Eric Adams isn't an economist, but there are more than a few people with such expertise rattling around Wall Street and university economics departments in his city. Surely, they could tell him that his policy will do more harm than good, if he cared to listen.
But politicians don't listen so much as they posture for supporters and preen for television cameras. That's why we get impassioned calls for legislation that just can't wait another day from officials who don't have the slightest clue about the subject over which they want to threaten people with fines and arrest.
Former Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D–N.Y.) may live forever as a meme for her description of the barrel shroud, a specifically forbidden feature of the "assault weapons" she wanted to ban, as a "shoulder thing that goes up." It is not anything of the sort. She might have been better off sticking with her preliminary and honest admission that "I actually don't know what a barrel shroud is."
And if firearms have legislators baffled, don't get them started on the Internet.
"How do you sustain a business model in which users don't pay for your service?" The late Sen. Orrin Hatch (R–Utah) suspiciously quizzed Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg during testimony in 2018.
"Senator, we run ads," Zuckerberg replied, more than a decade after implementing that revenue model on the popular social media platform.
"Will you commit to ending finsta?" Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D–Conn.) demanded of another Facebook exec last year. He was apparently unaware that "finsta" is slang for a secondary Instagram account and neither especially nefarious nor really under company control.
reason.com
But politicians don't listen so much as they posture for supporters and preen for television cameras. That's why we get impassioned calls for legislation that just can't wait another day from officials who don't have the slightest clue about the subject over which they want to threaten people with fines and arrest.
Former Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D–N.Y.) may live forever as a meme for her description of the barrel shroud, a specifically forbidden feature of the "assault weapons" she wanted to ban, as a "shoulder thing that goes up." It is not anything of the sort. She might have been better off sticking with her preliminary and honest admission that "I actually don't know what a barrel shroud is."
And if firearms have legislators baffled, don't get them started on the Internet.
"How do you sustain a business model in which users don't pay for your service?" The late Sen. Orrin Hatch (R–Utah) suspiciously quizzed Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg during testimony in 2018.
"Senator, we run ads," Zuckerberg replied, more than a decade after implementing that revenue model on the popular social media platform.
"Will you commit to ending finsta?" Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D–Conn.) demanded of another Facebook exec last year. He was apparently unaware that "finsta" is slang for a secondary Instagram account and neither especially nefarious nor really under company control.
Is It Too Much To Ask That Politicians Know What They’re Talking About?
It's bad enough when you're governed by people who are hostile to your values. It's that much worse when the folks in charge not only inflict bad policy,
reason.com
