Democrats' PRO Act could take down Uber

The Democrats Just Reintroduced a Labor Law that Would Destroy Uber — And It Could Actually Pass This Time | Foundation for Economic Education - Brad Polumbo: 

February 8, 2021 - "With control of Congress and the White House, Democrats are making labor policy one of their first priorities. Ironically enough, that’s actually bad news for independent contractors and gig economy workers across the country.

"The legislation at the core of their agenda is the PRO [Protecting the Right to Organize] Act, which Democrats ... re-introduced with sponsors including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer. Among many other things, the bill would severely restrict the legal definition of independent contractors..... It’s modeled after a similar but highly controversial California bill, AB 5, that likewise forced the reclassification of independent contractors. 

"President Biden supported AB 5 at the time, and is on the record supporting the PRO Act, too. And now that Democrats control Congress, it could pass the House and find support from the White House. The only question would be whether it could make it through the closely-divided Senate.... 

"The PRO Act ... would make illegal any independent contractor arrangement where the worker provides services within 'the usual course of the business of the employer,' meaning jobs like Uber drivers, Doordash drivers, Instacart grocery deliverers, and more could not exist as we know them. There are roughly 10.6 million independent contractors in the US, accounting for 6.9 percent of all employment. Some of these workers might not be affected by the law and some others may get hired on as full-time as a result. But there’s little doubt that millions more would find themselves unemployed.

"For example, Uber alone employs more than 1 million drivers in the US. It’s nearly certain they would all lose their jobs under the PRO Act, because Uber already runs a loss, not a profit, and adding an independent contractor as a full staff member counts roughly $3,625 per driver. Basic math tells you that most of these workers would end up being let go; Uber could even go under. After all, the California legislation nearly forced Uber and Lyft to shut down operations in the Golden State altogether until a last-minute ballot referendum modified the law. 

"Uber is just one company and one example. But freelance workers such as journalists, photographers, florists, musicians and more all lost work in California under legislation similar to the PRO Act. 

"The authors of AB 5 and the PRO Act likely earnestly believed they were going to help workers.... But the ugly results of their policy naivete will leave many like them unemployed instead.... The Democrats’ latest labor proposal is a case study in unintended consequences, which inevitably plague big-government interventions into a vast and diverse economy.

"'Economic policies need to be analyzed in terms of the incentives they create, rather than the hopes that inspired them,' ... free-market economist Thomas Sowell once wrote. 'The programs that are being labeled for the poor, for the needy, almost always have effects exactly the opposite of those which their well-intentioned sponsors hope them to have'.... 

"Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer clearly haven’t thought this through. If the PRO Act becomes law, it won’t help independent workers—it will eliminate their jobs or strip them of the flexibility that attracted them to the gig economy in the first place."

Read more: https://fee.org/articles/the-democrats-just-reintroduced-a-labor-law-that-would-destroy-uber-and-it-could-actually-pass-this-time/

Turks losing patience with lockdowns

A sweeping coronavirus lockdown in Turkey sets off arguments and economic anxiety | Washington Post - Kareem Fahim:

May 12, 2021 - "Shopkeepers pulled their steel shutters down last week in a warren of tool shops near the Bosporus, to comply with a nationwide lockdown. But every third shutter or so was left open a crack, to allow the furtive flow of continued commerce. Hardly anyone in Turkey these days can afford to be locked down. Not small-business owners, who were aching from the flailing economy and rocketing inflation even before coronavirus restrictions were imposed last month. And not even the government, which permitted a glaring exception when it said foreign tourists, a critical source of foreign currency, would be allowed to travel the country freely, while telling Turkish citizens to stay home.

"In the 13 days since the lockdown began, the restrictions have set off soaring economic anxiety, arguments and public irritation. With infections and deaths surging to new highs, few disputed the measures were necessary. Rather, complaints have centered on the way they were imposed, with official edicts, viewed as capricious or baffling, that critics say have failed to insulate the country from further economic harm.

"Gurcan Hanoglu, the 43-year-old owner of a shop that sells steel cables, said his earnings would plummet this month by about 70 percent. The only aid the government was offering was a mix of loans and paltry grants. As Hanoglu spoke, a customer called to ask if he could delay paying a bill, a sign of the spreading hardship....

