Show 1919 John Stossel on Reason TV Part 1
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Show 1919 John Stossel on Reason TV
John Stossel and Andrew Heaton present several topics such as Government-Run Schools, Stop Subsidizing Sports!, Venezuela, Stop Patent Trolls, “Bottleneckers" use occupational licensing, NYC Government Traumatizes Gun Owners, $2 Million Bathroom and Save the Rhinos!
Reason is the leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won't get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines.
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From Reason TV-
Segment 1- Stossel: Government-Run Schools Crush Innovation
To watch the video of this segment visit-
Published on Aug 22, 2017
Watch part one of John Stossel's short-attention-span version of a recent PBS documentary on how to fix America's schools.
America's public schools fail our kids, and bureaucrats suffocate even the best teachers.
The late Andrew Coulson, a leading advocate of free-market education and a former senior fellow at the Cato Institute, partnered with the Free to Choose Network to create the recent PBS film School, Inc., which examines the problems with America's government-run schools and how to fix them.
But School, Inc. is three hours! So John Stossel made a two-part short-attention-span version. Part one of our abbreviated treatment explores why government-run schools are incapable of innovating, and retells the story of superstar teacher Jamie Escalante (made famous by the 1988 film Stand and Deliver), who was forced out by jealous colleagues.
In part two, Coulson travels the world in search of ideas to fix America's public schools.
Coulson passed away in 2016 following a 15-month battle with brain cancer. For more on his contribution to the field, read his classic 1999 book, Market Education: The Unknown History.
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PBS Nova Documentary - Future Education - School of the future
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Segment 2- From Reason TV
Stossel: Private School Success Around the World
Stossel offers a short-attention-span version of a PBS documentary that explores what the American education system can learn from private school innovation abroad. Published on Aug 23, 2017
Star athletes earn far more than bench warmers—why can't schools adopt the same approach to remunerating talent? In most U.S. public schools, compensation is determined by one factor: years served in the classroom.
In South Korea, the best instructors are treated like star athletes. Some earn millions.
The late Andrew Coulson, a former senior fellow at the Cato Institute, partnered with the Free to Choose Network to create the film School, Inc., which examines some of these free market successes abroad.
But School, Inc. is three hours! So John Stossel made a two-part short-attention-span version. In part two, Coulson looks at private school innovation abroad. And he travels to India, where poor citizens pay to send their kids to private schools to keep them out of the dreadful public system.
Coulson passed away in 2016 following a 15-month battle with brain cancer. For more on his contribution to the field, read his classic 1999 book, Market Education: The Unknown History.
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PBS Nova Documentary - Future Education - School of the future
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Segment 3-
Stop Subsidizing Sports!
ReasonTV
Let's talk about "sports"—that thing where we gather around to watch a muscular stranger put a regulation-size ball in a specific location.
Why are taxpayers forced to pony up cash for athletic ventures that don't benefit them? Franchise owners routinely extort massive stadium subsidies through threats of relocation and fake promises of economic revitalization. Universities jack up student rates to subsidize athletic programs that should be self-sustaining. And the Olympics is economically devastating to every municipality foolish enough to get suckered by one of the oldest scams around. Published on Aug 25, 2017
Mostly Weekly host Andrew Heaton explores the sports phenomenon and why we should quit throwing other people's money at it.
Links, past episodes, and more at :
https://reason.com/reasontv/2017/08/25/stop-subsidizing-sports
Segment 4-
John Stossel vs. Noam Chomsky on Venezuela
Stossel has an exchange with famed M.I.T. linguist Noam Chomsky, who once praised former President Hugo Chávez socialist policies.
Venezuela used to be the richest country in Latin America. Today, its economy and civil society are disintegrating. The country is experiencing widespread hunger and out-of-control violence—a result of former President Hugo Chávez' move, starting in 2002, to nationalize industries, establish price controls, and block foreign capital from entering the country.
Back when Chávez was still in power (and still alive), U.S. celebrities, including Danny Glover, Naomi Campbell, Michael Moore, Oliver Stone, and Sean Penn, praised the former president and his brand of "Bolivarian" socialism. As did left-wing intellectuals, including the famed M.I.T. linguist Noam Chomsky.
What do they have to say now?
In an exchange with John Stossel, Chomsky said that he never described Chavez's "state-capitalist government "as 'socialist,'" and that capitalists "undermine the economy" in all sorts of ways.
Which brings to mind the phrase "useful idiots" (attributed to Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin), which means a person who champions a cause they don't fully understand.
Produced by Naomi Brockwell. Edited by Joshua Swain.
Segment 5-
What Caused Venezuela’s Tragic Collapse? Socialism.
The collapse of Venezuela's economy is both horrifying and predictable, and the world needs to understand why.
