prior probability

I nominate all the State and local government officials who took people’s labor rights during the pandemic without the payment of just compensation. In a nutshell, my thesis is that labor is property and that lockdown orders thus constitute a taking of property under the Takings Clause. I sketch my simple theory of Lockean lockdown takings in my most recent paper “The Law of Self-Ownership,” which is available here via SSRN. Below the fold is the table of contents of my paper:

That is the title of my most recent work-in-progress, available here via SSRN. Among other things, my paper surveys the greatest and largest-scale “taking” in the history of the United States: the taking of labor of non-essential workers during the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. In brief, many State and local governments across the U.S. enacted emergency lockdown orders that deprived “non-essential” workers of their self-ownership rights by preventing them from making a living. Yet, aside from ad hoc stimulus checks and the payment of fraud-ridden and inefficient unemployment benefits, not a single one of these workers received any “just compensation” as required by the Takings Clause of the Constitution. Meanwhile, billionaires avoid paying their fair share of taxes …

On this day (June 22) in 1986, Diego Maradona scored his controversial “Hand of God goal” in the quarter-finals of the World Cup match between Argentina and England. Payback for las Islas Malvinas (Falkland Islands), which rightly belong to Argentina!

From his concurring opinion in today’s historic Supreme Court decision (NCAA v. Alston) smacking down the NCAA: “The bottom line is that the NCAA and its member colleges are suppressing the pay of student athletes who collectively generate billions of dollars in revenues for colleges every year. Those enormous sums of money flow to seemingly everyone except the student athletes. College presidents, athletic directors, coaches, conference commissioners, and NCAA executives take in six- and seven-figure salaries. Colleges build lavish new facilities. But the student athletes who generate the revenues, many of whom are African American and from lower-income backgrounds, end up with little or nothing.” Nailed it!

This new movie about the life of Anthony Bourdain (see trailer below) is scheduled to be released on July 16; more details here, via Kottke.

Selena forever! I am feeling much better today so I thought I would share a fragment of my favorite Selena song:

I tested positive for the “Wuhan virus” on Wednesday. Among other symptoms, I suffered a throbbing headache, a perpetual and painful cough, and a bad lower-back ache. Thankfully, however, I did not develop a fever and did not lose my sense of taste or smell, but even this “mild” case of COVID was the worst ailment I have ever suffered, keeping me in bed for over 20 hours per day during the past three days …

This classic is from the July 5, 1993 issue of The New Yorker.

Answers are below the fold:

Or just clickbait?

“Half of the pandemic’s unemployment money may have been stolen.” That is the title of this recent report by Felix Salmon for Axios, but the only evidence in support of this increduble claim is a statement by Blake Hall, the CEO of ID.me, who says that “America has lost more than $400 billion to fraudulent claims” and that “as much as 50% of all unemployment monies might have been stolen.” I would not be surprised if unemployment fraud were rampant, but this is pretty weak evidence.