"The lockdown has undermined repeated official assurances that Turkey was faring better than many countries in the world. And the rules, from the well-intentioned to the bizarre, have landed on a public that is in no mood for more restrictions, especially this late in the pandemic. One source of outrage is the latitude given to tourists, shown sunning themselves on beaches while Turks remain sequestered in their homes. Another is an alcohol ban, imposed for vague 'health' reasons, without any official elaboration.

"A government circular issued after the lockdown began prohibited the purchase of 'nonessential' goods commonly sold in supermarkets such as electronics. It appeared to be aimed at preventing crowding in shops. Social media channels filled with photographs of supermarket shelves with items such as menstrual pads and children’s books sealed off from purchase with tape or plastic wrap, showing the confusion the ban had spurred. Behind the anger that such images generated was a sense of deepening economic insecurity. Twenty-seven percent of respondents to a survey released Sunday by MetroPOLL said they 'cannot meet' basic needs....

"The lockdown, which is scheduled to last nearly three weeks, is Turkey’s most sweeping yet. It was imposed after new cases soared to more than 60,000 per day. New virus variants were partly to blame, health officials said, as was an earlier lifting of restrictions that included restaurants being allowed to seat customers indoors.... Halfway through the lockdown, the restrictions appear to be working, as infections have plummeted, according to Health Ministry figures. But the death toll, of between 200 and 300 people a day, has remained stubbornly high....

"Even the country’s speedy vaccination campaign has stumbled. A Chinese company that was contracted to send 100 million coronavirus vaccine doses failed to deliver most of them. Another order, placed with Pfizer for its vaccine with BioNTech, is not expected to arrive until June. Turkey’s foreign minister said this month that people who come into contact with tourists would be vaccinated, a pledge that grated on those waiting their turn. 'If you don’t vaccinate me, I’ll bite tourists,' one tweeted."

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/coronavirus-turkey-lockdown/2021/05/12/988348d8-b16f-11eb-a3b5-f994536fe84a_story.html

More Americans opting out of school system

Kindergartners Abandoning Public School in Fall 2021, Too | Reason - Matt Welch:

April 9, 2021 - "'We're proud to show the nation what is possible in terms of safely educating our one million students,' New York City Schools Chancellor Meisha Porter tweeted Wednesday.... Porter may need to refresh her math. The nation's largest school district announced Thursday that kindergarten applications for fall 2021 were down a whopping 12 percent over last year, after having dropped 9 percent the year before.... [I]t's clear that the pandemic enrollment hit — which this school year cut overall K-12 participation down 4 percent, to 960,000 — will not be a one-year phenomenon. Early learners are abandoning public schools, and not just in New York....

"We already knew that the 2020–21 year was a wipeout for public school kindergarten enrollment nationwide—down 16 percent, according to an NPR survey of 100 districts last October. Hard numbers are devilishly hard to pin down, varying from state to state (as do kindergarten attendance requirements), but the rough estimate is that about one-third of overall K-12 decline this year (which itself has been estimated at between 2 percent and 5 percent) is attributable to kindergarten alone.

"Where have all the 5-year-olds gone? Not Catholic schools, which despite being much more likely to be open five days a week saw their biggest single-year drop (6.4 percent) in a half-century, concentrated most heavily at the pre-K and kindergarten levels. Overall private school numbers, however, appear to be slightly higher.

"About the only unambiguous growth categories in the entire field of minor education are learning 'pods' (ad hoc groups of parents pooling their efforts either full or part time, to fill in the gaps left by school closures), and homeschooling. That latter category is absolutely exploding — up from 3.3 percent before the pandemic, to 5.4 percent in the spring of 2020, to 11.1 percent last fall, according to the Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey, which takes care to distinguish between genuine D.I.Y. education and remote-learning hell.

"The tantalizing question raised by New York City's fall application numbers against the backdrop of the homeschooling spike is: Has the pandemic fundamentally altered the public's appetite for public education? Bruno V. Manno, senior adviser for the Walton Family Foundation's K-12 Education Program, thinks so.

"'The result of the Covid-19 shock dynamic in K-12 is a more pluralistic education system, one that's being redefined to include more options from more providers for more families and students,' Manno wrote for Education Next last month. 'Some significant number of parents and students will return to some version of the "old normal." But some won't. Some have exited, permanently. So the long-term effect is a question of magnitude.'

"The shift is already having a direct impact on per-student-based school budgets and staffing, even as the Biden administration hurriedly shovels the better half of $200 billion in federal bailout money out the door. Gilbert Public Schools in Arizona laid off 152 employees last month. Hillsborough County, Florida, the country's eighth largest school district, will soon ax 1,000 more employees after already losing 2,000 during the pandemic.... [E]ven with the record levels of federal funding, the basic math of K-12 funding is that with declining enrollment comes a declining number of jobs....

"After 13 months of the pandemic, public school K-12 enrollment is down all over the country, private school enrollment is flat or slightly up, and homeschooling has shot through the roof. This spring is the first time millions of parents will have truly been able to make a premeditated, non-panicky decision about the best schooling options for their kids. If such deliberation continues to produce measurable exit from government-run institutions, the basic structure of American education will change in profound ways."

Read more: https://reason.com/2021/04/09/kindergartners-abandoning-public-school-in-fall-2021-too/

U.S federal judge strikes down CDC eviction ban

 Federal Judge Strikes Down Moratorium on Evicting Renters | New York Times - Glenn Thrush:

May 5, 2021 - "A federal judge on Wednesday struck down the nationwide moratorium on evictions imposed by the Trump administration last year and extended by President Biden until June 30.... The decision, by Judge Dabney Friedrich of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, is the most significant federal ruling on the moratorium yet, and follows three similar federal court decisions.

"The Justice Department immediately filed an appeal, and requested an emergency stay on the order pending a decision by the higher court. Late Wednesday night, Judge Friedrich agreed to put her ruling on hold until May 12 ... while making clear that the move was not a reflection of the 'merits' of the government’s request. It remains unclear how wide an impact the decision will have on renters. It does not necessarily bind state housing court judges, who rule on eviction orders, and two other federal courts have upheld the moratorium, adding to the confusion about its fate....

"The moratorium was enacted under the Public Health Service Act of 1944, which gives the federal government the power to impose quarantines and other measures to deal with health emergencies. In a 20-page decision, Judge Friedrich, who was appointed by President Donald J. Trump, ruled that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had exceeded its authority under that law when it carried out Mr. Trump’s order last summer to impose the moratorium.

"'The question for the court is a narrow one: Does the Public Health Service Act grant the C.D.C. the legal authority to impose a nationwide eviction moratorium?' wrote Judge Friedrich. 'It does not.'

"The case was brought in November by the Alabama Association of Realtors and a group of real estate agents in Georgia who claimed the moratorium shifted the burden for rent payments from the tenants to landlords at a time when many owners have been struggling to meet their own expenses. The moratorium has had a substantial effect. Despite the sharp economic downturn created by the pandemic, eviction filings declined 65 percent in 2020 over the usual annual rate, according to an analysis of court data by the nonprofit group Eviction Lab.

"Housing analysts warned that Wednesday’s ruling could embolden more landlords to begin eviction proceedings against tenants before the federal government can disburse $45 billion in emergency housing assistance appropriated by Congress.... Four months after Congress approved its first tens of billions of dollars in emergency rental aid, only a small portion has reached landlords and tenants, and in many places it is impossible even to file an application....  "Owners of residential apartment buildings have long argued that the moratorium is based on legally shaky ground, and questioned the constitutionality of tethering a major intervention in the nation’s housing market to a federal statute intended to stop the transmission of disease....

"If the moratorium has been polarizing in the courts, it was one of the few pandemic policies that united Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump. The CARES Act, passed in March 2020 with Mr. Trump’s support, included a 120-day moratorium on evictions from rental properties participating in federal assistance programs or underwritten by federal loans. On Aug. 8, 2020, Mr. Trump extended and broadened the moratorium through an executive order, leading to the C.D.C.’s action. Shortly after taking office, Mr. Biden extended the moratorium.... On Wednesday, Jen Psaki, Mr. Biden’s spokeswoman, told reporters the administration would fight to uphold the moratorium....

"Most states have enacted their own eviction freezes beyond the action taken by Washington. On Monday, New York State lawmakers passed legislation that would extend a statewide moratorium on residential and commercial evictions through Aug. 31."

