A couple weeks ago, I posted here regarding the Manhattan Institute’s recent report on the improvement Ohio has made in reforming its civil liability laws. The report briefly mentions two cases in which the Ohio Supreme Court upheld recently enacted reforms of Ohio’s tort system. I discuss those two cases in more detail in the just released summer issue of the Federalist Society’s State Court Docket Watch (the article on the Ohio cases begins on page 2 under “Case in Focus”). As the Manhattan Institute’s report indicates, the recently enacted tort reforms, including placing caps on pain and suffering damages and time limits on liability, are critical if Ohio is going to be successful in making the state attractive again for investment and business activity. Interestingly, in one of the recent cases, Arbino v. Johnson v. Johnson, the portion of the decision upholding the cap on pain and suffering damages was by a 5-2 majority. Two of the justices in the majority, Justice Evelyn Lundberg Stratton and Maureen O’Connor, are up for reelection in 2008. If they are defeated and replaced by more activist justices, the court might then have a majority that would be willing to strike down the caps on damages enacted by the General Assembly. That would be a major step backward for Ohio.

Matt Carr’s presentation at Buckeye’s Friedman Legacy dinner has received more than 6,000 views online.

Congratulations, Matt. Tell us there isn’t a market out there for free market ideas.

“Schools need ‘additional dollars’” is the headline, and sure enough they do. Yes, it must be that levy season is upon us.

Nothing could better demonstrate the essential problem of government. (Well, nothing short of a war.) Most of us don’t spend a lot of time on the income side of the budget issue, because that’s a whole different set of activities — changing jobs, increasing skills, all big, difficult, long term major efforts.

No, real budgeting is spent on the expense side of the ledger. It doesn’t do any good to say we need additional dollars. So does Donald Trump. The real issue is, given our dollars, how are we going to spend them?

But no, let’s not go there. Let’s just say the school funding system has been ruled unconstitutional four times and raise taxes.

The debate about payday lending has been notable for the anti-lending forces as well as those in the press (am I being redundant?) fail to grasp basic facts about the payday loan industry. I have documented that repeatedly on this blog. It seems that I have more work to do, however, based on today’s editorial in the Dayton Daily News. Let me just comment on a few of the more egregious departures from reality the editors make:

There are alternatives to payday lenders. Credit unions, for instance, and even some banks will make short-term loans for much more reasonable rates.

Really? Then why do people choose payday lenders who, in the view of these editors, rip them off? Are these consumers idiots? Well, no, since the notion that credit unions or banks are going to be making high-risk, unsecured loans at low rates to a large number of people is ridiculous. It isn’t happening now and it won’t happen when the ban goes into effect. The fact is that these high rates are necessary to provide the product that borrowers want and need.

After Sept. 1, short-term loans simply would be capped at 28 percent on an annualized basis, versus the 391 percent that can be charged now. Borrowers would pay $18 for a two-week $300 loan, not $45.

No. A 28% APR on a two-week, $300 loan is $3.23. Would you loan money to someone for that low of a rate? Would you make a profit if you did?

But when lawmakers looked into the payday businesses’ practices, they found that many customers were being encouraged to take out loan after loan because high fees were trapping them in debt.

That sounds like lawmakers actually did a study of the issue and discovered the borrowing patterns of those who take these loans. That didn’t happen. They heard from a handful of people who needed a payday loan at the time but, in retrospect, didn’t like the price they paid. But these borrowers agreed to pay the price at that time, indicating that the viewed it then as a fair price. Furthermore, there was no evidence that people were being encouraged to take out more than one loan. The plural of anecdote isn’t data. Read the rest of this entry »

The Akron Beacon Journal calls for higher taxes. Or do they?

The ending sentence of a rather unfocused editorial is, “Recall December 1992, the jobless rate at 7.2 percent: George Voinovich and state lawmakers increased taxes to balance the budget and preserve decisive programs. The state unemployment rate fell steadily until the end of the decade. Yes, there are worse things than higher taxes.”

I’m not quite sure of the post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning there. Why not, “Recall that Ohio and many other states rode an expansion that extended over more than 20 years largely as a result of Reagan policies on taxes,” etc. But no matter. Each sees his causation where he likes.

The real question is, what does ABJ call for? If anyone can find it here, I’ll eat Joe Hallett’s hat.