POLITICS DIVIDES.

Before the votes were counted, Trumpian populists were circulating memes about establishment media engaging in a demoralization operation.

Our President well might have been engaging in an information operation of his own, encouraging his camp followers to vote as if he were on the ballot.  This morning, it's clear his detractors were also so voting.  A wipe-out of proportions that, had the parties been reversed, would fall into Peter Jennings temper tantrum territory, followed.  That sort of commentary, suggests Steven Taylor with Outside the Beltway, commits a category error.  "I am not absolving individual voters for their moral choices. But if the goal is to find where the core problems are, blaming 'the voters' or 'Americans' requires a fair assessment of whether or not the system is measuring what 'the voters' want."  As he develops his thesis, he notes,

Look, if a majority of a country really wants fascism, no rules are going to stop a fascist takeover (or insert your extreme ideology of choice). Our problem is not that a majority of the population actually wants MAGA. Our problem is that it is possible for MAGA to control one of two parties.

And yes, in a perfect world MAGA should be enough to get people to flee the GOP en masse.

There's something charming about academic political scientists' conceit? belief? that governing? governance? can simultaneously be benevolent, effective, and accountable, isn't there?

THE COASTAL BUBBLE IS A FOOD DESERT.

The establishment media's lack of awareness of Life in These United States is a fact of long standing.  "In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, NBC talker Chuck Todd quipped about having to establish a bureau in Kenosha County, not far from here.  I don't know that such a bureau is opening soon.  I do know that the incela corridor media are wising up to the fact that the troubles inland were visible from the train window, if they'd but take a train ride and interact with the passengers."

That lack of awareness presents in things large and small.  "Milwaukee's racing sausages are breakout stars of the World Series."  The unaware writer is one Dan Simmons with Washington's Post,  who is drooling at the gastronomical references.

With the Brewers in their first World Series since 1982, the people in shorts and absurdly large, top-heavy costumes have been hailed for making history as the first sausage racers to be featured in the World Series.

The sausages even took the field during the Brewers’ World Series away games. Fans packed into Milwaukee watch parties at American Family Field on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday still got to cheer on their favorite sausage while the Brewers faced the Rays 1,200 miles away in Florida.

Because the Crew took care of business in Florida on the Wednesday, the sausages were available to race in the end zone at Lambeau Field on the Thursday, when the Brewers showed their hardware to Packer Nation.  Yes, a few of the Brewers essayed a Lambeau Leap.  I'd advise against trying it in a racing sausage costume!

WHEN LIFE HANDS YOU LEMONS, MAKE TZATZIKI.

In February, the Tom & Jerry's gyros-beef-and-many-other-treats Chicago in Sycamore suffered a major fire.  The building was beyond salvage and the owners moved to temporary quarters on the other side of Sycamore.

Once site clearance at the original location was completed, the owners sought building permits to build another restaurant there.  Sycamore's city council used the occasion to change the zoning of that lot, as well as of other restaurant lots nearby, including a McDonald's that was doing a planned on-site replacement of its stand.  You know, the kind of rig-a-ma-role that has held up rebuilding in the Pacific Palisades for over a year and kept California's high speed rail authority from operating trains on even forty chains of track.

Never mind any of that.  The new Tom & Jerry's opened for business on Monday.  "Tom & Jerry’s Restaurant reopened with a new building nine months after the fire and five months after construction broke ground on May 1."

Let's say the restaurant, and its crew, have a loyal following.

So many people attended the ribbon-cutting that the restaurant’s parking lot was at capacity before the grills were fired. That caused groups of people to park on the west side of DeKalb Avenue and walk across five lanes of traffic without a crosswalk to be among the first to order at the new, but old, location.

That's taking long chances for a gyros or a beef as the eatery is on the inside of a curve in Sycamore Stroad, or DeKalb Avenue that far north, and motorists honor the 40 mph speed restriction more in the breach.  The new restaurant is laid out much like its predecessor at that location.  I must check it out, see if the Christmas trees that get season-suitable colored lights, e.g. red and white for Valentine's Day and purple for Easter, are back.

THE CASE FOR LIMITING GOVERNMENT.

