EU Aims to Cut Red Tape, Boost Funding to Lure Tech Startups

Officials want to simplify labor and tax laws so startups can launch rapidly in Europe

By Mauro Orru of The WSJ. Excerpts:

"The European Union laid out plans to slash regulation and set up a special fund to attract tech startups as the bloc plays catchup with the U.S. on financing and innovation.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said regulatory fragmentation across the EU’s 27 countries and inadequate financing were holding back growth for startups. Officials now hope to lower the administrative burden and launch a new fund to make it easier for startups to set up shop in the EU.

Under the plans, the commission will seek to simplify rules, including on labor and tax law, so that startups can launch rapidly in Europe, ideally within 48 hours. Officials also plan to work with private investors to launch a new fund. The so-called Scaleup Europe Fund, privately managed and co-financed, will be part of the existing European Innovation Council Fund."

[they want to] "narrow the financing and innovation gap with the U.S."

"startups in the bloc have roughly seven times less capital available to grow than in the U.S. Speed is another factor holding back growth"

"the EU can be “very slow” in granting approvals."

[the EU plans to] "remove those barriers that hold back entrepreneurs." 

The New Retirement Age in Denmark Is 70

The Danes set an example for timorous American politicians who refuse to reform unaffordable entitlements

WSJ editorial. Excerpts:

"Copenhagen raised its retirement age last week to 70 for Danes born in 1971 or later." (from 67)

"The typical longevity of retirees in developed economies long ago surpassed the estimates that were baked into government retirement programs when those entitlements were created."

[this was] "was pushed through parliament by a center-left government"

"Even France raised its retirement to 64 from 62 under a reform pushed through by President Emmanuel Macron." 

JD Vance Is Wrong: The Market Isn’t a ‘Tool’

As economically illiterate as any leftist Democrat, he even imagines the word is spelled with a capital M

By Matthew Hennessey. Excerpts:

"Nobody, not even these editorial pages—whose longstanding motto is “free people, free markets”—capitalizes the “M” in markets. The market isn’t a proper noun, and it also isn’t a tool. The market simply is. Nobody controls it. Nobody worships it, but only a fool ignores it.

Long before recorded history, long before people settled in cities and started building fruit stands, before Adam Smith, before Wall Street, before dating apps, before crypto—before all that there was trade: I give you this, you give me that. Simple exchange is what makes a market. Not faith, not mantras, not brick and mortar. Wherever people come together to trade is a market."

"Markets harness supply and demand to coordinate economic transactions between people and firms. They facilitate the free exchange of goods and services. They are mechanisms for shared prosperity based on freedom from coercion. They don’t enslave us, they liberate us."

"Markets, whether for cheap consumer goods or government bonds, can’t be bullied into compliance with a political agenda. They aren’t governed by the philosophies and desires of men like Mr. Vance. They are governed by the laws of economics the way the physical world is governed by the laws of gravity. You can moan about them all you want, you can lament the trade-offs they demand and the constraints they impose, but you can’t ignore or wish them away. No amount of political will or spilled ink can overrule them. Supply and demand are undefeated." 

George Floyd’s Death Almost Consumed America in Revolution

As the streets exploded, nearly every institution celebrated a ‘reckoning.’ Then people fought back.

By Mike Gonzalez. He is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation. Excerpts:

"During the civil unrest between May and July, more than 2,000 officers were injured in the line of duty, according to an analysis by the Major City Chiefs Association, an organization of police executives. Of 8,700 protests across major U.S. cities that summer, 3,692 involved some level of illegal activity, and 574 included outright violence, including attacks on police as well as destruction of local businesses and other private property.

The report found 2,385 looting incidents, 624 arson incidents, and 97 police vehicles burned. In Minneapolis and St. Paul combined, about 1,500 properties sustained severe damage, with nearly 80 completely destroyed. Reporting from Axios found that the destruction resulted in at least $1 billion to $2 billion of paid insurance claims."

"The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project reported in September 2020 that at least 86% of riots for which the identification of the participants was known were explicitly linked to Black Lives Matter activism."

