Atlantic Sentinel

Category: Opinion

  • Noncompete Clauses Should Be Banned

    Barbershop
    Barbershop (Unsplash/Kamile Leonaviciute)

    America could ban noncompete clauses by the end of this year. The Federal Trade Commission has proposed to void existing agreements and ban companies from including any in future contracts.

    It’s a seemingly simple change that could have massive repercussions.

    Economists suspect noncompetes are one reason middle-class wages have stagnated and productivity growth has stalled. At least one in five — 30 million — workers are bound by them.

    Once limited to high-paid professionals with access to sensitive company information, noncompete clauses are now routinely inserted into contracts for even fast-food workers and hairstylists.

    Paired with weak protections against dismissal, noncompetes give American employers too much power in labor relations. (more…)

  • How Government Creates Shortages of Doctors

    Westmaas Netherlands doctors office
    Patients wait to see a general practitioner in Westmaas, the Netherlands (LHV)

    Rural France is running out of doctors. Politico Europe reports that 7 out of 68 million French citizens don’t have a referring general practitioner. 30 percent live in a region where access to physicians is poor.

    France is not alone. Small towns in the Netherlands and the United States are also medically underserved.

    Partly the shortage is due to young doctors and nurses preferring to live and work in cities, much like young professionals in general.

    Higher-than-usual burnout rates during the pandemic exacerbated the shortage.

    But government policy also plays a role. All three countries for years kept the supply of doctors low while demand for health care, as a result of longevity and advances in medicine, went up. (more…)

  • Responding to American Protectionism Has Downsides for Europe

    Joe Biden Emmanuel Macron
    American president Joe Biden greets French president Emmanuel Macron during the opening session of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, November 1, 2021 (White House/Adam Schultz)

    Europe has no good options to respond to American subsidies for green energy and electric cars.

    Politicians are right to worry that the tax breaks and buy-American provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, coupled with high energy prices due to the war in Ukraine, could convince European companies to make the jump across the Atlantic.

    But duplicating American protectionism would make things worse. (more…)

  • Sánchez Cleans Up Mess Conservatives Made in Catalonia

    Pedro Sánchez
    Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez chairs a meeting of Socialist Workers’ Party lawmakers in Madrid, June 1 (PSOE/Eva Ercolanese)

    Spain’s ruling left-wing parties have abolished the crimes for which Catalonia’s independence leaders were imprisoned — and the right has gone berserk. Conservative deputies called the penal reforms an “assault on democracy”. The far right called Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez a “traitor”. (They do so frequently.)

    When the reforms came to a vote in Congress, members of the conservative People’s Party (PP) sat on their hands. The center-right Citizens and far-right Vox (Voice) walked out in protest. So much for their commitment to democracy.

    Indeed, it was the PP’s disinterest in Catalan democracy that culminated in the imprisonment of half the Catalan government and the suspension of Catalan home rule. Sánchez is doing little more than clean up the mess they made. (more…)

  • Rent Control Keeps Failing. Countries Keep Trying

    Madrid Spain
    The sun rises over the Gran Vía of Madrid, Spain (Unsplash/Arw Zero)

    So politicians understand how prices work after all.

    Spain, Germany and the Netherlands are capping prices of electricity and heating for consumers. Energy providers are still paying high prices for oil and record prices for natural gas due to Russia’s war in Ukraine, so governments will make up the difference.

    The price energy providers charge is based on their costs plus a profit. If they can’t pass higher costs on to consumers, they would either have to cut their own costs, for example by laying off staff; scale up, which isn’t easy in Europe’s heavily regulated energy market; or fail.

    Somehow that logic is lost on many when it comes to housing. The same three countries have capped, or are capping, rents, but there is no compensation for landlords. Nor for developers, who can sell fewer rental apartments.

    Landlords make up the difference by underinvesting in maintenance. Developments simply don’t happen.

    Which are then used as arguments for even more regulation. (more…)

  • Dutch Child Care Would Pay Price for Government’s Failure

    Amsterdam Netherlands daycare center
    Daycare center in Amsterdam, the Netherlands (Klein & Co)

    Dutch child-care providers would pay the price for the government’s failed child-care policy.

    The last Dutch government resigned over a scandal in child-care benefits. Thousands of parents were wrongly accused of fraud.

    The current government, a coalition of the same four parties (including my own), would replace the benefits to parents with subsidies to child-care providers. Child care would be almost entirely subsidized with parents paying just 4 percent of the costs.

    Industry groups expect an increase in demand while the sector is already understaffed.

    Experts fear a loss in competition and innovation. All but the most expensive child-care providers would be forced to standardize their programs and their rates in order to qualify for subsidies. (more…)

  • Europe Is Falling Behind in Cultivated Meat

    Chicken hamburger
    Hamburger with cultivated chicken meat (Upside Foods)

    America is one step closer to legalizing cultivated meat.

    The Food and Drug Administration completed its first so-called pre-market consultation on chicken meat cultivated by Upside Foods of California.

    Selling cultivated meat in restaurants and stores will take approval from the Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service.

    So far, Singapore is the only country that allows the sale of cell-based meat.

    In addition to the United States, regulators in Israel, Switzerland and the United Kingdom are studying approval.

    Europe, where cultivated meat was invented, threatens to fall behind. (more…)

  • Don’t Blame Polls for Bad Predictions

    United States Capitol Washington
    United States Capitol in Washington DC (Shutterstock/Brandon Bourdages)

    The red wave wasn’t, and American journalists blame the polls.

    Before the midterm elections on Tuesday, many media predicted a “red wave” of Republican victories that would repudiate Democratic president Joe Biden.

    37 House and three Senate elections remain to be decided, but it’s clear the red wave didn’t materialize. Some two dozen out of 435 seats in the House of Representatives changed hands, switching the majority from Democratic to Republican. Control of the Senate is still in the balance. At best, Republicans would net two seats. Even that would make this the most lackluster Republican midterm-election victory since 1962.

    Reporters blame the polls for giving them the wrong impression, but they didn’t cite the polls in their stories. They predicted a “red wave” or even a “red tsunami” based on everything from “abortion peaking too soon as a motivating issue” (Axios) to Joe Biden’s absence from the campaign (National Review) to Donald Trump’s analysis (The Wall Street Journal) to Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman’s poor debate performance (The Hill) to a moral panic about non-existent fentanyl-flavored Halloween candy (Fox News) to “fundamentals” (CNN) and “momentum” (Washington Examiner) and “growing signs” (The New York Times) to increased Democratic campaign spending in blue districts (NBC).

    They should have trusted the polls. (more…)

  • Where Is the Party of Middle America?

    United States Capitol Washington
    Workers clean the steps of the United States Capitol in Washington DC in the early morning of January 8, 2021 (Victoria Pickering)

    59 percent of Americans believe Democrats will “open the US-Mexico border” if they win the election on Tuesday. 53 percent worry they will cut police funding.

    They won’t. Nor will they step up border enforcement or raise police budgets, and they should: illegal border crossings and violent crime are rising. But only far-left extremists believe in open borders and defunding the police. Few have been nominated by Democrats. Even fewer will win elections.

    The other half of the country sees Republicans as the extremists: 56 percent believe a Republican Congress would ban abortion and overturn democratic elections.

    There is more justification for those beliefs. Many Republican candidates support a federal ban on abortion. Many were complicit or silent when Donald Trump tried to steal the 2020 election. But the party is divided on both questions.

    More than anything, the results of the CBS poll reveal that Democrats and Republicans believe the worst about each other.

    What about the 40 percent of Americans who identify with neither party? (more…)

  • Biden Would Repeat Dutch Mistakes in Regulating Freelancers

    Joe Biden
    Then-former American vice president Joe Biden gives a speech in Des Moines, Iowa, January 4, 2020 (Phil Roeder)

    President Joe Biden would make the same mistake as the Netherlands in regulating independent work.

    In 2015, the European country required employers to put freelancers on an open-ended contract after two years of work.

    In an attempt to bring more workers into regular employment, a coalition government of the center-left Labor Party and center-right liberals also made it costlier and more time-consuming for companies to fire employees, and it increased severance pay.

    The reforms didn’t cause a shift from freelancing to salaried employment. They did destroy some 77,000 — mostly part-time — jobs in child care, hospitality, nursing and other industries, according to an analysis by ABN Amro bank.

    After Labor lost the election in 2017, the liberals formed a government with center parties and repealed the reforms. They made it cheaper for companies to hire, and easier to fire, employees. Freelancers were allowed three contracts per employer every three years.