Last week, John Puri entertained National Review readers with "A List of Things Democrats Might Do If They Retake Power."  I think it was seasoned with postmodern irony, and his concluding "Truly frightening stuff. Obviously, any party that would do such things should never be given complete political power" should have been the tell.  Scroll through the list, dear reader, and put yourself in the position of a nodding donkey braying "Trump did that, Trump did that."

MORE ACCOLADES FOR JOHN KASS.

The longtime Chicago opinion columnist, first with Chicago's Tribune and then as a free agent, called it a career in October.

ELECTION DAY.

The Cold Spring Shops flag hoist, by the dawn's early light.

The rains came a few hours later, and they persist.  My impression of turnout at the local polling place, which serves two precincts, is of decent to high turnout, consistent with what little I'm hearing from the news broadcasts I'm bothering to pay attention to.

IF YOU CAN TRADE IT, YOU CAN ALLOCATE IT EFFICIENTLY.

The University of Chicago has this reputation as the place fun goes to die.  That might be harsh.

On Monday, a group of students from the University of Chicago stood outside the Chicago Mercantile Exchange—one of the world's largest and most diverse derivatives marketplaces—and called for the repeal of an obscure 1958 law that bans onions as futures products traded on U.S. exchanges.

Attracting an audience with a humorous jingle and amusing signs that included "Onions Deserve a Future," "Honk If You Want Free Onions," "Hot Girls Hedge Onions," and "Free Markets Feed Families," the student group, named For Our Futures, has a simple platform: a repeal of the 1958 Onion Futures Act, which prohibits anyone from trading in onion futures on commodity exchanges. (The law was amended in 2010 to ban motion picture box office receipts from being traded on commodity exchanges.) The viral campaign drew enough attention that Mike Selig—chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and a proponent of expanding the list of commodities traded on futures markets—was asked about the law in a media appearance.

American farmers produce about 6.75 billion pounds of onions a year, according to the National Onion Association, an industry trade group. While peers who grow cotton, wheat, corn, and soybeans can hedge against price swings by trading futures contracts, onion farmers have no such recourse under federal law. But, as the Agriculture Department's daily National Potato and Onion Report shows, onion prices are highly volatile and subject to wild swings, making them an ideal market for futures trading.

Futures markets are not well understood by people who haven't studied economics, and the prohibition of onion futures contracts has not protected cooks and diners from the sort of price volatility the economically ignorant often associate with futures contracts.

Maybe there's a business opportunity for Sophie Cunningham?

Prices fluctuate to allocate demand.  That's something Our Intellectual Betters often lose sight of.

A protest over onions sounds absurd, but it's a viral reminder to others in that age cohort of how far governments can go when given the slightest leeway to regulate an industry.

Instead of relying on outdated price points when planning future harvests, American onion producers could use resources like futures contracts that offer real-time market signals. All that would require—as the college kids state—is for federal lawmakers to "let the free market reign supreme."

Indeed.  Arbitrage opportunities exist, whether organized futures markets exist or not.

CLEARING THE CUCKOOS OUT OF THE ACADEMIC NEST.

The so-called area studies departments, or critical studies centers, if you will, have long treated interesting working hypotheses as Articles of Faith.  "The fundamental problem confronting the 'studies' departments is that a lot of what passes as critical theory rests either on untestable priors, or is normative per se.  Don't say I didn't warn you."

It has long been my position that much of the work done in ethnic studies or critical theory can be handled, perhaps more properly, in existing academic departments, whether sociology or anthropology or English, and perhaps the presence of more conventional scholars might get the True Believers to offer better arguments.

NOTICE OF DISCONTINUANCE.

Chicago opinion columnist John Kass calls it a career.

It’s time for me to wind down the website. Past time. I held on too long because it had cost me too much in pain and psychic blood at the hands of the jacobin newsroom union that destroyed the once-great Chicago newspaper that I loved. And I loved it for those decades and decades.

But I’ve run my race. Now it is time for me to go. Past time. I didn’t want to consider it once. I was afraid. I wouldn’t even dare brush up against it.

Especially when clinging  rather desperately to some old man dreams of myself as Laertes in his garden, an old man still hoping  to prove his worth as the warrior he once had been, still insisting he had spears left to throw.