"After all, the founders of BLM, particularly Patrisse Cullors and Alicia Garza, were trained by Marxist ideologues: Ms. Cullors in radical-left activist Eric Mann’s Labor/Community Strategy Center, and Ms. Garza in Gramscian scholar Harmony Goldberg’s School of Unity and Liberation.

The goal of these BLM leaders was clear. In 2019 Ms. Garza had told a group in Maine, “We’re talking about changing how we’ve organized this country. . . . I believe we all have work to do to keep dismantling the organizing principle of this society.”"

Immigrants role in AI

WSJ editorial. Excerpt:

"The National Foundation for American Policy finds that “immigrants have founded or cofounded nearly two-thirds (65% or 28 of 43) of the top AI companies in the United States, and 70% of full-time graduate students in fields related to artificial intelligence are international students.” Immigrants have also started more than half of America’s privately-held startups valued at $1 billion or more."

Woke Education Is Going Strong, Even in Middle America

Schools in Wauwatosa, Wis., embrace far-left fads from ‘gender identity’ to ‘restorative justice.’

By Daniel Buck. He is a senior visiting fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty. Excerpts:

"Examination of a typical American school district in a typical American town reveals that the progressive mismanagement of school districts extends beyond the dark-blue borders of San Francisco and Portland, Ore."

"auwatosa, Wis., a suburb of Milwaukee, is about as average as it gets."

"In 2022 the Wauwatosa school board approved a new sex-education curriculum. Among other things, it expects sixth-graders to define different types of sexual intercourse. Kindergartners learn about genitalia with the help of cartoon drawings and third-graders are informed that, no matter their body parts, they may feel like another “gender.” Notably, the newly adopted units are based on the National Sex Education Standards, which encourage teaching third-graders about puberty blockers, sixth-graders about abortion and students as young as kindergarten about “gender identity.”"

"Wauwatosa is one of thousands of districts to have adopted a “restorative justice” policy. This is an alternative to traditional discipline structures that emphasizes dialogue over punishment and focuses on revising school policy rather than changing student behavior."

"disruptive students received treats “in the form of food and beverages” and a chance to play games in the office instead of a standard detention."

"Wauwatosa schools have developed a reputation for permissive discipline and frequent fights. The chaos that results from leniency has led to more expulsion notices than is typical."

"The board voted last month to close a high-performing STEM school in the district"

"at least 37% of American students learn about gender ideology at school." 

"cities across the country . . . are axing their advanced curricular offerings."

The Medicaid Scare Campaign

The GOP reforms are modest, but they’ll improve care for low-income patients and expand private insurance options

WSJ editorial. Excerpts:

"the bill stops some abuses by imposing work requirements on able-bodied adults, tightening eligibility checks, and freezing provider taxes that states use to extract more federal matching funds."

"Democrats are flogging a new study  . . . that purportedly finds the ObamaCare Medicaid expansion reduced mortality among the low-income adult population by 2.5%."

"But the study’s design has some flaws, and the 2.5% difference in mortality for low-income adults between the expansion and non-expansion states wasn’t statistically significant when disabled adults were included."

"ObamaCare expansion hasn’t reduced deaths among lower-income, able-bodied adults. U.S. life expectancy remains about the same as it was in 2014 owing largely to increased deaths among such adults from drug overdoses and chronic diseases."

"A study last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that working-age adults on Medicaid were about three times more likely to die from drug overdoses in 2020 than those not on Medicaid."

"Medicaid recipients have less access to doctors than Americans with private insurance because of low government reimbursement rates."

"About 74% of physicians accept new Medicaid patients versus 96% for privately insured patients."

"these managed-care organizations lack a market incentive to improve provider networks or deliver healthcare more efficiently." 

"Medicaid expansion has increased emergency-room utilization."

"Medicaid recipients in southeast Pennsylvania were 2.9 times more likely to use the ER than non-Medicaid beneficiaries"

"Medicaid patients experience worse outcomes, more complications and higher readmission rates"