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/05/us/politics/eviction-moratorium-biden.html

Second Alberta pastor arrested

Notley applauds police arrests as two leading COVID protesters ‘cuffed and hauled away | Western Standard - Dave Naylor:

May 8, 2021 - "Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley is praising police in the province who arrested two of the biggest organizers of COVID-19 lockdown protests. 

"In Calgary, Pastor Art Pawlowski was stopped in the middle of 17 Ave. S.E., handcuffed as he knelt on the street and dragged away, when he refused to stand. His son, Dawid, received the same treatment [see video].

[This is the second arrest of a pastor in Alberta. Edmonton pastot James Coates was arrested in February and jailed for over 30 days. - gd]

"In Mirror, 50 km east of Red Deer, the owner of the Whistle Stop Cafe, Chris Scott, was arrested and taken away by the RCMP at the end of a day’s protest. Scott was one of the first restaurant owners in Alberta to ignore the COVID-19 closure orders. This week, the RCMP raided his store and seized all his booze. Two days later, the RCMP arrived at dawn and padlocked his establishment. On Saturday, 1,500 people held a peaceful demonstration at the Whistle Stop to protest lockdowns. Scott was arrested after things wrapped up for the day.

“'Finally, some enforcement of the public health laws…#ableg #abhealth Why did it take so long?' Notley tweeted....

"But across the country, Maxime Bernier, leader of the Peoples Party of Canada, blasted the police actions. 'I can’t believe this is happening. Pastor Pawlowski lived under the communist regime in Poland in his youth. Today he is being arrested by a sanitary fascist regime in Canada and Alberta for holding a service. SHAME!' he tweeted.

"Bernier was in Regina at an anti-lockdown rally and had a police visit of his own. 'The Regina police gave us $,2800 tickets for speaking at the Freedom Rally this afternoon. Of course we’re going to fight these unconstitutional tickets in court!' he tweeted after the event."

Read more: https://westernstandardonline.com/2021/05/notley-applauds-police-arrests-as-two-leading-covid-protesters-cuffed-and-hauled-away/ 

Pastor Artur Pawlowski Arrested | The Real Story | Charisma Media | May 1, 2024:

Suspending IP rights will not help end pandemic

Biden Administration Should Absolutely Reject Patent Waivers for COVID-19 Vaccines | Reason - Ronald Bailey: 

May 4, 2021 - "A coalition of developing countries led by India and South Africa are pushing the World Trade Organization to suspend patent rights to the vaccines, arguing that doing so will enable them to get more shots to poor people across the globe. Progressives in the U.S., such as Senators Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) are arguing that suspending the patents is a moral imperative. However, suspending patents is not a moral imperative, it's moral grandstanding and would do nothing to get the vaccines faster to the people who need them.

"The World Health Organization lists fewer than 25 countries capable of manufacturing any vaccines whatsoever, much less the novel and highly complex COVID-19 vaccines.... Just lifting patent protection would do nothing to actually enable most poor countries to ramp up production of these vaccines, and it would discourage companies from continuing to make them now and in the future.

"[T]he vaccine makers are on track to supply enough COVID-19 vaccine to inoculate 7 billion people by the end of this year. It would be much more helpful for progressives to put aside their vendetta against the pharmaceutical companies and instead concentrate on figuring out the logistics of getting vaccines to people in poor countries."
Read more: https://reason.com/2021/05/04/biden-administration-should-absolutely-reject-patent-waivers-for-covid-19-vaccines/

The Biden administration says it will support lifting patent protections to help produce more vaccines globally | New York Times:

May 5, 2021 - "The Biden administration on Wednesday came out in support of waiving intellectual property protections for Covid-19 vaccines.... Katherine Tai, the United States trade representative, announced the administration’s position in a statement on Wednesday afternoon.

"'This is a global health crisis, and the extraordinary circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures,' she said. 'The administration believes strongly in intellectual property protections, but in service of ending this pandemic, supports the waiver of those protections for Covid-19 vaccines.'"
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/05/05/world/covid-vaccine-coronavirus-cases#covid-vaccine-patent-biden

Patents are Not the Problem! | Marginal Revolution - Alex Tabarrok:

May 6, 2021 - "Waive IP protections. So simple. Why didn’t I think of that???