Venezuela has the world's largest proven oil reserves, and it was once Latin America's richest country. Today, most grocery store shelves are empty, and Venezuelans are so hungry that they're killing zoo animals for sustenance. Toilet paper, diapers, and toothpaste are luxury goods. Venezuelan hospitals have disintegrated, children are dying because they can't get antibiotics, and the infant mortality rate is higher than Syria. The capital city of Caracas is the murder capital of the world, and just 12 percent of citizens feel safe walking alone at night, which is the lowest figure reported in the world.
The government blames slumping oil prices for the desperate situation. The real cause is the socialist economy. The government sets the price of staples such as rice, pasta, and flour, resulting in chronic shortages. Former President Hugo Chavez nationalized industries, confiscated property, and kicked out foreign companies. The government is trying to print its way out of the crisis, resulting in a 700 percent annual inflation rate. After a sham election, President Nicolas Maduro, the handpicked successor of Hugo Chavez, is rounding up his opponents and putting them in jail.
Despite this, Maduro and his predecessor still have their defenders, ranging from Sean Penn to Michael Moore to Naomi Klein, who once signed a petition saying "We would vote for Hugo Chavez" and praised the autocrat in 2007 for creating "a zone of relative economic calm and predictability." In 2013, journalist David Sirota praised Hugo Chavez' "economic miracle," writing that the socialist leader had a "record that a legacy-obsessed American president could only dream of achieving.
The real lesson of Venezuela's tragic collapse is that real socialism always leads to economic breakdown and political repression. Those of us in wealthier, freer countries need to keep Venezuela in mind as we confront calls for more regulation and government control of all aspects of our own lives. Published on Aug 10, 2017
Produced by Todd Krainin. Written by Nick Gillespie. Camera by Jim Epstein.
Segment 6-
How to Stop Patent Trolls
Patent trolls are on the run. Let's finish them off.
It's been a bad year for patent trolls, from a Supreme Court decision squelching their ability to funnel lawsuits to East Texas, to this week's ruling that Personal Audio LLC can't claim it owns a patent on the entirety of podcasting. In the latest Mostly Weekly, Reason's Andrew Heaton explores what patent trolls are, the damage they do, and the next step in driving them out of courtrooms and back into dank caves.
Trolls camp out on piles of weak and frivolous patents, hoping to one day sue inventors and businesses. Many of the patents they register or buy are vague, representing novel ideas only insofar as trolls are innovative at finding things they didn't invent to claim legal ownership of. It doesn't matter that these patents wouldn't hold up in court, because a business is more likely to pay off a troll than to hire an expensive attorney to fight them. Trolls suck more than twenty billion dollars out of the economy each year.
The parasitical nature of "non-practicing entities" (the PC term for trolls) has raised questions about whether the modern patent system helps or hinders innovation, and if the best solution is for comprehensive reform or just to burn the whole thing down.
Heaton has an idea to hinder patent trolls. It may not be a silver bullet, but it will definitely piss them off. Published on Aug 11, 2017
Mostly Weekly is hosted by Andrew Heaton with headwriter Sarah Rose Siskind.
Script by Andrew Heaton with writing assistant from Sarah Siskind
Edited by Austin Bragg and Sarah Rose Siskind.
Produced by Meredith and Austin Bragg.
Theme Song: Frozen by Surfer Blood.
Segment 7-
Stossel: Stop! You Need a License To Do that Job!
"Bottleneckers" use occupational licensing to screw competitors and innovation in the name of keeping us safe.
Whether you're a doctor, an electrician, a teacher, a cab driver, a hair stylist—even a tour guide!—the government increasingly demands that you get a license before you are allowed to work in your chosen profession. In the 1950s, only about one in 20 workers needed the government's blessing to do their jobs. Today, that figure is more than one in three.
Because of safety issues and concerns about accountability, many people think occupational licensing is a good idea. Yet licensing doesn't prevent fraud and incompetence (in some cases, it even provides protection from such claims). And all over America, people want to work but can't because it's often nearly impossible or too expensive to get the proper government permission.
In their book Bottleneckers: Gaming the Government for Power and Private Profit, the Institute for Justice's William "Chip" Mellor and Dick Carpenter document how established companies use government regulation, especially occupational licensing, to block newcomers and innovation. A "bottlenecker," they write, is "anyone who uses government power to limit competition and thereby reap monopoly profits and other benefits."
In the first of a video series, John Stossel introduces the concept of bottleneckers and shows how they hurt the economy in the name of keeping us safe.
Produced by Naomi Brockwell. Edited by Joshua Swain.
Segment 8-
Stossel: Eye Test Innovators vs. Bottleneckers
John Stossel got an eyeglass prescription over the internet. Should that be illegal?
Need glasses? Going to an optometrist can be a pain and waste the better part of a day. So a company, Opternative, invented an at-home test. It's cheaper and more convenient than traditional eye exams. You just need a cell phone and a computer.
But the American Optometric Association wants it banned. They say "it poses significant health risks to consumers" because "it relies on new, self-administered tests" rather than "assessment by an eye care professional."
