Verizon Proves That Markets Still Work

Yeah, you'd better hear me now!

Verizon Wireless recently agitated hordes of customers by announcing plans to impose a $2.00 fee for single online or telephone payments.

Well, the thousands of customer complaints Verizon likely received has compelled the company to disconnect this fee plan.

This is an example of free-market capitalism at its finest. A company made a decision its customers didn't like; its customers expressed their outrage; and the company backed off. After all, Verizon bases its business on a series of voluntary transactions with its customers, and since those customers can switch providers with relative ease, Verizon needed to listen to them.

No government strong man was necessary to coerce Verizon's actions; it acted in its own interest, which happens to be satisfying its customers.

The article reporting on this story also reminds us that Bank of America customers pressured it into dropping plans to impose a $5.00 monthly debit card fee.

Long live the markets.

Ryan T. Darby practices law in San Diego. He happens to be an AT&T customer, but he's happy for all his Verizon friends, including his mom.

Ayres & Edlin Tax Plan Would Drown Everyone on Board

Tax law professors Ian Ayres and Aaron Edlin recently wrote a New York Times op-ed outlining the most disturbing proposal that I've read in a long time: they advocate a 100 percent tax rate on all income that exceeds 36 times the median household income.

In 2006, the median American household income was $50,233. This proposal would therefore cap income for that year at $1,808,388–certainly no small chunk of change. However, the Ayres-Edlin proposal is an absolutely terrible idea that would cost us economic growth, tax revenue, and economic liberty.

First, history teaches us that excessive taxation actually lowers tax revenue. A cursory glance at income tax statistics shows that federal tax revenue was higher in the 1980s than the 1970s. This is interesting because (1) the 1970s was a highly inflationary era, and (2) the Reagan tax cuts slashed the top marginal rate from 70 percent to as low as 28 percent.

Of course, this shouldn't be surprising. Punitive taxation disincentivizes economic productivity; indeed, common sense dictates that people will not work for nothing, as the Ayres-Edlin proposal requires after an individual (or business) earns more than their income limit. Additionally, punitive tax rates incentivize various forms of evasion (some legal, some not). Even if you're a statist, shouldn't you want the rich to earn a whole lot of money that the government can tax? Incentivizing productivity yields higher economic growth and larger tax returns, so everyone wins by allowing "the one percent" to do their damn jobs.

The other problem with the proposal is the arrogance that Ayres and Edlin–or anyone else–has either the clairvoyance or the moral imperative to dictate how much money is too much for one person to earn. Wealth accrues in a market economy through a multitude of individual, voluntary transactions. To chide someone for being too successful strikes me as jealousy wrapped in an egalitarian facade.

I can't conclude without pointing out the absurdity of their statement that "The sky is the limit for the rich as long as the 'rising tide lifts all boats.'" Ayres and Edlin, of course, are borrowing President Kennedy's justification for slashing the top marginal rates. President Kennedy knew that everyone would benefit by allowing the rich to keep–and invest–more of their income. Perhaps, then, a more appropriate metaphor for Ayres and Edlin is that a sinking ship drowns everyone on board.

Occupy Wall Street: Rebels without a Case

A New York judge upheld the constitutionality of Mayor Bloomberg's decision to prevent Occupy Wall Street protestors from sleeping in the Zuccotti Park.

And frankly, it wasn't even a close call.

The Supreme Court has made it quite clear that laws prohibiting sleeping in public spaces apply just as equally to protestors as they do to everyone else. In Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence, the Court held that the National Park Service could enforce such a law against homeless advocates who wished to sleep on the Washington Mall.

Specifically: "Damage to the parks, as well as their partial inaccessibility to other members of the public, can as easily result from camping by demonstrators as by nondemonstrators. In neither case must the government tolerate it." The Court resolved that this ruling is "a reaffirmation that reasonable time, place, or manner restrictions on expression are constitutionally acceptable."

The Court's rationale is very simple: protestors have to follow the same rules as everybody else. In this case, Occupy protestors have no more of a right to create a public health hazard than those who are legitimately homeless. Furthermore, Occupy Wall Street's argument is even weaker because Zuccotti Park is not public property; it is privately owned, and its owners wanted the protestors off their property.

The Occupy protests are a terrific distraction from the drudgeries of actually working for a living, but they don't have a legal leg to stand on.

Dear "Rich Kid for Redistribution": Just shut up & give it away.

This girl epitomizes the problem with so many wealthy statists (and those who pretend to be, as I'm guessing is the case here).

She purportedly deplores the fact that she has money, and she chooses to do...well, nothing about it. If she really wants her money to go to the less fortunate, then why doesn't she just give it away? There are plenty of worthy charities out there that are far more efficient than the government.