But I’m old now. There are no spears.  Five strokes in three years convinced me. After that wonderful Indian Summer that we just had, the sky grew cold and  I finally came face to face with it: Betty explained the math. Five strokes in three years, she said, And you can still speak, you can still read and use a search engine, you can read Victor Davis Hanson and Plato, you can still discuss the great ideas.

But another stroke? I didn’t need any further convincing. I couldn’t contemplate the alternatives.

He took what they dished out, and he did it his way.

Over the years, Mr Kass took on the Combine, the chumbolones of Chicago's Democrat machine, correctly noted the folly of using tax money for public radio, and in many ways continued the combination of sass and wit of Mike Royko.  Readers are suggesting he bestow one more Golden Moutza to close out the year.

THE BETTER ORGANIZATION WILL PREVAIL IRRESPECTIVE OF OTHER INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENTS.

That's the title of a post from a summer ago, when the Milwaukee Brewers swept the Dodgers during regular season play, and Reason's Jason Russell, contemplating some sort of job action in organized baseball, engages the argument in "MLB's Salary Cap Fight Isn't About Competitive Balance, It's About Limiting Labor Costs."

In 2025, baseball fans wanting to avoid a lockout, a salary cap, or both, were rooting for the small market, small payroll Milwaukee Brewers to beat the goliath Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Championship Series (NLCS). The Brewers got swept. Now it's 2026, and guess what? Baseball fans wanting to avoid a lockout, a salary cap, or both, are rooting for the small market, small payroll Brewers to beat the goliath Dodgers in the NLCS. (At least the Brewers aren't getting swept this time!)

But what if none of that matters at all to the salary cap fight?

A small market World Series victory for the Brewers (19th in MLB payroll), the Tampa Bay Rays (28th), or, yuck, the Cleveland Guardians (30th) helps boost the theoretical argument that MLB doesn't need a salary cap for small market teams to succeed. But labor negotiations are not decided by debate club rules—you don't win with a better policy argument. It's all about the power dynamics and leverage of what is essentially a business negotiation between employees and employers. The policy argument might matter to public opinion, but it makes hardly any difference to leverage.

Competitive balance may not matter to the owners at all (in fact, some studies have found that salary caps don't create more balance, but revenue sharing does). The owners are almost certainly focused on keeping down their labor costs. A salary cap would likely give an immediate boost to team values—when Formula 1 teams recently agreed to a broad cap on their expenses, valuations shot up.

Tampa Bay will play the first two games of the World Series in Milwaukee, after Milwaukee returned the favor to the Dodgers.  The scholarly findings don't surprise me: a salary cap constrains the bidding for a productive resource, the players, and ceteris paribus the residual claimant, the owner, stands to do better; on the other hand, revenue sharing changes the bidding thinking of an owner, who now bids against other owners whose budget constraints might have been loosened.

YE WHO NOW WILL BLESS THE POOR, SHALL YOURSELF FIND BLESSING.

The Holiday Trains that used to run under Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern auspices continue this Festive Season, with the Canadian and United States trains covering Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern metals.  Scroll down for a list of performers.

The United States train will make half-hour long performances at Pingree Grove, 9 am and Byron, noon of the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, 24 November, on their way to Zwolle, Louisiana, covering territory Kansas City Southern's train used to serve.  The stock then returns to Chicago to wind up a little bit south of Saskatoon, with a 5.15 pm call at Gurnee and a 7 pm performance at Sturtevant on Tuesday, 8 December.

These trains run to provide entertainment and an opportunity to make cash or in-kind contributions, to the local food banks along the Holiday Train's routes, and to the Salvation Army where the Holiday Express calls.

Mark your calendars and make a note in your shopping list.

THIS DOES NOT HAVE TO BE DIFFICULT.

A Ryan Quinn essay in the house organ for all wokeness, all the time, in higher education asks "Can Colleges Achieve Viewpoint Diversity Without ‘Affirmative Action for Conservatives’?"  

As is often the case with these things, it's people who should know better using political party registrations as a proxy for faculty intellectual predilections, a form of potted demography only possible in states that require primary voters to declare a party preference (that's not necessarily an affiliation, as crossover voting is a thing) in advance of a primary election.

HIGHER EDUCATION IS BEYOND PARODY.

It's hard to top "What’s Wrong With Civility?" in the house organ for all wokeness, all the time, in higher education.  It's about what you'd expect of the colleges of deaducation these days.  "Civility can be a tool of engagement. But history has shown it can also be used to oppress the powerless."

Never mind that "civility" and "civilization" refer to being able to live among others, which is to say, being able to rub along tolerably well with others, and up until, well, if not last week, at least in the days before the corona shutdowns when Donald Trump first came on the campaign trail and the remnant Militant Normals on campus were making fun of Student Affairs silliness, calls for civility on campus might well have served to make those Militant Normals live by bourgeois norms.  "Those traits confer evolutionary advantage among their adopters, and their absence among non-adopters serves as stranger danger."

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ARE FOR MOCKING.

Last month, we noted and noted Margaret "University Diaries" Soltan noting the University of Washington backing down from their attempt to deplorable-shame a professor who injected a political economy lesson into his alternative land acknowledgement.  “I acknowledge that by the labor theory of property the Coast Salish people can claim historical ownership of almost none of the land currently occupied by the University of Washington.”  Undermining the Excessively Earnest People with mockery is the only way to go.  "I wonder if any academic institutions in Bethlehem have a land acknowledgement that refers to the house and lineage of David."

DOING EVERYTHING BUT SOLVING THE PROBLEM.

Today's levity from Common Dreams is Michael Waldman's "The One Issue the Midterm Victors Must Solve? Corruption."  The secondary headline continues, "If they do not, we will be sentenced to one election after another where parties club each other with populist anger, alternating in power with little changing."  That might be an opportunity to caution partisans not to treat their temporary majority as a mandate to implement their full wish list, the way things have gone throughout this century in these United States.

I suspect both major parties are more interested in playing to the hopes of their bases than in coming up with policy tweaks that would attract some voters who are choosing the least unappetizing prix-fixe dinner being doled out.  What the voters seem to be doing is gridlocking the national government to gum up the swill-cooking, and relocating to more convivial states or localities within states.  But the communist coalition within the Democrat caucus still hasn't gotten the memo.  "If that means the national Democrats pay more attention to the interior of the country and less to the aesthetic preferences of Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and the Northeast Corridor, that might be for the good."

But after Donald Trump handed the Democrats a gift in those Georgia runoff elections, the Democrats thought they had an opportunity for Christmas by July.  "A common observation this week is that Joe Biden cannot pass Franklin Roosevelt- or Lyndon Johnson-scale legislation without first having Franklin Roosevelt- or Lyndon Johnson-scale Congressional majorities."  Which they don't have, and whatever schmoozing skills the president might have once had don't work so well.

Mr Waldman recognises that changes in the control of a Congress, and sometimes of the party holding the White House, is the only tool the voters have to stop the current government from implementing their wish list in full.  "Political scientists call this a thermostatic election. Voters adjust the temperature by turning the dial away from perceived overreaches."  He could, at that point, have suggested a change in the apportionment of Congress in order to provide a policy bundle less unpleasant to median voters.  There are serious suggestions circulating in formal and informal ways.  That's not where he wants to go.  "But at times candidates have an agenda, detailed or implicit. Those are the years that produce the biggest change."  Yes, the Silent Generation's Watergate Caucus, the Boomers' Contract with America, and what he interprets as the early Millennials' social-democratic-populism.  But, it being a Common Dreams column, it has to be about "But Trump" rather than about working the perceived discontent voters have with corruption.  In so doing, he misses the opportunity to work the problem.

A survey by the Brennan Center earlier this year found an unusual and wide revulsion against corruption. It also found that voters blame Democrats as well as Republicans.

As they should.  Corruption is the natural outcome of bipartisan consensus and compromise, which sounds nice as it generates rents for the political class to share.  Suggest that a massive rollback of federal powers, say to the enumerated and limited powers the Federal Constitution spells out, though, and you probably don't get published on Common Dreams any more.

A CHILLY CAMPUS CLIMATE IN ILLINOIS.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression continues to release collegiate free speech ratings, mostly documenting the lack thereof.  "Overall, the findings suggest some improvement in campus free speech climates, while also showing that many students still report difficulty discussing controversial topics and remain skeptical of allowing controversial speakers on campus."  That improvement is from on average, failing to provide a setting for the free exchange of ideas, at least as understood by the organization's compilers, to doing a poor to fair job.  (See John Warner, "The Limitations of FIRE’s Database," for the contested nature of that understanding.)

In Illinois, the organization evaluates twelve colleges and universities.  At the top of the list is the University of Chicago, which ranked first nationwide, albeit earning a B- at 81 points.  Generous grading curve.  Next, Northeastern Illinois, with a solid D at 64 points, but showing improvement.  Going on down, Northwestern, several of the state universities including both Southern Illinois campuses, Ronald Reagan's old Knox, and the two Chicago basketball schools come in with failing scores.  Loyola was edged out by DePaul, 53 to 51.

THE RACE TO ELEVEN WINS.

David Manney's "From Uecker on the Radio to 103 Wins: What a Season" celebrates the Milwaukee Brewers path to the playoffs.

Some of my favorite Brewers memories don't begin at a ballpark.

They begin on a hot Wisconsin summer night with my dad, my brother, and me fishing on Half Moon Lake in Carson Park while Bob Uecker called the game on the radio. You could hear the water, the insects, maybe somebody fumbling with tackle, and Ueck describing baseball as only he could.

Those nights became part of what the Brewers mean to me.

There were ballpark memories, too. I remember going to the Met in Minneapolis and watching Larry Hisle hit two home runs against the Twinkies, including one off the fair pole.

Years later, sitting in the left-center field bleachers at the Metrodome, I had binoculars on home plate while Paul Molitor stole home while Robin Yount stood at the plate. It remains one of the greatest baseball moments I've ever seen in person.

And I know what some of you are thinking: the MLB lost some of you as a fan. I respect that. For me, however, baseball is part of me.

Growing up in Eau Claire, Wis., it meant it was easier to see the Brewers play the Twins than to drive three hours to Milwaukee County Stadium.

Until 1971, I was able to listen to, and suffer through, Brewer games on WTMJ, with Merle Harmon, and later Bob Uecker, on the play-by play; for the last forty years I've been able to enjoy the day games, but must make do with, or without, a scratchy radio broadcast of the night games, including much of that season-ending series win in Philadelphia and the sweep of the Cardinals.

THE BITTER FRUITS OF ADULTISM.

Deconstruct "I'm the boss, you're the kid," and bear what follows.

I’ve never considered taking a drink into an interview. I’m not even comfortable taking one if offered. I don’t do it because it’s generally a short enough process that it’s unnecessary.

And frankly, saying you need to stay caffeinated to talk to a potential boss sends signals I don’t know that I’d have been a fan of.

The problem here is that people are opining on this sort of thing often without asking a question of why we tended not to bring beverages to interviews in the first place. It’s one of a thousand examples of people seeking to upset the status quo without understanding why the status quo exists.

On the flip side, many of those who are upset over it may not even know why they’re upset over it. I doubt anyone came right out and said, “You guys tend to be so boring that I need as much caffeine as possible to stay awake to talk to you.” They just got bent out of shape from the start.

These little rules are common, but they generally all start from somewhere, and like Chesterton’s Fence, we need to understand them and why they exist before we set about dismantling them.

That's Tom Knighton, reacting, correctly, to the most recent first world problem: should a job-seeker bring an iced coffee to a job interview.  His conclusion?

Perhaps more importantly, why do you think you need it inside with you for a 20-minute interview? Or do you just need to knock down doors for the sake of knocking them down?

If so, be careful, because you might be on the other side of that desk and have to deal with someone just like you, only worse, and have no recourse left because of what you did at the time.

Call me old school, bringing your own drink, hot or iced, into an interview, let alone food, signals a lack of seriousness.  If the interviewer offers you coffee, tea, or water, politely accept or decline: the prudent thing might be to decline, the offer might be to put you at ease or perhaps as a test of your impulse control.

The economics job meetings offered a different sort of hazard: there were departments that conducted interviews with bottles of the adult beverages in plain view.  Always politely decline an offer of one!

TAKE THE MULLAHS' STOOGE UP ON HIS OFFER.

"In defiant speech, Pezeshkian calls out Trump and says Iran will fight 'until our last breath'."

Because of course he did.

Iran's president said Wednesday that his people have been "victims of terrorism" by the United States, delivering a rare wartime speech at the U.N. General Assembly a day after President Donald Trump said he may "annihilate" the Islamic Republic if a deal isn't reached soon to end the nearly seven-month war.

The defiant speech by President Masoud Pezeshkian marked a striking instance of a foreign leader addressing the world body while their country is at war with the host nation. While defending his country, Pezeshkian held up large photos of the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the more than 150 Iranian schoolchildren killed on the first days of the war.

"We have only defended ourselves. We are not terrorists," Pezeshkian said at the General Assembly. "Our innocent people have been the targets of cowardly attacks and aggressions imposed upon our country. And we defended ourselves with utmost strength. America and Israel attacked us."

Gee, you think riling up your starveling base to yell "Death to Israel, death to America" for nearly a half century is a good way to win friends and influence people?  Reap what you sow, stooge.

Our diplomats are having none of it.

He added of the United States: "Yes they did hit us, but we did not bend the knee." Toward the end of his speech, Pezeshkian called out Trump by name.

"It must be understood by Mr. Trump and those who seek to bully us that we are ready for dialogue and diplomacy and negotiations without accepting the language of force," he said.

Shortly after, both U.S. and Israeli officials blasted the speech, saying that it was hypocritical for the Islamic Republic to present itself as the victims of the world.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters: "I don't know what standing Iran has to lecture anyone on human rights or the international system when they habitually violate it."

The stooge had to posture that way because his political masters in Teheran speak their own language of force.  "Iran has presented the US with a roadmap to end the war that echoes the two countries' June agreement — a 60-day ceasefire, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and groundwork for further talks — The National reported."  Same nonsense, different talking head.  Renounce the nukes, Iran, and stop funding those proxies, and then we can lift the sanctions and let your leaky ships sail.

ADAM SMITH CORRECTLY DIAGNOSED THE SITUATION YEARS AGO.

I used to summarize the political economy of antitrust with the following:

To widen the market and to narrow the competition is always the interest of the dealers ... The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted, till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.

I wouldn't name the author, rather I'd ask students if anyone had an idea who it was. More than a few for Karl Marx and sometimes I'd get a J. S. Mill, both good choices.  It's in The Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter XI.

Widening the market and narrowing the competition is easier with Government Doing Something.

It doesn't matter how good the intentions of the legislators who established the board is, or how much public enthusiasm there is for Wise Experts to carry out the legislative intent.

In principle, the concept of the independent commission is a delegation of powers from the executive and legislative functions of government to subject specialists, holding the ability to implement legislative intent without burdening those legislators with determining what the price of a streetcar ride or the content of a sandwich served to economy class fliers was to be.

Like most principles, the concept sounded better on paper or sketched on a chalkboard than they did in practice.  A left-leaning commentator of the nineteenth century responded to the creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission with an epigram to the effect of the agrarians and the communists getting their laws, and the robber barons keeping their railways.  The same lesson applies to any other independent regulatory commission, or to the more recent administrative state agencies to which we turn.

The problem with any delegation of legislative authority to an agency is that the people most affected by the agency decisions will take the greatest interest in what the agency does.  In the early years, a farmer might have a keen interest in what the rate on a carload of grain is, or an environmentalist in the acid content of power plant smoke.  Over time, though, the regulatory procedures become codified, and boring, and the agrarians and communists of the next generation find other shiny objects to get worked up over, whilst the railroaders or power companies or television stations or air carriers or baby formula manufacturers find ways to get along by going along in such a way as to capture the agencies.  The agencies thus become cartel managers, protecting the incumbent firms, and the best thing to do might be to reduce their powers and banish them forever.

Does anyone seriously think that, should the leading developers of artificial intelligence, or machine learning if you will, will not cultivate the members of any agency Congress or a legislature sets up to regulate their competition?  It doesn't even take the kind of insider majority on the boards, as Mr Slivinski fears.  Wouldn't the management of any business subject to that regulation figure out where the board members play golf, when their birthdays and anniversaries are, what their children aspire to, in order to capture the agency, no matter how stocked with idealists it might be, with kindness?