The Bob Zadek Show

Just a few weeks ago, the media was fawning over Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and her youthful makeover of tired socialist ideas. Not to be outdone, Elizabeth Warren penned an essay in the Wall Street Journal introducing a modest proposal to completely remake capitalism as we know it. Her Accountable Capitalism Act would create an “Office of United States Corporations inside the Department of Commerce,” requiring any corporation with revenue over $1 billion to obtain a federal charter. These charters would force businesses to vest decision-making authority in a variety of “stakeholders” that would include the company’s workers and other vaguely-defined groups in the communities affected by the company.

It would seem like old-fashioned socialism hasn’t gone completely out of style if Matt Yglesias’ fawning coverage at Vox is any indicator of this kind of plan’s popularity with left-leaning Americans.

Yglesias writes:

“As much as Warren’s proposal is about ending inequality, it’s also about saving capitalism.”
Putting aside the fact that Warren is likely using this to position herself as the hard-left favorite for the 2020 presidential election, it’s worth examining what such a policy would actually mean for businesses and working people in the United States. A full analysis would require both a legal scholar and an economist. Fortunately, Professor Richard A. Epstein of the Hoover Institution and NYU’s School of Law joined The Bob Zadek Show to explain how Elizabeth Warren’s Surreptitious Socialism threatens the foundations of our (mostly) free economy.

The most sinister aspect of Warren’s proposal is its surface appeal. Giving workers and community members a greater share alongside shareholders and the board of directors seems like a nice way to orient a corporation around goals nobler than a mere profit motive. But as Epstein points out, the way the bill is defined, anyone could claim to be a stakeholder — even a firm’s competitors. Take away the forces of free competition and you kill the engine of prosperity.

That’s far from the only problem. In a global economy, where corporations have a choice of where to do business, such a law would send capital fleeing to other countries to avoid the burdensome compliance costs, which would predominantly be driven by political rather than social or economic concerns.

As Milton Friedman explained decades ago, the profit-motive harnessed within a functioning legal system is all that’s required for both the individual and collective good to be maximized. Warren’s plan to “save” capitalism would conveniently align corporate interests with her own political interests. While she may not wish to turn the U.S. into North Korea overnight, it’s a slippery slope from her Accountable Capitalism Act to full-blown socialism.

For a full discussion of the long list of errors and economic fallacies Warren makes in her piece, tune into the show of ideas — not attitude.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.bobzadek.com/subscribe

Larry Sharpe is Giving “King Cuomo” a Run for His Money in the 2018

Gubernatorial Race.

A Philosopher Argues for Pharmaceutical Freedom

H. Sterling Burnett of the Heartland Institute on the Corruption of Science

and the Changing Tide in Environmental Policy. Read More…

Northern California is burning, and climate alarmists — including California Governor Jerry Brown — are blaming carbons emissions. It’s unclear when or how Governor Brown became a climate expert, but he claims the Carr fire is evidence of the climate changing in real time.

The Independent, a British tabloid, also cites generic experts who say the fires will only get worse over time because of climate change.

Never mind that most forest fires are started on poorly managed land owned by the federal government, or that science has not established a cause-and-effect relationship between fires and carbon dioxide emissions, these experts will tell you with certainty that man-made global warming is the problem. For years, the U.S. Forest Service has wanted to increase logging to reduce fuel loads of overgrown forests — filled with dead and diseased trees — but they have been blocked by environmentalists. The Endangered Species Act has often been the reason for allowing forests to turn into tinderboxes. However, endangered species are less compelling villains than big oil companies, so don’t expect Governor Brown to blame the spotted owl anytime soon.

Just who are these climate experts the media is always citing, and should we trust them? Some may recall Dwight D. Eisenhower’s prophetic outgoing address to Congress in which he warned of a coming military-industrial complex, but few realize that modern climate science is driven by the same revolving door Eisenhower feared. As government monopolizes science, it gets to call the shots. Today, the environmental movement has co-opted and corrupted science in an unholy alliance with the regulatory state. Only a handful of nonprofits and scientists have had the courage to stand against it.

The Heartland Institute, based in Illinois, is one such group. They have been educating the public and producing freely available literature that shows how “the climate consensus” can be debunked using mainstream data and studies. H. Sterling Burnett, a Heartland senior fellow on environmental policy and the managing editor of Environment & Climate News, joins the show to give a lesson on spotting environmental fake news.

