Mar 5, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
Irvine, CA--The Federal Communications Commission has slammed the Hispanic-television network Univision with an unprecedented $24 million fine after the FCC decided it failed to meet regulations requiring broadcasters to air at least three hours a week of educational children's programming. Univision points to several shows it says fulfill the requirement, but the FCC denies the shows are truly educational.
"This fine is an outrageous violation of Univision's right to free speech," said Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. "Broadcasters should be free to determine what shows they will air without having to answer to government bureaucrats.
"If parents desire educational programming for their children and they do not think Univision is providing it, they are free to turn the channel, play a DVD, switch on the radio or open a book. There is no justification for forcing broadcasters to meet a quota for 'educational children's programming.'
"But these quotas do not simply undermine free speech. The guidelines defining what qualifies as 'educational' programming are so vague, so inconsistently interpreted and applied that broadcasters have no means of knowing whether their actions will be permitted or punished--until the FCC hands down its verdict. In forcing broadcasters, under threat of crippling fines, to guess which programs a pack of regulators will deem 'educational,' these quotas represent an assault on the rule of law. They should be condemned as such."Mar 5, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
Irvine, CA--Few eyebrows were raised when FCC chairman Kevin Martin said recently that Sirius and XM will only be permitted to merge if they can "demonstrate that consumers would clearly be better off--with both more choice and affordable prices." But "Sirius and XM have every moral right to combine companies and, if the new company judges it profitable, to raise prices," said Dr. Yaron Brook.
"A basic principle of a free market is free, voluntary exchange. This means that buyers and sellers are free to offer and accept whatever terms they mutually choose. If a company decides that its profits are too low or, in the case of Sirius and XM, if it is losing money, it has every right to raise prices if it thinks customers will pay them. If the new satellite radio company charges prices that consumers judge as too high, they have every right to take their dollars elsewhere. But they have no right to have the government dictate what prices businesses can charge or how many separate businesses must sell a given product.
"There is no legitimate reason for government to interfere in the market on behalf of consumers at the expense of producers--or vice-versa, as in protectionist policies that subsidize businesses at the expense of consumers. The government should be neutral towards all its citizens, protecting everyone's rights equally.
"Protecting rights is precisely what the FTC is not doing in the case of the Sirius/XM merger. In the name of a fictional 'right' of consumers to $13-a-month satellite radio and to two satellite radio choices, it is threatening to deprive two innocent businesses of their right to run their businesses as they see fit. We must stop treating businesses as slaves of consumers, and return to a truly free market."Mar 1, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
Event: A Convenient Lie: The Pseudo-Science Behind Global Warming Hysteria
Who: Dr. Willie Soon, Center for Science and Public Policy; Mr. Peter Schwartz, The Ayn Rand Institute; Mr. Steven Milloy, JunkScience.com. What: A panel event presenting various, often unheard voices of dissent regarding the environmentalism movement in general and global warming theories in particular. Where: Kimmel Center, Room E&L Auditorium (4th Floor), New York University, 60 Washington Square South, New York, NY 10012. When: Tuesday, March 6th 2007, at 7:00 PM. Registration: Non-NYU guests must register by e-mailing nyu@objectivistclubs.org. Admission is FREE (although we do ask for a $10 siggsted donation from non-students)
Willie Soon is both an astrophysicist and a geoscientist at the Solar, Stellar and Planetary Sciences Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Dr. Soon is the receiving editor in the area of solar and stellar physics for New Astronomy. He is the science director at the Center for Science and Public Policy (based in Washington DC). He writes and lectures both professionally and publicly on important issues related to the Sun, other stars, the Earth as well as general science topics in astronomy and physics. He is the author of "The Maunder Minimum and the Variable Sun-Earth Connection" published in March 2004. *Dr. Soon has asked us to note that all views expressed are strictly his own and do not reflect upon any institutions or persons.*
Peter Schwartz is former chairman of the board of directors of the Ayn Rand Institute and former editorial director of its op-ed program. Mr. Schwartz was the founding editor and publisher of "The Intellectual Activist," a periodical covering political, cultural and philosophic issues. He is the author of "The Battle for Laissez-Faire Capitalism." He is the editor and contributing author of "Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution" by Ayn Rand (Meridian/Penguin 1999), and the author of "The Foreign Policy of Self-Interest: A Moral Ideal for America" (Ayn Rand Institute Press).