Alas, I suspect she prefers to use her money as a status symbol, just like the people she's protesting. "Look at me! I have money that I don't need, so I want to help the less fortunate! Look at what a wonderful person I am!"

Oh, just shut up and give it away, already.

...and she wants to control MORE of our tax dollars?

Oops.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) announced that her campaign war chest was "wiped out" by treasurer Kinde Durkee. Ms. Durkee faces federal charges for allegedly plundering hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of dollars from Democratic candidates throughout California.

Oddly enough, Sen. Feinstein does not know how much money Ms. Durkee stole from her. Why not? Because, according to Politico.com:

Feinstein said she and her campaign staff have been unable to access all their bank records at this point because Durkee alone controlled access to the account, which has made it difficult for them to assess how much money is gone.

Seriously? What kind of fool provides a third party with sole, unchecked access to a financial account?

Oh, wait—the same fools responsible for America's $14.7 trillion national debt.

And if Sen. Feinstein is this irresponsible with her own campaign's money, then what makes us think she is responsible with ours? 

Ryan T. Darby practices law in San Diego. He has yet to find himself locked out of any of his bank accounts.

Law School Blame Game Heads East

I previously blogged about an unemployed lawyer's regrettable lawsuit against Thomas Jefferson School of Law. The angry alumnus alleged that the law school misled her into believing her odds of post-graduate employment were stronger than they actually were, even though a simple glance at the school's bar passage rates should have easily dispelled her purported misconception.

Well, it looks like the Law School Blame Game is hitting the road, as alumni from New York Law School and Cooley Law School have filed similar complaints against their respective alma maters. Cooley, meanwhile, appears to be striking back by filing a defamation action against Kurzon Strauss, the law firm representing the unemployed alums.

The story is pretty simple at the end of the day: the plaintiffs applied to law school without performing their due diligence, graduated in the middle of a bad economy, want to blame someone, and decided their law schools are easy (and wealthy) enough targets. Bad times often popularize bad ideas, so I really hope for the sake of the legal profession that this one doesn't catch on.

Ryan T. Darby practices law in San Diego, California. He received an outstanding legal education and has no plans of suing his alma mater.

Casey Anthony: Deranged enough to create Reasonable Doubt?

I didn't monitor the Casey Anthony trial because, well, I have my own cases to worry about. However, the surprise acquittal has provoked numerous friends to solicit my lawyerly opinion on the matter, so I decided to weigh the evidence in an effort to autopsy the prosecution's failed case. Maybe conducting some independent research free from the TV talking heads could give me a fresh, untainted perspective.

But, before I provide my opinion, two caveats:

1. I am a civil attorney, not a criminal attorney; and

2. Not observing the trial largely precludes me from critiquing the attorneys' performances.

That being said, I think the evidence establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that Casey Anthony killed her daughter. Why? Because there is just no reasonable explanation why Ms. Anthony would place duct tape over her daughter's mouth, either pre- or post-mortem.

For the sake of discussion, let's remove the duct tape from the fact pattern. Do children accidentally drown? Yes. Is it plausible that a demonstrably deranged mother may attempt to cover up an accidental drowning out of fear? I suppose. But deranged must a person be in order to duct tape the child's mouth either before or after the drowning? Implausibly deranged, in my opinion. So implausibly, in fact, to dispel reasonable doubt.

The jurors, however, seem to have misunderstood the concept of reasonable doubt. Juror Jennifer Ford stated that the jurors were "sick to [their] stomachs" and "crying, and not just the women." Such a visceral reaction tells me they knew with a strong degree of certainty that Ms. Anthony was guilty, but they didn't think that certainty amounted to reasonable doubt.

Ms. Ford continued: "If you're going to charge someone with murder, don't you have to know how they killed someone or why they might have killed someone, or have something where, when, why, how?" Well, no, you don't. The jury instructions do not require jurors to answer those questions because it's possible to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt without them.

This misunderstanding most likely originated with the best of intentions. I can just imagine (and this is pure speculation, mind you) some juror stoically declaring to his or her colleagues that this case is too important to screw up, so they had to make damn sure that no reasonable doubt existed in their minds. Unfortunately, this problem psyched them out: they were so scared of screwing up that they confused "reasonable doubt" with "any reason to doubt." The latter standard is completely unmanageable, because it is almost always possible to find some reason to doubt a case. Applying it would make it virtually impossible to ever secure a conviction.

And so, back to the doubt that must have crept into the jurors minds: that Casey Anthony is such a bad person that she might not have killed her daughter. Now, there is a paradox that will haunt criminal law students and prospective prosecutors for generations to come.

Ryan T. Darby practices civil litigation in San Diego, CA.