"Patents are not the problem. All of the vaccine manufacturers are trying to increase supply as quickly as possible. Billions of doses are being produced – more than ever before in the history of the world. Licenses are widely available. AstraZeneca have licensed their vaccine for production with manufactures around the world, including in India, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, China and South Africa. J&J’s vaccine has been licensed for production by multiple firms in the United States as well as with firms in Spain, South Africa and France. Sputnik has been licensed for production by firms in India, China, South Korea, Brazil and pending EMA approval with firms in Germany and France. Sinopharm has been licensed in the UAE, Egypt and Bangladesh. Novavax has licensed its vaccine for production in South Korea, India, and Japan and it is desperate to find other licensees but technology transfer isn’t easy and there are limited supplies of raw materials....

"Plastic bags are a bigger bottleneck than patents. The US embargo on vaccine supplies to India was precisely that the Biden administration used the DPA [Defense Production Act] to prioritize things like bioreactor bags and filters to US suppliers and that meant that India’s Serum Institute was having trouble getting its production lines ready for Novavax. CureVac, another potential mRNA vaccine, is also finding it difficult to find supplies due to US restrictions (which means supplies are short everywhere). As Derek Lowe said: 'Abolishing patents will not provide more shaker bags or more Chilean tree bark, nor provide more of the key filtration materials needed for production. These processes have a lot of potential choke points and rate-limiting steps in them, and there is no wand that will wave that complexity away.'

"Technology transfer has been difficult for AstraZeneca ... and their vaccine uses relatively well understood technology. The mRNA technology is new and has never before been used to produce at scale. Pfizer and Moderna had to build factories and distribution systems from scratch. There are no mRNA factories idling on the sidelines. If there were, Moderna or Pfizer would be happy to license since they are producing in their own factories 24 hours a day, seven days a week.... Moderna has said that they won’t enforce their patents during the pandemic but no one has stepped up to produce because no one else can.

"The US trade representative’s announcement is virtue signaling to the anti-market left and will do little to nothing to increase supply."
Read more: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/05/ip-is-not-the-constraint.html

U.S. states pass freedom-to-worship bills

States Move to Shore Up Religious Freedom in a Post-COVID World | Washington Free Beacon - Graham Piro:

May 4, 2021 - "Montana, Oklahoma, and Arkansas are pushing legislation that would further protect religious liberty in the wake of shutdown orders mandating that places of worship close their doors entirely or operate under significantly curtailed conditions. 

• The Montana Religious Freedom Restoration Act, signed into law by Republican governor Greg Gianforte, establishes that the government 'may not substantially burden a person's right to the exercise of religion.' 
• Oklahoma's law, signed by Republican governor Kevin Stitt, similarly makes restrictions on religious worship because of an emergency more difficult to enforce. 
• The Arkansas legislature went a step further and proposed an amendment to the state constitution that would establish similar protections for religious worship. The amendment will be voted on by Arkansas voters next year....

"The state laws expand on protections for religious liberty that were enacted by the passage of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 1993. Montana joins 21 other states that have enacted their own expansions of the 1993 law. Montana's legislation comes on the heels of a contentious year of restrictions on religious worship due to concerns about the spread of COVID-19.

"The laws are likely to find a sympathetic Supreme Court, as it has repeatedly ruled against restrictions on religious worship during the coronavirus pandemic. The Court repeatedly signaled its support for legal challenges brought by religious organizations against state-issued limitations on in-person religious services. The Democratic strongholds of New York and California found themselves in the Court's crosshairs on multiple occasions for singling out religious institutions for harsh treatment even as they eased restrictions on businesses and other organizations....

"Critics of the laws argued that the laws would turn into vehicles to challenge government non-discrimination statutes. 'This [law] allows individuals to turn the shield of religious freedom we all hold dear into a weapon to attack LGBTQ and Indigenous Montanans,' said Shawn Reagor, director of Equality and Economic Justice with the Montana Human Rights Network.

"State senator Carl Glimm (R.), the author of Montana's bill, said the legislation is necessary to protect places of worship from harsh treatment by heightening the standard necessary for governments to order their shuttering.... Glimm said[:]. 'This bill would have given churches their day in court, for the government to have to prove that there was a sufficient need to close them.'"

Read more: https://freebeacon.com/coronavirus/states-move-to-shore-up-religious-freedom-in-a-post-covid-world/