Profit Seeking Firms are Right to Feel Demoralized by the Rent Seeking of Others

Money and politics
Ask what your country can do for you

Oct 1st 2011

MUCH as some businesses whine about government intrusion, others do pretty well out of it. An index based on the amount of lobbying that American firms do has outperformed the broader market since its creation in 2008; data going back to 1998 show that it has done better over the longer term, too.

The index is produced by Strategas, an investment-research firm. A first effort, to rank firms on the amount they spend on lobbying, was no use: it just corresponded with the largest firms. Strategas now looks at the intensity of lobbying—expenditure as a percentage of assets—to create an index of 50 firms that is revised quarterly.

In aggregate the results have been stunning, comparable to the returns of the most blistering hedge fund. The index has outperformed the S&P500 by 11% a year since 2002 (see chart). There have been bumps along the way: the index fell sharply in 2008 and again this summer, when debt-ceiling brinkmanship raised the prospect of government austerity. But at other times, it seems remarkable that companies would do anything but lobby. A particularly vivid example was in 2004, when an aggressive corporate campaign prompted Congress to grant a one-off tax holiday for American companies to repatriate foreign earnings. The outright return on lobbying costs, according to one of the various studies that served as inspiration for the Strategas index, was $220 for each $1 spent.

Hire a Lawyer, Avoid the Death Penalty

This shows the death penalty of today does not have a criminal justice aim. It has a lawyer rent seeking aim.


"Death penalty opponents charge that wealthy defendants who can hire legal counsel are exempt from capital punishment, but that indigent defendants who receive court-appointed counsel are frequently condemned to death. The critique is based on sensational stories, but anecdotes cannot establish a causal relationship. To explore the issue systematically, the current research examines the impact of legal counsel on the District Attorney’s decisions to seek the death penalty and juries’ decisions to impose death sentences against adult defendants indicted for capital murder in Harris County (Houston), Texas from 1992 to 1999 (n=504). Harris County is the largest jurisdiction in the nation to use the appointment method rather than the public defender method to deliver indigent capital defense, though by no means the only such jurisdiction. The empirical comparison of hired counsel to appointed counsel in Harris County reveals three central findings: (1) Defendants who hired counsel for the entire case were never sentenced to death; (2) Defendants who hired counsel for a portion of the case were substantially less likely to be sentenced to death; (3) Hiring counsel is not the province of the wealthy, as almost all of the capital murder defendants in this study were poor. Though not the focus of the research and a finding that must be considered tentative, the data also reveal that defendants who hired counsel for the entire case were much more likely to be acquitted. To be clear, the findings are not an indictment of appointed attorneys, but rather an indictment of the structural deficiencies inherent in the appointment method. The research concludes with a call for Harris County—the capital of capital punishment—to establish a Public Defender Office with a specific Capital Defender Office. Though not a panacea, the public defender method comes much closer to the adversarial ideal of evenly matched partisans doing battle to produce justice."

Perhaps the Lawyer Might be Indirectly Blamed. Rent Seeking is Everywhere

The Supremacy is watching below from his office tower. A stopped bus opens a door, and the door strikes a bicyclist in the bicycle lane in the shoulder. Oh, my God.

Three police cars arrive. Two ambulances. Two fire department service vehicles. This doofis is standing, holding his shoulder. Meanwhile traffic on this two lane street is backed up for miles, because the police naturally close off both lanes. The guy tries to walk away. The ambulance people force him onto a flat board, and immobilize his neck. They carry him away. I am sure all this equipment and staff cost over $1000. They likely took him to an Emergency Room. There, he must have received a $5000 evaluation. I am sure that he hired a lawyer, and will receive much rehabilitation, follow up care, and compensation in the $1000's or $10's of 1000's.

The lawyer may just a pretext for the enthusiastic rent seeking of every body else.

Wyeth v Levine

No pre-emption by FDA approval on product liability.

The Rent Seeking Theory of Appellate Decisions trumps all ideology and political affiliation. This decision was predicted at the time of cert.

Lawyer Hierarchy Punishes One of Its Own. She Dared to Impose Justice on a Rent Seeking Lawyer Client

The crime of this judge, Sharon Keller of Texas, was to interrupt lawyer employment so that justice could begin. She did not follow procedures that delay justice so that lawyers can get make work jobs. No one said, she executed an innocent person. She decreased lawyer employment. For that, she has to be punished, and other judges have to be deterred.

This is raw rent seeking by the criminal lover lawyer hierarchy. These threats to the safety of the community must resign, get impeached, or get street justice to drive them out of town. Her trial itself will generate jobs for lots of lawyers.

I suggest generating more lawyer jobs by filing ethics complaints against the lawyers who complained, and against the judge that indulged these criminal lover rent seeking threats to the safety of the public. When the Master is named, file complaints against him, and use every sentence he utters as a violation of judicial ethics, since the case has an improper motive, vengeance by criminal lover defense lawyers.

Before Embezzling, File an EEOC or Human Resources Harassment Complaint. Supreme Court Calls Firing Retaliation

The employee never complained before the witch hunt. Once it began, she reported inappropriate behavior by a responsible officer. She was accused of embezzlement. The trial court found for the defendant that she sued for retaliation.

If I were an office embezzler, I would file multiple complaints with the EEOC, and with Human Resources department. I might make more money from the retaliation lawsuit than from the embezzlement.

There was no dissent. The vote shows that lawyer rent seeking, job generation trump all political ideology on the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court Rent Seekers: Lawyers Will Get Their Jobs

The Rent Seeking Theory of Appellate Decisions states that the decision will increase lawyer employment. After the next major terror attack, Federal marshals must arrest the entire Supreme Court. Brief excerpts from their decisions get read in a brief trial for insurrection against the Constitution, then they hang outside the courthouse. Their bodies stay there a month to send a message to the profession.

Member of Merchant Class Getting Fed Up

The Church offended them the same way, 700 years ago. The Executive branch beheaded part of the hierarchy, and took their lands.

This time is approaching fast for the replacement of the church as oppressor, the lawyer hierarchy. Same approach seems reasonable.

Rent Seeking Theory Explains this Weasel Outcome

The Justices do not even have to take responsibility for it, by recusing themselves with bogus ethics pretexts.

However, massive lawyer make work now proceeds.

The V Word - Impossible Utterance for Anyone Who Has Passed 1L

I cannot get anyone who has passed 1L to utter the V word, victim. I am really getting desperate. I have provided a sentence to be copied and pasted in a reply. That would satisfy me entirely. Take a shot at this. No effort. No one else outside the law has any trouble with this word. It causes the lawyer throat to close up, and the lawyer writing hand to horribly cramp up.

"The black murder victim has as much value as anyone else. The murderer of the black murder victim should be stopped."

Why do lawyers choke on the V word? Even crusading prosecutors have the criminal as a source of employment. The crime victim does nothing for the lawyer. If the murderer had assets, I have no doubt the lawyer would be quite dramatic about the V word, but in the civil suit.

I am not in a rush. Take a week to use the V word, if you need to.