Law Schools, Social Security, and Big Brother

Law Schools

Even legal professionals are talking about the poor cost/benefit ration of American law schools.

Senior Counsel Hans Bader comments.

“There is no reason to require people to attend law school before sitting for the bar exam. As law professor Paul Campos notes, legal education is a rip-off, since the typical law professor “knows nothing about being a lawyer. Hence, he must bullshit — he does not lie to his students about how to be a lawyer (doing so would require him to know how to be a lawyer, while attempting to deceive his students regarding the substance of that knowledge); rather, he ‘talks without knowing what he is talking about,’” when it comes to discussing the legal system or how to be a lawyer.”

 

Social Security

GOP candidates seem unwilling to thoughtfully criticize Social Security, even though the program violates their stated principles.

Warren Brookes Fellow Matt Patterson comments.

Social Security is every bit as offensive to liberty and fiscal sanity as Obamacare: In fact, you could not have had the latter without the former. Social Security has been conditioning Americans since F.D.R that it is the proper role for government to 1) extract resources from some citizens, and to 2) provide income subsidy for others. To care for some at the expense of many.”

 

Big Brother

A recent Washington Post column by Michelle Singletary calls for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to act as a “big brother.”

Director of the Center for Investors and Entrepreneurs John Berlau comments.

“Should this ‘big brother’ bureau choose to engage in paternalistic and bullying behavior, Dodd-Frank is written so that no one can discipline it. Congress lacks oversight through the appropriations process, since the bureau automatically can get more than $500 million each year from the Federal Reserve. And as C. Boyden Gray, White House counsel under George H.W. Bush, notes, even the courts can’t ‘fully review the CFPB’s actions,’ because ‘Dodd-Frank requires the courts to defer to CFPB’s legal interpretations.'”