- Wow. Last night’s White House Correspondents Dinner must have been the fiasco of fiascos. Even the NYT and CNN are decrying the nasty attacks comedian Michelle Wolf made against Trump (who wasn’t there) and Sarah Huckabee Sanders (who was).
- The inimitable Scott Greenfield slams it to those regressive fools who are cutting their own (and civilization’s) throat by dismissing free speech as nothing but a right-wing dog whistle.
- Two on Alfie Evans: where is Jimmy Kimmel’s voice now; and Britain’s new Berlin Wall.
- Proposed new employee tax in Seattle will close neighborhood food markets, say Safeway and others. (And that’s just the tip of that particular iceberg.)
- A trash-hauling company (worse, one owned by a self-proclaimed free-market supporter and politician) sends the sheriff out to inventory all of a family’s possessions for sale — over an unpaid $160 bill.
- Wisconsin’s goofy laws protecting state citizens from artisanal butter are finally getting a legal challenge. Unfortunately the big guns (Cato and Pacific Legal Foundation) are driven to use the infamous interstate commerce clause.
- Hair debuted on Broadway 50 years ago today.
- With tongue firmly in cheek (one hopes), Robin Hanson says forget about income redistribution; we must address the far more important problem of sex redistribution.
- Six realities of growing up expecting the apocalypse.
- This Japanese company pays employees for rescuing cats and creates a happier workplace in the process.
- Border collies help re-seed a burned forest.
I knew there had to be some rational, productive use for all that Border collie energy! When can they start reseeding California?
The dog whistle is needed when dealing with dumb animals however it is the left that is using it when they have decided that men is to dumb to know what is good for him and only government can decide what is best for the rest.
RE Item 5: What should Penn Waste do? Provide their services for free? (Like so many think hospitals should be forced to do)
Re Item 1: Gosh Golly Gee, how dare a comedian make fun of politicians and their staffs, as to it being a “fiasco” hardly everybody got exactly what they wanted, Trump and CO. get to whine and cry about how mean everybody id to them (just like Obama did) and Michelle Wolf got a lot of free publicity for her upcoming series. Win-Win for all involved, just like it was intended.
P.S.
Here is Wolf’s act in total
“RE Item 5: What should Penn Waste do? Provide their services for free? (Like so many think hospitals should be forced to do)”
No. Merely gain some perspective and show some common sense (as, apparently, every competing trash hauler in the region does). You don’t threaten to ruin people and send the sheriff after them over a $160 debt — even a $160 debt plus court costs.
There is a lot of territory between “providing their services for free” and acting like monsters over a tiny bill.
According to the linked article, the times Penn Waste took such action ills were months in arrears, and the debtors had made no effort to bring their accounts current, even after Penn Waste had tried to work out payment plans.
The Linked article further states that Penn Waste has never had to proceed with a sheriffs sale, as all the deadbeats paid up after the inventory.
Even if true, what gave Penn Waste the right to send armed, tax-paid enforcers out to intimidate householders into paying up?
And if the debtors hadn’t yielded to the intimidation and had refused (or been unable) to pay, would proceeding to conduct a sheriff’s sale have been a valid response?
I have no particular sympathy for people who don’t pay their debts (even if the family finances may have been devastated by illness; in that case, they clearly should have made arrangements with PW). I merely think Penn Waste’s actions were out of proportion to the offense, petty, and utilized the might of government in a cruel and inappropriate way.
Better to have written off the debt, refused to do business with those customers again, and settled for the satisfaction of knowing that the former customer now had a public record showing on their credit, which would devastate their ability to function for a decade. Or PW could even even (as one of my local utilities has done), start a “warm heart” fund by which other customers could voluntarily contribute to help cover the bills of poor or distressed customers.
what gave Penn Waste the right to send armed, tax-paid enforcers out to intimidate householders into paying up?
Pennsylvania state law and the judge that signed the order, no doubt the state should vanish in it’s entirety.
Perhaps the best place to start would be to eliminate the armed, tax-paid enforcers who are busy rounding up people born on the “wrong” side of an imaginary line and imprisoning them in for profit slave labor camps.
That was an odd change of subject. You didn’t address the points I raised. And the issue of immigration is irrelevant to the subject of Penn Waste’s bill-collection policies.
I’m not following you off on that tangent.
I addressed your point here: what gave Penn Waste the right to send armed, tax-paid enforcers out to intimidate householders into paying up?
Pennsylvania state law and the judge that signed the order, no doubt the state should vanish in it’s entirety.
Also from the linked article, the family had received several collection notices over a period of months, which they had ignored, but that the man paid the debt, court and collection cost as soon as the gov-goon started the inventory.
“Pennsylvania state law and the judge that signed the order, no doubt the state should vanish in it’s entirety.”
Law and tax-paid enforcers, merely because they exist, trump everything else? Law and tax-paid enforcers confer rights? The very existence of law and tax-paid enforcers mean a company doesn’t need to consider any alternatives even when alternatives exist aplenty?
That is as hardcore an authoritarian, statist viewpoint as I can imagine.
“Also from the linked article, the family had received several collection notices over a period of months, which they had ignored, but that the man paid the debt, court and collection cost as soon as the gov-goon started the inventory.”
I didn’t dispute that. I merely pointed out that there were other ways to handle the situation. Yet Penn Waste chose armed, tax-paid enforcement. And it seems you agree with that choice over the more humane, more practical (for PW and the PA taxpayers), and more businesslike alternatives.
Law and tax-paid enforcers, merely because they exist, trump everything else? Law and tax-paid enforcers confer rights?
Of course not, in a free society the same contract would have given that authority to a private arbitration company, and a private firm like Wackenhut or Brinks would have sent armed agents to inventory and, if need be, seize property, but we don’t live in a free society, so Penn Waste needs to use those tools that are available to them
The very existence of law and tax-paid enforcers mean a company doesn’t need to consider any alternatives even when alternatives exist aplenty?
Parties to any agreement are free to use whatever enforcement measures are included in their contract, Penn Waste states that they may go to court to enforce payment, they could, if they wished hand out ice cream sundays to their deadbeat customers if they so choose.
I merely pointed out that there were other ways to handle the situation. Yet Penn Waste chose armed, tax-paid enforcement.
Only after trying for months to get these people to pay by using “the more humane, more practical (for PW and the PA taxpayers), and more businesslike alternatives.”
And it seems you agree with that choice
I agree that people need to honor contracts they enter into, or face whatever enforcement options are available. Freetopia isn’t here, and businesses are constrained in what actions they may take
“Parties to any agreement are free to use whatever enforcement measures are included in their contract,”
Of course. And we come back to where we started: whether dispatching armed agents of the state is the most practical, humane, or financially prudent course of action when the problem is a $160 debt. It seems we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
is the most practical
It got the company their money, plus collection costs
And as has been pointed out, Penn Waste had tried for months to get this three car family to pay up, to no avail…
Anyway you look at this matter for whatever Penn Waste was trying get they have done a tremendous more harm to their reputation than what that amount could have been.
I for one in choosing who to do business with; Penn Waste would not be very high on that list.
“It got the company their money, plus collection costs”
Sure. Threatening to ruin people is one effective way of collecting a debt — if $160 (plus costs) is that important to you.
Your position boils down to: Simply because you can use the armed force of the state, you should use it, no matter how small the issue.
That is, frankly, horrifying. Ice cold. Tyrannical.
Comrade X is right, too; Penn Waste just did itself a world of PR hurt by choosing such an outsized action to collect such a paltry sum. They also outed themselves as the one company among their competitors who’d choose state power over less drastic course.
Your position boils down to: Simply because you can use the armed force of the state, you should use it, no matter how small the issue.
No, my position is that one should honor one’s word and pay one’s debts, if some unforeseen circumstance prevents a person from paying their debts, then that person is obligated to contact the creditor and make an arrangement, something Penn Waste was more than happy to do, indeed they spent several months trying to make a deal with these people (who did own 3 cars) Only when the family refused to even speak with Penn did they resort to going to court, winning, trying to collect again, and then finally going back to court getting a writ, and then starting a process of a sheriff’s auction.
How large must a debt be, before some greedy capitalist is free to collect?
How small a sum could some person steal from some “big” company and face no sanction?
How many homeless people should be allowed to defecate in a private Jewish cemetery before the owners use “the armed force of the state”?
“No, my position is that one should honor one’s word and pay one’s debts, if some unforeseen circumstance prevents a person from paying their debts, then that person is obligated to contact the creditor and make an arrangement”
I already said I agreed with that. I never said the debtors shouldn’t face some type of sanction. I never called anybody a greedy capitalist. You keep setting up straw men.
You’re not listening to what I’ve actually said, so I’m not going to argue the point with you any more. I’m done here.
Gee. I take my trash to the dump four times each year.
Costs $3.00 per trip.
Nice thing about living in the country.
What the company should have done was to stop the pickups, let the garbage pile up. That would’ve sent a lot clearer message to pay their bill.
Wow thats a heated debate. Should the librarian shoot you in the leg for returning a book a week overdue? If a sheriff invades my house over $160 he better bring his comrades because I will toss him out and run him off my property. I don’t pay my garbage tax. I recycle everything. Never put a bag on the curb, still get charged the tax though. I make them go through every manner of collection process just as part of my private war on getting forced to pay for a system I don’t agree with or use.
The most interesting story was at the bottom of the grocery store employee tax. The trucker who got lost. At the end of the story he walked 36 miles and got picked up and driven home…only 9 miles away. WTF? A proffesional driver gets lost 45 miles from home? Stunned. But he didn’t eat the chips. Bravo sir, bravo.
RIP Alfie.
May God comfort his parents.
Regarding little Alfie Evans: never mind the health care bureaucrats, there is plenty of blame to be shared here. http://bit.ly/2I60x1G
Re: Penn Waste
There are other methods for enforcing a judgment. I don’t think PA allows wage garnishment, but they could have levied bank accounts or placed a lien on real estate. Instead, they chose the most intrusive and demeaning process.
Thank you, Noah Body. You’re right. Those are common options, well-known to business people. The whole charade with the sheriff was chosen deliberately to humiliate and intimidate when there were better ways to get the job done.
Everybody who reads this blog (or the news, for that matter) knows that calling law enforcement out also means you’re willing to have people killed if things go wrong. Terrible judgment all around.
I’m just glad they didn’t have a dog!
Not trying to beat this to death, but:
“Of course not, in a free society the same contract would have given that authority to a private arbitration company, and a private firm like Wackenhut or Brinks would have sent armed agents to inventory and, if need be, seize property, but we don’t live in a free society, so Penn Waste needs to use those tools that are available to them”
Why is this so much better than using the cops? You are still using force and violence, or the threat thereof, to collect a debt. Any time you use armed agents, whether private or tax-funded, you are risking that someone will get killed. And then what? Will that result in a blood feud that goes on for generations? “That SOB shot my granddad over a $160 debt!”
And, under the system we have now, there are exemptions from judgments. A creditor can’t take everything and financially destroy a debtor. Would those exemptions exist in anarcho-topia? If so, who will enforce them, and how?
It’s easy to say the system stinks, and it does, but before you tear it down, you better make sure you have something better to replace it with.
My thinking is, that in a free market that adheres to the non-aggression principle, transactions will be like eBay. An honor system, and if you get burned by someone who isn’t honorable, the only things you can do are leave unfavorable feedback and refuse to do business with them again.
(And I have used eBay, and have been burned by both buyers and sellers. Not often, but it happens. It’s part of life. We live in an imperfect world, and no “ism” is going to change that.)