Steven J. Milloy is the publisher of JunkScience.com and CSRwatch.com; an investment adviser to the Free Enterprise Action Fund; and a columnist for FoxNews.com. Since April 1, 1996, JunkScience.com has had a discernible impact in the fight against junk science and garnered numerous awards. Mr. Milloy holds a B.A. in natural sciences from the Johns Hopkins University, a Master of Health Sciences in Biostatistics from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, a Juris Doctorate from the University of Baltimore, and a Master of Laws from the Georgetown University Law Center.
Feb 28, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
Irvine, CA--Opponents of a planned merger between XM Satellite Radio Inc. and Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. are asking the government to block the merger in order to "preserve competition" in satellite radio.
But, said Alex Epstein, junior fellow of the Ayn Rand Institute, "The opposition to this merger is irrational. There is no way a voluntary merger can be a threat to genuine competition.
"Proper, free-market competition is a process in which businesses, free to produce and sell whatever products they choose, attempt to outdo one another in making consumers the best offers for their money. No combination of companies can force customers to buy its products, nor prevent other businesses from offering theirs--thus, no merger can thwart free competition. To the contrary, mergers are an extremely valuable form of competition. A good merger enables businesses to combine strengths and strip away unneeded costs in an attempt to improve the appeal and profitability of their products. This is exactly the outcome that the struggling satellite providers Sirius and XM are hoping for--as they attempt to sell a profitable product to customers who have the option of listening to terrestrial radio, high definition radio, Internet radio, audiobooks, podcasts, and CDs.
"When two businesses have so many outstanding competitors that they are bleeding red ink, how can anyone oppose a merger between them as a 'threat to competition'? These opponents do so only because they accept the perverse concept of 'competition' that underlies our antitrust laws. On this view, 'competition' is not a free process--it is an egalitarian outcome, in which every market and sub-market has as many viable competitors as possible, with no one ever growing or succeeding 'too much.' Antitrust advocates believe that the government must forcibly prevent any one company from gaining too great a market share--that is, prevent it from persuading 'too many' customers to buy its products.
"A conception of 'competition' that grants government bureaucrats the power to keep companies from becoming 'too successful' should not be preserved--it should be rejected as perverse and un-American. As a first step, we can tell our government to keep its hands off of satellite radio companies."Feb 27, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
Irvine, CA--According to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the United States will join the Iraqi government in inviting Iran and Syria to a "neighbors meeting" on "stabilizing" Iraq.
"But Iran and Syria are our enemies," said Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. "These countries are responsible for the maiming and deaths of hundreds of American soldiers in Iraq. For months Iran and Syria have been fomenting terrorist activity against American troops and Iraqi civilians, providing terrorists with training, weapons and explosive devices.
"The United States should be bombing, not 'meeting,' these terrorist regimes.
"Any U.S. appeal to Iran or Syria for help in Iraq would be suicidal and immoral. By evading the evil of these regimes and pretending that they're peace-seekers who share our goals, the United States would be encouraging and rewarding their aggression. Dispensing with moral judgment is not a short-cut to achieving peace; it is a sure way of unleashing and goading the killers to redouble their efforts against us."Feb 26, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
Irvine, CA--America has long been known as the country in which individuals, no matter where they begin in life, have the freedom necessary to achieve great success--to live the American Dream. Yet the critics of "income inequality," complaining about high CEO pay, endless "dead-end jobs," and allegedly low "social mobility," say that the American Dream has become a fiction--and that the government must come to the rescue with new welfare spending.
In fact, said Alex Epstein, "Today's America, thanks to its legacy of economic freedom, offers unprecedented economic opportunity to all of us.
"Thanks to the ingenuity of individuals under generations of American capitalism, today we have available to us literally thousands of types of well-paying jobs, and myriad resources from which to acquire new skills and knowledge--this, even in spite of our horrible system of public education. Immigrants who come here speaking no English, but who work hard and have a commitment to self-improvement, routinely achieve great success--while their children fill America's top universities.
"Anyone who claims that in America today it is nearly impossible to improve your economic situation is lying to you. Indeed, the biggest obstacle many Americans face is that very lie--the determinist philosophy that your success or failure is pre-ordained by economic circumstances. Those who accept this philosophy of failure will not be willing to exert the effort, self-discipline, and commitment to self-improvement that success requires. They will be ripe targets for anti-capitalist politicians who sell them on the latest welfare scheme by telling them that their problems are not of their own making, but rather of an overly capitalist system that permits such income inequality.
"Americans must reject the present public outcry against income inequality, and recognize that the American Dream can become a reality for each of us--as long as we embrace a philosophy of responsibility and success, not determinism and failure."