That increase in extreme weather events you’re always hearing about? It’s mostly fabricated for attention-grabbing headlines. As the Heartland Institute notes:

“[A]ccording to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s U.S. state-wide extreme weather records database, probably the best of its kind in the world, there has been no increase in extreme weather.
What’s more, climate models over-estimated the warming trend in 97.4% of their predictions between 1998 and 2014. Rest assured, their models must be getting better — it’s hard to imagine them getting much worse.

Follow the Money
For all of their efforts to clear the air and promote rational environmental science and energy regulations, the Heartland Institute has been subject to false accusation and smear tactics from left-leaning and environmental blogs. The common complaints that they are in the pockets of big oil, however, don’t stand up to scrutiny. Exxon’s short-lived donations to the Institute never exceeded 5% of the budget. Rather, Exxon has been much more active in its giving to environmental causes that are trying to stamp out its competitors in the coal industry, which is often the cheapest and most efficient form of energy available to the developing world.

The real bias in climate science is spurred by government funding of alarmist research . It’s gone unnoticed because we’ve grown accustomed to cronyism as the status quo. Carl Jung wrote, “It’s hard to see the lion that has eaten you.” Yet the tendency of government to fund studies confirming the looming ecological apocalypse is well-established, and is summed up eloquently by MIT Professor Emeritus of Meteorology, Richard Lindzen.


This corruption of environmental science has many beneficiaries — from the bureaucracies that boost their budget when a frightened public votes for increased taxes and regulations, to renewable energy insiders that only find a viable market for their products in a subsidized environment. The end result is a bootleggers-and-baptist coalition between sincere-but-misinformed activists, corporate interests in the monopolistic energy industry, and the politicians that make the great theft possible.

The Latest Hoax: “Public Nuisance” Lawsuits Against Oil Companies
Professor Richard Epstein, a Hoover Institution scholar and frequent guest on the show, did a podcast in January on a series of lawsuits in New York City, San Francisco, and Oakland, trying to extract damages from five major oil companies.

As usual, the Professor dispelled the faulty legal arguments behind the plaintiffs in both written and oral form.

He concludes that private lawsuits cannot deliver remedies for ill-defined damages, especially when only a fraction of those hypothetical damages could be said to be caused by the named defendants (in this case, Exxon, Chevron, etc.). Putting aside the fact that these oil companies are only responsible for a small percentage of total energy production, and that the oil companies themselves are not emitting (this responsibility falls on us — the consumers), Epstein notes that fossil fuels are the only option for keeping transportation, manufacturing, and commerce alive. As Milton Friedman once said, “Energy is the lifeblood of a market economy.”

Fortunately, a federal court recently dismissed New York City’s climate lawsuit.

Other Green Shoots
Elsewhere, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously upheld the government’s current policy of leasing land to coal companies without having to a review of the impact of coal on climate. While the Obama administration put a moratorium on coal extraction, the Trump administration has been pushing an agenda of “energy dominance.” The EPA already applies an environmental impact analysis — the ruling simply prevented a new layer of red tape. Taking away coal forces power companies to switch to less reliable, more expensive alternatives, including wind and solar configurations that are often built at great expense to the environment — destroying habitats and requiring ample energy to build and maintain.

You won’t read about any of this in the papers. Mainstream media bias positions government and environmentalists as the saviors from evil corporations and energy companies. It’s a simple story that sells magazines and keeps people on the edge of their seats. There’s just one problem. It’s not true.

While the Trump administration has rolled back a number of the worst regulations, the corruption of science persists. For every Richard Epstein, Richard Lindzen, H. Sterling Burnett, and Matt Ridley, there are scores of scientists on university payrolls that remain locked into the group-think that reinforces the problem.

In 2015, The Heartland Institute began distributing 300,000 free copies of a booklet titled, “Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming.” As expected, it evoked much ire, but the message is getting out there. The majority of the public doesn’t blame capitalism for climate change, nor do they rank it as a major concern compared to other problems.

Once one steps outside of the government–media–academic echo chamber, the talk of international accords and the need for global governance start to sound ridiculous. Don’t get fooled.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.bobzadek.com/subscribe

There’s no easy fix for a broken bail system, says Reason Magazine’s Scott

Shackford, but we must try.

The August/September 2018 Reason Magazine cover story features an issue of bi-partisan interest — the injustice of the cash bail system, which coerces poor defendants into guilty pleas. For those who can pay, bail means avoiding jail before they even get a trial. For those who can’t pay, it often means lost jobs, and mega-hassles, even if they end up being found innocent. Does this represent a violation of the great American legal principle of innocent until proven guilty?

