bad news, club
 

I understand the impulse, but that's crazy. If the government decides to let planes fly into San Jose Airport after 8 p.m., must it compensate everyone in the flight path who has a plane fly overhead? Surely the value of their land is diminished.

And you're extending rights to propertyholders that they didn't even have at common law. The law of nuisance is all about restrictions on your land for the benefit of your neighbors. People have always accepted that you can't use your land in a way that hurts your neighbors.

And, re the post above, skeks is picking up the thread of an old conversation. His point, as I understand it, is that if the gains to the country of free trade are greater than the losses to some workers, why not compensate the later out of the gains to the former. Club seems to accepting that compensation is appropriate when it's propertyholders who receive it, but not when it's working men and women.

bad news, club
 

In order to buy into Skek's view, you have to essentially ignore macroeconomics. A treatise can be written on the subject, but as an example, what do you think happens to our exports in the absence of a free trade pact and who do you think ultimately pays the price?

I am accepting of compensation in the propertyholder context because propertyholders actually have a right that should be compensated. There is no right to earn a living, and certainly not at a particular wage. If one's services are no longer as valuable as in the past, why should they continue to be paid for them at the same price. It is a complete waste of resources.

Paying someone for the provision of services is based in contract (i.e., mutual agreement). The basis for compensating someone for taking their property has an entirely different basis that is not dependent on mutual agreement.





efs

bad news, club
 

This makes me think you're not seeing his point. Suppose that a particular free-trade pact with Chile will benefit the country as a whole to the tune of 12,000 utils, but will hurt workers in certain affected industries to the tune of 4,000 utils. Skeks is saying (I think), let's give those workers job training, etc., to the tune of 4,000 utils. Even after the tax to do that, the rest of us are still better off. We're all sharing the benefits. You've always said, no -- the workers can lump it.

There's no right to free trade. The Constitution does not enact Mr. Herbert Spencer's Social Statics.

bad news, club
 

Every thing taken to its extreme is crazy. But I have read about developers who buy a piece of property and then the government decides that nothing can be built on it. Usually because of a lawsuit by an environmental group. Then the property becomes worthless. If the government decides that you cannot use your property it should have to purchase it. In other words, the government can purchase the property and then do nothing with it. There is a group called the nature conservatory that buys property and then lets it remain natural. They have bought most of Catalina Island. I have raised money for them. But Eminent domain can occur without the government actually physically taking title.

bad news, club
 

Before the New Deal the government did recognize some economic rights. However, there is no right to Free Trade, but trade restrictions are always stupid policy. In a capitalist society there is rapid market changes and people get hurt financially. That is just the way it is. What if through free trade we import a new drug that cures cancer. But what about all the domestic workers that live off the cancer industry. What about those workers that build chemotherapy machines. They should get compenstated correct? And exactly how long do we keep paying them to do nothing. Our economy is so intricately tied to the international trading system that it would be crazy to try and figure out who lost some "utils" with each new foreign product that came onto our shores.

One last thing. What makes those workers who just lost their jobs so special. What about other workers who never had a chance to get the highpaying manufacturing job in the first place. Or the worker that was never able to get a job where they got training. Just because a person obtains a job, that means they have a right to always have that same standard of living? The fair thing to do is to educated\ your workforce so they have the flexibility to change careers. Instead of the government picking which workers get special educational benefits you should just try and make the educational system for everyone the best possible.

bad news, club
 

I have far less of a problem with job retraining than I do with straight up benefits, which I thought is what he was suggesting.

I have no idea what you meant here.

Summers
 

So I don't think this has been discussed. Anyone actually think he was wrong?

Summers
 

Nice vague question. What exactly do you want to discuss? Was he wrong about what he hypothesized about? Was he wrong about the way he approached the subject? Was he wrong about the forum he chose in which to make his comments? Was he wrong about (as one commentator stated) "riffing off the top of his head" on the subject? Was he wrong about the way he handled the backlash?

aV

Summers
 

On which of the three hypotheses?

we see fewer women in science because:

1) discrimination
2) less willing to devote the necessary hours
3) "inate" differences.

bad news, club
 

Yes, we know about regulatory takings, but you're not really advancing it very well.

First off, oftimes the "developer" is buying a lawsuit, and they know it. They want to build some massive complex on previously low-impact-development land, and then sue. If anyone deserves compensation, it's the seller, for the reduced value of the land.

Second, it's not that they can't do anything with the land, it's that they can't build 75 mcmansions on 3500 sq.ft. lots.

Finally, do you have an issue with the standard of deprivation of all economically beneficial use for there to be a regulatory taking? Because I can see an argument that something short of that should qualify as a taking, but I don't know how you'd implement a workable test that's anything short of "all" or "nearly all".

bad news, club
 

Ty,

As I read it, you're arguing against a balancing test by positing an absolute -- that the government has the right to use emminent domain to benefit private citizens as long as the government determines there is a public benefit. What Club and I (boy, I don't type that much) are saying is that public benefit should be narrowly construed and should be something clearly available to the public at large.

Put a different way, the government might take my land and give it to you, because it would be a public benefit for you to have it to raise your pretty rosebushes on it, while in my hands the place looks like a dump with broken down cars out front and no paint for the last 10 years. Is that an appropriate use of emminent domain, if the only public benefit is the view from the street? What if the only public benefit is that you're a nice guy and I'm a pain in the ass? Should anyone, like a court, ever get to second guess the party in power on these issues?

It's all about the balance. I'd narrowly construe the power.

Summers
 

I'm not all that concerned with the merits, mainly, because the answer is probably currently outside our knowledge base. What bothers me is the the circling of the wagons of the thought police.

bad news, club
 

There's hope for you.

bad news, club
 

This, of course, bears no relationship to what happens in an eminent domain case. Government sets the price, and you can bear the cost of litigating or take the price. This lets the price be set low.