More punishing the responsible...

This is really getting worn out. Once again, our amazingly-creative lawmakers are helping us out with innovative new solutions in supporting the irresponsible by the responsible. That's right, we've got more parasitic controls from above.

Let's look at this example of meddling within the credit card industry (from Yahoo).

Now Congress is moving to limit the penalties on riskier borrowers, who have become a prime source of billions of dollars in fee revenue for the industry. And to make up for lost income, the card companies are going after those people with sterling credit.

Why? Well, somebody's got to pay to float things, right? We see it with taxation and in many other areas lately (see bailouts, too). Who pays? Those who ought to pay, or those who can pay? These are often two different groups of people. Throw away the ethics of this decision and simply use the forceful arm of the government to shake down those who can pay. We don't care about right and wrong (in fact, we've discarded any rational standard for such discussion).

So, back to the credit card folks. On the one hand, we have credit card companies whining about deadbeats--those who pay their bills before fees and interest can accrue:

Robert Hammer, an industry consultant, said the legislation might have the broad effect of encouraging card issuers to become ever more reliant on fees from marginal customers as well as creditworthy cardholders -- "deadbeats" in industry parlance, because they generate scant fee revenue.

"They aren't charities. They have shareholders to report to," he said, referring to banks and credit card companies. "Whatever is left in the model to work from, they will start to maneuver."

Nice. But this doesn't really tell the whole story. Did you know merchants get charged fees for the privilege of accepting credit cards? Isn't that income for credit card companies? It seems to me charging annual fees to card holders ins't the only possible way to get payment from "deadbeat" card users--you can also raise the rates paid by merchants. (Wonder why this isn't mentioned.)

Supposing credit card companies decide to do this, they'll simply find the frugal "responsible" people will opt out. Such people would rather not pay to play. What, then, will these credit card companies do with no responsible bill-payers and a high rate of defaults? Why always point the gun at the responsible, ignoring the ethical concerns? This cannot go on forever, yet it's permeating our society with increasing frequency.

Here's a great example, from the Wall Street Journal. Despite increasingly intrusive meddling by the federal government, some degree of experimentation on state level is still happening. We see that states with higher tax rates simply fail to stick it to the rich with such rates. Why? They leave.

Here's the problem for states that want to pry more money out of the wallets of rich people. It never works because people, investment capital and businesses are mobile: They can leave tax-unfriendly states and move to tax-friendly states.

Seems obvious enough, right? Why pay more for broken services you don't need anyway?

I'm concerned about the increasing use of force against ethics. Most benevolent Uncle Sam has a need somewhere, and instead of filling that need with an ethical, trade among the willing, it's an unethical, forceful extraction from the able. Sooner or later, the able will simply opt out. Atlas will shrug, pick up his trade, and relocate the product of his mind to greener pastures. He cannot be forced to give up the produce of his mind to looters.