In the essay, author Scott Shackford details several sad and often infuriating stories of people who clearly pose no threat to society being held on exorbitant bail charges. While it’s understandable that we would lock up a murder suspect with a criminal record awaiting trial, the whole point of the bail system is to allow those who are wrongly convicted or generally law-abiding citizens to serve only the time they are formally sentenced to — not a pretrial jail term that can sometimes be as long as the actual sentence.

Around half a million Americans are sitting behind bars who have yet to be convicted of a crime, writes Shackford. This issue has brought together some strange bedfellows, including Senators Rand Paul with Kamala Harris (co-sponsors of the Pretrial Integrity and Safety Act), as well as Google’s charitable arm with the Koch Foundation. Most recently, Bernie Sanders introduced the No Money Bail Act, but like Harris and Rand’s attempt, the bill is unlikely to pass through committee.

While Federal reform has stalled, Shackford takes note of a handful of state experiments with reforms that are making the system less biased against those who can’t afford bail. These efforts include eliminating cash bail, and encouraging judges to find alternatives to putting people in jail before their trials.

Some blame the $2 billion bail bonds industry for the lack of reform to date. Google even began blocking their ads on its search platform. This approach, however, may be flawed. Bail bonds, after all, are a legal service, and one that helps the system to function at that. As Marginal Revolution blogger Alex Tabarrok notes, “preventing advertising doesn’t reduce the need to pay bail, it simply makes it harder to find a lender.” Furthermore, taking away the option of judges to detain people who can’t afford bail has in some cases led them to merely put revoke that option altogether and hold them without bail.

Shackford joins the show of ideas, not attitude, to tackle a difficult but important topic of the American justice system. He and Bob will discuss the constitutionality of bail, and why the founders considered it important enough to limit “excessive bail” directly in the Eighth Amendment to the Bill of Rights. Pick up a copy of Shackford’s article on newsstands, and tune in for the full hour for your weekly dose of libertarian ideas.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.bobzadek.com/subscribe

A Conservative Principle is Being Hearkened to Defend Undocumented

Immigrants in the Golden State.

It’s been called “federalism 2.0” — a move by states to buck the central government and try out their own policies in areas of the environment, immigration, drug policy, and criminal justice reform. California (for better or for worse) has been leading the charge on climate change issues, setting the pace for national vehicle emissions standards with its own stricter standards. But more recently, states have been particularly innovative on immigration, given the host of problems that stem from the Federal government’s failure to implement a comprehensive solution.

Joe Mathews, a syndicated columnist and California editor for Zocalo Public Square, came up with a unique legal proposal during the debate over Deferred Action (read: deportation) for Childhood Arrivals: an alternative “California resident” status. While not quite U.S. citizenship (which California can’t grant), residency would be a step towards integration for immigrant children, raised in California, whose national identity and true citizenship differ. Maybe, Mathews suggests, the best way to resolve the discrepancy is to make “Californian” into something more like a nationality — a legal relationship between non-citizen residents and state government. This would imply greater sovereignty for California and, in turn, for other states seeking to reclaim powers delegated to them by the 10th Amendment. Mathew specifically evoked the idea of federalism — referring to it as a “great American tradition” — much as Bob has been doing on this show for the past 10 years.

Is it Legal?
While the Constitution gives the Federal government jurisdiction over enforcing national immigration standards, there is no explicit prohibition on states taking action. As David Davenport of the Hoover Institution notes:

“Federalism incorporates the idea that the federal government is not the only player in our constitutional republic, because state and local governments also serve important roles. The 10th Amendment of the Constitution specifically reminds us that powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the states or the people.

With Republicans in charge of the White House, both houses of Congress and arguably the Supreme Court, Democrats are rediscovering states’ rights and local government powers, as the out-of-power party in Washington often does. And as usual, California is leading the way in flexing state and local power, notably:

On immigration — The nearly 20 sanctuary cities and counties in California refuse to support the enforcement of Washington’s immigration laws, charting their own course at the risk of some federal funding.”

Mathews joined the show to unpack his proposal, and explain how it would work. He and Bob discussed the broader failures of our immigration system, and work through the logistics of a more federalist approach if the Golden State were to lead the way.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.bobzadek.com/subscribe

The Delta smelt is going extinct. The adorable translucent fish don’t grow

much larger than a finger, but their privileged status as an endangered

species puts them at the center of a huge debate over federalism.