Everyone who wants glasses should go to an eye doctor, says the association.
Is this new eye test dangerous? Or is it a cheap and efficient eye care alternative?
John Stossel takes the Opternative at-home test in Part 2 of our "Bottleneckers" series.
Produced by Naomi Brockwell. Edited by Joshua Swain.
Segment 9-
Stossel: NYC Government Traumatizes Gun Owners
If you have a gun, don't fly out of New York with it! Almost every week, New York City arrests someone who brings a gun to the airport–even when the person has a gun license from their state, notifies authorities about the gun and follows TSA procedures for flying with it. John Stossel interviews people who were arrested and confronts the assistant district attorney who prosecutes them.
In its battle against guns, New York City traumatizes law-abiding gun owners who pass through New York and its airports with guns. One man was even arrested for traveling with an empty magazine.
Bills have been filed in both chambers of Congress to make gun permits valid in all states, which would prevent cases like these.
Stossel interviews Patricia Jordan and Avi Wolf, who were arrested at the airport. Patricia had tried to declare her gun, which was unloaded and in a TSA-approved case. Avi was trying to declare an empty gun magazine–essentially a piece of metal with a spring in it.
For their effort they spent a day in jail. They were threatened with three years and six months in jail–the mandatory minimum for having a gun in New York. They spent months worrying about how to beat the charge. Each spent more than $15,000 in legal bills.
Eventually the government let them off with a violation–"public disorder."
Stossel says: Give me a break. He confronts the Queens District Attorney's office that prosecutes such cases.
Produced by Maxim Lott. Edited by Joshua Swain.
Segment 10-
Stossel: $2 Million Bathroom
John Stossel investigates a New York City park bathroom that cost $2 million to build.
For that price you might expect gold-plated fixtures—but it's just a tiny building with four toilets and four sinks.
New York City Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver says $2 million was a good deal because "New York City is the most expensive place to build."
He estimates that future bathrooms will cost more than $3 million.
Commissioner Silver argues that this park, on the outskirts of Brooklyn, will get so much use that it must be built to last, and that can be expensive.
Yet privately managed Bryant Park, in the middle of Manhattan, gets much more use and its recent bathroom renovation cost just $271,000.
Since government spends other people's money, it doesn't need to worry about cost or speed. Every decision is bogged down by time-wasting "public engagement," inflated union wages, and productivity-killing work rules.
Two million dollars for a bathroom. That's your government at work. Published on Aug 4, 2017
Edited and produced by Joshua Swain.
Segment 11-
Stossel: Save the Rhinos!
An entrepreneur has a plan to save the rhinos from poachers, but environmental groups hate his idea.
Poachers massacre rhinos for their horns. Some are carved into ornaments. Some are ground up and sold as medicine. Just one can sell for as much as $300,000.
Entrepreneur Matt Markus co-founded the company Pembient to save rhinos. His plan is to 3D-print fake rhino horns that are indistinguishable from the real thing. He will then flood the market with the cheap fakes, and drive the price so low that poachers have no reason to kill rhinos.
Markus says: "When things are abundant, people don't kill, fight, or steal."
Free markets are often the best way of protecting the environment. South Africa once tried something similar by legalizing rhino farming and the sale of horns within the country. The rhino population quadrupled in just two decades.
But in 2008, South Africa banned sales of rhino horn again. Poaching shot up.
Now outlets like BBC say "the rhino could be extinct within 10 years."
Sounds like an emergency. One would think that the people who want to preserve wildlife would love Markus's idea to save rhinos.
But they hate his idea. Watch the video to see John Stossel confront a representative of the Humane Society about its opposition to Markus's plan.
Produced by Maxim Lott. Edited by Josh Swain.
Horn Maker documentary footage from Juliette Marquis / Horn Maker, LLC. More info at hornmaker.org
Segment 12-
Stossel: Departments Grow and Cherries Rot
Published on Jul 25, 2017
John Stossel investigates what government agencies actually do and finds out that your tax money goes to ridiculous things.
The Agriculture Department actually forces farmers to dump cherries on the ground so you pay higher prices at the supermarket.
President Trump wanted to cut the budgets for many government departments – like the Commerce Department and the Agriculture Department. But Congress increased spending on the very departments Trump wanted to cut.
Departments that almost nobody knows what they even do.
John Stossel investigates and finds a ton of waste. The departments blow your money on welfare for the rich, global warming hype, and destructive regulations.
Ed Stringham, President of the American Institute for Economic Research, tells Stossel about how the Agriculture Department even forced one farmer to dump cherries on the ground and let them rot. The government wanted to keep the price of cherries higher, which helps some cherry farmers.
Stossel agrees with founding father Robert Morris, who once said, “for heaven’s sake, what is meant by a [government] chamber of commerce?”
Produced by Maxim Lott. Edited by Josh Swain.
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Reason is the leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won't get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines.
Reason is the planet's leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won't get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines.