John Stossel has a pre-Oscar column about how Hollywood and Congress killed a market in film futures:

"The Commodity Futures Trading Commission did a three-year review and concluded that there was legitimate economic purpose behind this market," Jacobs added.

But last year, then-Sen. Chris Dodd and Rep. Barney Frank said no.

Now I hear Dodd might be appointed head of the movie studios' lobby. Cozy. Maybe sleazy. But that's how politics and regulation work.

Highlights of today's budget speech by Governor Christie to the New Jersey legislature:

In New York, a Democratic governor has proposed dramatic reforms to Medicaid, because that program left on autopilot will lead both state and federal governments straight into a crash.

In California, a new Democratic governor has proposed to cut the number and pay of all state employees.

And in Wisconsin and Ohio, they have decided there can no longer be two classes of citizens: one that receives rich health and pension benefits, and all the rest who are left to pay for them.

Democrat or Republican, it doesn't matter. We are all facing the same problems. These problems are bigger than either political party. The promises of the past are too expensive, and the prospects of the future are too important to stay on the old, failed course.

New York Yankees owner Hank Steinbrenner on revenue-sharing in baseball: "Socialism, communism, whatever you want to call it, is never the answer."

More on redistribution in baseball is here.

The New York Times has an article that runs under the headline "Billionaire Brothers' Money Plays Role in Wisconsin Dispute." It includes this:

To Bob Edgar, a former House Democrat who is now president of Common Cause, a liberal group that has been critical of what it sees as the rising influence of corporate interests in American politics, the Koch brothers are using their money to create a façade of grass-roots support for their favorite causes.

"This is a dangerous moment in America history," Mr. Edgar said. "It is not that these folks don't have a right to participate in politics. But they are moving democracy into the control of more wealthy corporate hands."

The Daily Caller has an interview with the Mississippi governor, Haley Barbour, a possible Republican presidential candidate. The Web site asked him about federal farm subsidies and reports he gave the following answer:

"Some of them are very important," Barbour told TheDC when asked if he supported taxpayer subsidies for farmers. "What we want to have in the United States is abundant food at a responsibly low price. To do that, we have to have an appropriately large supply of agricultural products. When sales volumes are good, prices are reasonable, there shouldn't be any farm subsidies. But for natural reasons, nature, or what other countries are doing in terms of how they're handling their markets, sometimes it is appropriate to have farm subsidies."

Dating back to President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, farm subsidies guarantee farmers a bottom line price on their goods — a taxpayer-funded luxury many other industries lack.

Thomas Sowell has a new column up about high-speed rail: "To talk glibly about spending more money on 'high-speed rail' when the national debt has just passed a milestone, by exceeding the total value of our annual output, for the first time in more than half a century, is world-class chutzpa."

And this: "Make no mistake about it, spending wins votes, and votes are the ultimate bottom line for politicians."

The Washington Post has an editorial on health benefits for retired state-government employees:

in 14 states, taxpayers pick up 100 percent of the premium tab for retirees, who often collect benefits for a decade or more before going on Medicare. This is not only unfair to taxpayers, for whom free health care is usually a remote dream. It also encourages overconsumption of medical goods and services, thus raising the cost for everyone. If you want to bend the curve on health-care costs, trimming unjustifiable benefits for public-sector workers and retirees is one place to start.

Link via Economic Policies for the 21st Century.

Amity Shlaes has a column up at Bloomberg News about the Wisconsin public employees and Governor Scott Walker: "Walker's move won't necessarily hurt his career. It may catapult him to the national stage, or even the presidency."

Bloomberg News has won a George Polk Award — nearly as prestigious as a Pulitzer — for its coverage of for-profit colleges, coverage that has been the subject of some criticism here. The Polk press release described the coverage as "scathing." The way these prizes drive news coverage in ways that are sometimes unhealthy would itself be a good topic for some scathing reporting.

President Obama "may be right" to say he's being smart by avoiding detail on entitlement reform, says the McClatchy Newspapers Washington bureau in a news article that concludes with a quote from a "scholar" who says "It's a potentially effective strategy for Obama. So far, it looks like it does work."

If "working" means losing control of the House in the midterm elections and eroding the value of the dollar as measured against gold or oil.

George Soros is someone I have given up on trying to make sense of, but for those who pay attention, his comments in an interview with Fareed Zakaria that aired over the weekend are worth a look. He seems to think American now is in some kind of pre-Nazi phase, with Rupert Murdoch and Fox News operating as propagandists. The Daily Caller has a summary:

"A nonprofit organization run out of the mayor's office" in New York City, GrowNYC, is organizing meetings for people to trade things for free, the New York Times reports, quoting the group's executive director as saying he hopes to "get people thinking about maybe not buying things...reducing consumerism and, as a result, reducing their impact on the overall environment one item at a time."

Seen on a playground in Washington, D.C. was the following warning: "Designed for Children Ages 2 to 5 Years (18 months – 5 years for Canada)." Are the Canadian children really six months ahead of American ones in terms of physical playground skills? Or are American tort lawyers or consumer product regulators that much more ferocious than Canadian ones?

President Obama's new chief of staff, William M. Daley, was paid "$8.7 million in 2010 and the first week of 2011" for his work at TARP recipient JPMorgan Chase, the New York Times reports. The Times says the report was "released Friday by the White House." Pretty classic for the White House to put this out on the Friday before a long holiday weekend. It's tempting to make some kind of joke here to the effect that he makes almost as much as the public employees in Wisconsin, but I will resist the temptation.

If Mr. Daley was worth that much to JPMorgan Chase in 2010 and 2011 as President Clinton's former commerce secretary, imagine how much more he could be worth to JPMorgan Chase in 2014 as President Obama's former chief of staff if Mr. Obama wins re-election.

Charles Krauthammer has a column on President Obama's budget:

Of what does this $1.1 trillion in deficit reduction consist? Painful cuts? Think again. It consists of $1.6 trillion in tax hikes, plus an odd $328 billion of some mysterious bipartisan funding for a transportation trust fund (gas taxes, one supposes) - for a grand total of nearly $2 trillion in new taxes. Classic Obama debt reduction: Add $2 trillion in new taxes, then add $1 trillion in new spending and, presto, you've got $1 trillion of debt reduction....A more cynical budget is hard to imagine.