[EL] Charles Koch “Flabbergasted” by Obama Criticism, Wants to Educate Him About “Rent Seeking”
Rick Hasen
rhasen at law.uci.edu
Wed Aug 26 08:20:44 PDT 2015
Of course the president knows what rent seeking is.
On 8/26/15 8:15 AM, Jonathan Adler wrote:
>
> There is an alternative explanation: The President is fully aware of
> what “rent-seeking” means, and just chose to use the term improperly
> or dishonestly. Is that what Rick is suggesting? I think the
> suggestion that Obama (or his speechwriter) does not fully understand
> the meaning of the term (and what it means to seek economic rents) is
> the more charitable of the two, but YMMV.
>
> ------
> Jonathan H. Adler
> Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law
> Director, Center for Business Law & Regulation
> Case Western Reserve University School of Law
> 11075 East Boulevard
> Cleveland, OH 44106
> ph) 216-368-2535
> fax) 216-368-2086
> cell) 202-255-3012
> jha5 at case.edu <mailto:jha5 at case.edu>
> SSRN: http://ssrn.com/author=183995
>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/author/adlerj/
>
> *From:*law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
> <mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu>
> [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
> <mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu>] *On Behalf Of
> *Sean Parnell
> *Sent:* Wednesday, August 26, 2015 10:56 AM
> *To:* 'Rick Hasen'; law-election at uci.edu <mailto:law-election at uci.edu>
> *Subject:* [EL] Charles Koch “Flabbergasted” by Obama Criticism, Wants
> to Educate Him About “Rent Seeking”
>
> Rick, based on his comments in Vegas, I can assure you that Obama has
> no clue what “rent seeking” is. There are cases to be made (mostly bad
> cases IMHO, but cases nonetheless) for giving subsidies, guaranteed
> market share, protection from foreign competition, and other goodies
> to the renewable energy industry. But there’s no case at all, at least
> from an economic perspective, for arguing that opposing those policies
> amounts to rent seeking. None.
>
> Sean Parnell
>
> President, Impact Policy Management, LLC
>
> 571-289-1374 (c)
>
> sean at impactpolicymanagement.com <mailto:sean at impactpolicymanagement.com>
>
> Alexandria, Virginia
>
> Posted incampaign finance
> <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,campaigns
> <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>
>
>
> Charles Koch “Flabbergasted” by Obama Criticism, Wants to Educate
> Him About “Rent Seeking” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=75594>
>
> Posted onAugust 25, 2015 7:58 pm
> <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=75594>by*Rick Hasen*
> <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>
> Mike Allen
> <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/charles-koch-blasts-obama-121746.html>:
>
> /Charles Koch hit back at criticism of “the Koch brothers” during
> President Barack Obama’s energy speech in Las Vegas earlier this
> week, saying he was “flabbergasted” by the attack and charging
> that Obama made the dig as a favor to Senate Minority Leader Harry
> Reid (D-Nev.), who appeared with him./
>
> /“It’s beneath the president, the dignity of the president, to be
> doing that,” Koch said during a phone interview Tuesday…/
>
> /That’s not the American way. That’s not progress. That’s not
> innovation. That’s rent seeking, and trying to protect old ways of
> doing business and standing in the way of the future.”/
>
> /Obama continued: “I mean, think about this. Ordinarily, these are
> groups that tout themselves as champions of the free market. If
> you start talking to them about providing health care for folks
> who don’t have health insurance, they’re going crazy: ‘This is
> socialism, this is going to destroy America.’ But in this
> situation, they’re trying to undermine competition in the
> marketplace, and choke off consumer choice, and threaten an
> industry that’s churning out new jobs at a fast pace.”/
>
> /Koch shot back: “I don’t know whether he knows what that phrase
> means, but ‘rent seeking,’ of course, is, in economic terms, is
> getting the government to rig the system in your favor. And that’s
> exactly what these so-called ‘renewable energy’ proponents are
> doing.”/
>
> I’m guessing that Obama, who taught at the University of Chicago, is
> familiar with the term “rent-seeking.”
>
> Share
> <https://www.addtoany.com/share_save#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D75594&title=Charles%20Koch%20%E2%80%9CFlabbergasted%E2%80%9D%20by%20Obama%20Criticism%2C%20Wants%20to%20Educate%20Him%20About%20%E2%80%9CRent%20Seeking%E2%80%9D&description=>
>
--
Rick Hasen
Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science
UC Irvine School of Law
401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
Irvine, CA 92697-8000
949.824.3072 - office
949.824.0495 - fax
rhasen at law.uci.edu
http://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/hasen/
http://electionlawblog.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20150826/39896dd1/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/png
Size: 1504 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20150826/39896dd1/attachment.png>
View list directory