    Employment rose. There are more Dutch people in work than ever before. Almost every industry, from construction to schools to the national railway, struggles to fill vacancies. (more…)

  • Alt-Right Picks Wrong Side in Dutch Farm Crisis

    Agrifirm Veghel Netherlands
    Agrifirm animal feed factory in Veghel, the Netherlands (Brabants Dagblad/Domien van der Meijden)

    The international alt-right has picked the wrong side in the Dutch farm crisis.

    Former American president Donald Trump, French National Rally leader Marine Le Pen, Danish climate-change sceptic Bjørn Lomborg and media like Breitbart, The Federalist, Fox News and The Spectator may think they’re backing the little guy against out-of-touch political elites, but they’re doing the bidding of Big Ag.

    In Areo Magazine, I point out that the farmers protesting in the Netherlands are funded by three of the largest animal feed companies in the world as well as dairy and meat processors. They stand to lose the most from a reduction in livestock farming. (more…)

  • Meloni’s Plan for Asylum Seekers Makes Sense

    Giorgia Meloni
    Brothers of Italy party leader Giorgia Meloni makes a speech in Cagliari, September 2 (Fratelli d’Italia)

    Giorgia Meloni’s call for a “naval blockade” of illegal immigration across the Mediterranean Sea has got plenty of attention, but the likely future prime minister of Italy has another, more humane idea: create European asylum application centers in North Africa, so migrants — many don’t qualify for asylum — don’t attempt a futile and perilous sea journey.

    Italy receives an unusually high (for Europe) share of asylum seekers from safe African countries: Ivory Coast, Mali, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, Tunisia. Unless they fear persecution in their home country for their political beliefs, religion or sexuality, those asylum seekers are usually sent back.

    That doesn’t mean they leave. Immigration authorities don’t have the manpower to escort every rejected asylum seeker back home. Some countries refuse to take their people back. A share — we don’t know how many — remain in Italy illegally. Others try for asylum in another European country.

    Since illegal aliens cannot legally work, many end up either exploited or as criminals, and often homeless. (more…)

  • Macron Is Right to Push Pension Reform

    Emmanuel Macron Ursula von der Leyen
    French president Emmanuel Macron speaks with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in the Elysée Palace in Paris, June 3 (European Commission/Christophe Licoppe)

    Emmanuel Macron is moving forward with pension reform, and he’s right to.

    Macron’s promise to reform pensions was one of the reasons the Atlantic Sentinel endorsed him for a second term. He has asked his government for a bill by Christmas, so the changes could go into effect next year. (more…)

  • Don’t Turn Cultured Meat into a Culture War

    Hamburgers
    Impossible burgers made from plants (Impossible Foods)

    Reducing dairy and meat consumption is the easiest thing Westerners can do to slow down climate change and improve the lives of animals.

    Livestock farming causes 15 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. We could quit fossil fuels tomorrow, and animal agriculture would still push us past 1.5˚C of global warming.

    Environmentalists feel guilty about flying, but eating meat and yoghurt every day causes more pollution. And no animals are harmed in building airplanes.

    We should eat more seafood and vegetables anyway. Europeans eat twice as much meat as the rest of the world. Spaniards top the list with 100 kilograms per year, which is about the same as Americans. Nutritionists recommend between a quarter and a third of that.

    Meat is a source of iron, protein and nutrients, like vitamin B12 and zinc. But most can be found in fish and vegetables as well. Eating too much — especially red — meat can cause bowel cancer and raise cholesterol levels, which increases the risk of heart disease and stroke. Even carnivores who care little about animals or the environment should give that vegaburger a try for the sake of their own heart.

    (The Good Food Institute has more facts and figures.) (more…)

  • Manchin’s Permitting Reforms Don’t Go Far Enough

    Wasco Oregon wind turbines
    Wind turbines outside Wasco, Oregon, July 1, 2019 (Unsplash/Dan Meyers)

    West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin, the most conservative in the Senate, has proposed to make it easier to build energy plants and infrastructure.

    Manchin was promised permitting reforms for supporting the Inflation Reduction Act; really a health-care and green-energy spending plan.

    But other Democrats are skeptical, arguing Manchin’s Energy Independence and Security Act would benefit fossil fuels and nuclear power in addition to renewables. Republicans don’t think the reforms go far enough.

    Which would normally suggest to me Manchin had found the right balance, but in this case the right has the better of the argument. (If you agree America must massively expand clean energy, which unfortunately few Republicans do.) (more…)