Anthrax Killer Wanted Patent Royalties

August 5, 2008 3:19 PM by J. Henderson

I hope it has not escaped Stephan Kinsella's notice that Bruce Ivins, the government scientist allegedly responsible for the 2001 anthrax killings, was apparently motivated by "intellectual property" laws to create and deploy weapons of mass destruction. (Source: LA Times)

[Ivins] stood to gain financially from massive federal spending in the fear-filled aftermath of those killings, the Los Angeles Times has learned. Ivins is listed as a co-inventor on two patents for a genetically engineered anthrax vaccine, federal records show. Separately, Ivins also is listed as a co-inventor on an application to patent an additive for various biodefense vaccines. Ivins, 62, died Tuesday in an apparent suicide in Maryland. Federal authorities had informed his lawyer that criminal charges related to the mailings would be filed. As a co-inventor of a new anthrax vaccine, Ivins was among those in line to collect patent royalties if the product had come to market, according to an executive familiar with the matter.

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Wacky WSJ Solutions to the Housing Mess

August 2, 2008 11:18 AM by J. Henderson

This week, the Wall Street Journal's Holman Jenkins returned to his hobby horse of propping up housing prices by having the federal government pay for the destruction of houses. ($ article)

"So far, Washington has put its political capital into trying to refinance salvageable homes for unsalvageable homeowners, when a relevant policy would consist of judiciously buying unsalvageable houses and demolishing them. Fannie and Freddie's strength is housing market software: They could be put to work devising a least-cost, maximum-bang strategy for demolishing unoccupied homes to preserve as much value as possible for the homeowners and mortgage creditors who remain."

I invite readers of this blog to propose other examples in which the US government could provide a service to some portion of the market it has wrecked with excess credit creation, subsidies or other counterproductive interventions. For example, why not tax the public and use the money to demolish ethanol plants, thereby improving the supply/demand balance for the subsidized but ailing ethanol producers? Or how about a Rescue Fund to pay above market prices for - and then destroy - used Big 3 cars and vehicles coming off-lease? This would relieve oversupply and prop up the aftermarket/residual values for the unwanted products of American automakers, helping them to avoid imminent bankruptcy.

Maybe Jenkins' Republican and crony capitalist friends should propose a cabinet level National Supply Destruction Agency that would judiciously demolish what it considers to be unsalvageable products throughout the economy?

Mr. Jenkins concludes his article with a proposal to fix Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae:

"Of course, right now their [Fannie/Freddie's] overriding imperative is to avoid recognizing losses rather than rushing toward them -- which is why Fannie and Freddie should be nationalized (and later privatized)."

This would merely set them up in the private sector with "non-explicit" federal guarantees, further moral hazard, and re-nationalization some time in the future. Why not bulldoze them, Mr. Jenkins?

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Moral hazard afterthought

June 23, 2008 4:17 PM by J. Henderson

Buried at the end of a page C2 Wall Street Journal story on efforts to revive the US mortgage finance market: "Congress is considering new legislation aimed at making it easier for homeowners to refinance by offering government insurance on certain qualified loans. While good for homeowners, the rescue effort could establish an incentive for borrowers to miss payments to qualify for the program." [Mortgage-Securities Revival Proves Elusive, June 23, 2008, C2]

Why is it that this is not mentioned in the headline of the story?

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