Laissez Faire Links: The Idiocracy of Bureaucracy

Today’s set of links focus on government intrusion and waste. Whether trying to snuff out global corporations altogether via nationalization, wasting tax-payer money on grandiose renovations of bureaucratic headquarters, or political punditry calling corporations unpatriotic because they won’t pay for the renovations of bureaucratic headquarters, these links demonstrate the idiocracy of bureaucracy.

As if government has not become intrusive enough, Richard Eskow at Salon actually called for the nationalization of Google and Amazon. In the “You didn’t build that” egalitarian logic fashioned by Obama, Eskow states: “Big Tech was created with publicly developed technology. No matter how they spin it, these corporations were not created in garages or by inventive entrepreneurs. The core technology behind them is the Internet, a publicly funded platform for which they pay no users’ fee. In fact, they do everything they can to avoid paying their taxes.” Yes folks, you read that right. A policy analyst from the Campaign for America’s Future (more irony in that title) openly called for the government takeover of two of the largest global companies. As if the government could run Amazon.com better than healthcare.gov.

As for corporate “tax-dodging,” here is another piece over at Reason worthy of mention regarding what the Left is calling “Inversion,” whereby corporations relocate for lower tax rates. The Left calls this unpatriotic, and Sloan saddles the corporation with the task of lifting inefficient government out of the trench when he states,

“And I define ‘fiduciary duty’ as the obligation to produce the best long-term results for shareholders, not ‘get the stock price up today’. Undermining the finances of the federal government by inverting helps undermine our economy. And that’s a bad thing, in the long run, for companies that do business in America.” Since when should the vitality of federal coffers be of concern to corporate executives. When the federal government has such a heavy hand in the economy that its fiscal concerns bleed into those of private corporations, the free market becomes shackled with all the inefficiencies of government. And this is what smart business recognizes and seeks to remedy when moving overseas.

Inefficiencies abound, Daniel Mitchell over at Cato shares another example of government waste, although this one has a particular tinge of irony that one cannot fail to acknowledge. According to the Daily Signal, costs of renovating rented office space for the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (ushered into law by Dodd-Frank) is about $590/sq. ft., more than either the Bellagio Hotel and Casino or the Trump World Tower. This renovation alone will cost tax payers $215 million. So much for protecting consumers! Parasitic public sector waste will quickly eat any costs saved by consumers from any apparent predatory behavior.

Waste and bureaucratic inefficiencies are exactly what healthy and rational corporations seek to avoid, not to mention the prospect of nationalization. Why is it surprising that U.S. companies seek lower tax rates overseas when ours are nearly 35%? This is the rational choice, a practice on which successful corporations build, thereby securing growth and a brighter future for everyone. Idiotic calls for nationalization and government waste discourage business creation and sap vitality from the markets because they threaten freedom of contract and property rights while saddling corporations with external costs and the mounting inefficiencies of growing bureaucracy.