This was originally posted on Live Oaks on February 11, 2009. Comments have not been migrated. The Quality of Life Coalition (QLC) is an umbrella organization of civic, business, and charitable organizations dedicated to making Houston a better city. This sounds laudable, until we examine what they advocate, and how they propose to achieve their…
This was originally posted on Live Oaks on February 5, 2009. Comments have not been migrated. Last week Obama signed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. The act is intended to end pay discrepancies between men and women and circumvent a Supreme Court ruling that workers had 180 days to file a discrimination claim. Under…
This was originally posted on Live Oaks on January 30, 2009. Comments have not been migrated. Wednesday’s Chronicle had an interesting article on fish farms. A proposal to establish large mesh cages in the Gulf of Mexico is being considered by the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, a federal agency that manages fisheries in…
This was originally posted on Live Oaks on January 16, 2009. Comments have not been migrated. Two articles in last Friday’s Chronicle show just how subjective, arbitrary, and dishonest most laws are. The first story deals with a ruling from the Consumer Product Safety Commission that exempts thrift stores from testing children’s products for lead….
This was originally posted on Live Oaks on January 14, 2009. Comments have not been migrated. I have previously written about occupational licensing as method by which those within a profession use coercion to limit competitors and increase their own income. A recent article in The Freeman provides further evidence, and shows how absurd licensing…
This was originally posted on Live Oaks on January 9, 2009. Comments have not been migrated. Bill White has been Mayor of Houston since 2004. His biography page on the City of Houston web site states: He uses business practices every day at City Hall to improve service and get things done. When he first…
This was originally posted on Live Oaks on January 6, 2009. Comments have not been migrated. Last week the City of Houston won a legal victory in its war against sexually-oriented businesses (SOBs). A state district judge ruled in favor of the city, which had sued the Penthouse Club for violating an ordinance that prohibits…
This was originally posted on Live Oaks on December 16, 2008. Comments have not been migrated. I have previously written how the Texas Open Beaches Act may be used to prohibit beach front property owners from rebuilding their homes in the wake of Hurricane Ike. This is bad enough, but California officials are attempting to…
This was originally posted on Live Oaks on December 4, 2008. Comments have not been migrated. The comments to a post at Houston Strategies evolved into a lengthy debate over zoning. The debate was civil and interesting. The advocate for zoning presented reasonable arguments which are shared by many people. Below are some excerpts from…
This was originally posted on Live Oaks on September 20, 2008. Comments have not been migrated. If you have seen photos of the Texas coast after Hurricane Ike, you are aware of the the destruction caused by the storm. Thousands of homes were seriously damaged or destroyed, and many will be prohibited from rebuilding. And…
The following is the text of a talk I delivered to the Houston Property Rights Association on January 16, 2008. During 2008 Forbes magazine lauded Houston as the best city in the United States in which to earn a living and the best city to buy a home. Numerous other publications placed Houston at the…
In the mid-2000s, residents of Hobbs, New Mexico were debating a proposal to implement comprehensive zoning. I was hired as a consultant to fight the proposed zoning ordinance. The article below was published in the local newspaper. $ $ $ Zoning proponents have presented zoning as the solution to many of the “problems” confronting Hobbs….