out. I’m looking at the remaining Republican candidates, and after consideration (mainly of whom I dislike the least), I’ve decided that the next best possibility is Mitt Romney. Interestingly, Mitt appears to be specifically courting disaffected Thompson supporters with a range of banner ads on his site, including this one:

Okay. Works for me.

Except… I don’t understand the necessity of that little bit of text at the bottom: “Paid for by Romney for President, Inc.”

Is there some legal requirement for him to put that on there, because his campaign created the banner? Because, as an image that is intended for people to take and put on their own personal websites, it sure makes it look as though Mitt’s campaign team has paid me to put the ad on my site. I assure you, they have not. As of this writing, there has never been a paid endorsement, of any kind, ever, on this web site — with the possible exception that the links on my book review pages are Amazon affiliate links (which in the several years they’ve been here have never earned me a dime….)

Does anybody know the answer to this? Is Romney’s campaign required to add that text? Or are they (foolishly) making it look as though nobody supports them on principle, but only for money?

Why I will, never, ever promote or support any type of gun control, “reasonable” restrictions, or waiting periods….
(more…)

Jeff comments on a recent kerfuffle in which a Fox affiliate station in Texas did an “ambush” report on a gun owner. The video has been making the rounds in blogs, and the station has since tried very hard to clamp down on it — threatening legal action against people who show or distribute it. He states:

Claiming that “they’re trying to send it down the memory hole” or saying that “this is the video they don’t want you to see” utterly fails to justify your act of theft.

When you make a copy of that video, you’re stealing the television station’s property. Just as surely as you would be if you broke into their studio and stole the videotape.

I think there’s a distinction here, Jeff.

Fox was doing a report on gun owners. In the process, the report itself became news. People aren’t distributing this for the subject of the report (that is, guns), but because of the manner in which it was reported.

I see this entirely as fair use. If I post an appropriate clip of the video and talk about my opinion of their “ambush”, I am reporting about Fox itself.

“Here’s a report about gun control” would be stealing it. “Look at how they did this report” is fair use. Yes, context does matter. Invoking copyright to cover up something you did wrong doesn’t fly — or shouldn’t.

It reminds me a bit of Scientologists copyrighting their sacred texts, and then suing the crap out of anybody who says anything publicly about them. (Because to comment on them you actually have to show them to someone, and that violates their copyright….) (And as a side note: any religion that jealously hides what exactly it is they worship is deserving of suspicion.)

The NFL has (or had) a disclaimer on their broadcasts that claimed that (among other things) restating the events of the broadcast without permission was prohibited by copyright law. This is legally absurd, as you cannot copyright an event. That is, you can’t copyright something that happened. A law professor made a short documentary commenting on the legal absurdity of that disclaimer, and showed the disclaimer itself. They immediately sued her for copyright violation, for having shown the copyright statement.

In the United States, copyright is, legally speaking, not there for the sake of the creators directly, but for the good of society in advancing the creation of creative works.

Showing that newsclip might not be good for Fox’s business, but not for reasons covered by copyright. It’s bad because it harms their reputation, not because it steals their creative effort.

Or to put it another way, copyright is there so that creators can have the benefit of their creation, not so they can hide from their actions.

Jeff writes an impassioned plea for support of a new proposed law: The Suzanne Gonzales Suicide Prevention Act of 2007. Suzanne (”Suzy”) was a 19-year-old girl who committed suicide in 2003, having been essentially manipulated into doing so by members of an Internet message board. Jeff wrote about it at the time: The Shape of Days.

The bill, in Jeff’s words, is:

H.R. 940, the Suzanne Gonzales Suicide Prevention Act of 2007. It’s not a long piece of legislation. The bill, if passed, would make it a crime to knowingly use the Internet to teach someone or help someone to commit suicide.

I know where Jeff is coming from in supporting this. I very much believe in promoting a “culture of life” — I’m strongly pro-life/anti-abortion, for example. I’ve been reading Jeff’s stuff and commenting for a long time now, and I respect the man, but I’m a little wary of this. I’m not even playing “devil’s advocate” here — I don’t know on which side I stand.

A few things to think about:

1. What happened to Suzy was horrible, but it’s a particular instance. Passing laws from that one story reminds me of Democrats pushing their latest socialist schemes by trotting out some poor hapless granny who’s eating dogfood. Laws based on tugged heartstrings are generally not the best, in the long run.
2. Part of the nature of the Internet is that it can easily serve as an echo chamber. This can be good or bad, but generally I think limiting ideas is more bad than good.
3. Suzy hit the wrong site at the wrong time, and the “echo” she got was horrible. What the people there did was wrong, but I think the law takes the wrong approach by silencing discussion of suicide (yes, even “how to” discussion).
4. What, specifically, is the point of this law being limited to the Internet? Speech is speech, and incitement is incitement. Arguments related to what’s done on the Internet would also apply to what’s done in person, or on the phone, or…. I’m also wary of any law that specifies a particular technology, because they tend to do weird things years down the road when technology changes in ways the lawmakers didn’t (and couldn’t) foresee. [Update: Upon reading the text of the bill, I note that it does not specify the technology, but instead refers to "any facility of interstate or foreign commerce". This makes sense for jurisdictional purposes, but, it should be pointed out, includes "facilities" such as roads.]
5. It is currently illegal to directly incite somebody to violence with words. If I get somebody riled up and convince them to go kick someone’s ass, and the attackee gets killed, _I_ can be held responsible. Perhaps a better solution would be a slightly modified version of this. Directly inciting suicide (self-violence) to somebody who otherwise likely would not have done so should be illegal. For that matter, do the existing laws against inciting violence apply to violence against the “attacker’s” own person?

Suzy was a 19 year old girl. Teenagers are emotionally vulnerable as it is, and these vultures swooped in. But what about the 50-year-old who decides to take his own life? Not an impulse decision, but a considered decision? Our society basically assumes that any person who desires death is… what… insane? At the least, “wrong”. I’m… uncomfortable with this assumption being automatic for all cases.

Preying on the emotionally vulnerable is wrong, and it’s legitimate for the law to step in. But as one of Jeff’s commenters points out, this law allows for no gray area.

[Update: I originally stated that her age was 13. Jeff informs that she was 19. Corrected text above.]