This may be a good time to talk about another Bend kid who made it in the wider world. I won't say he made good...
I'm not sure how many people remember the Trailways Bus company; or the depot that used to be on the corner of Greenwood and Bond. I was still taking those buses to college back in the early 70's.
And I'm not sure how many people remember (or care) that Trailways was based in Bend, founded by a fellow named William Niskanen, who fought a legal fight to have Greyhound declared in fault of anti-trust so that his company might exist.
William Niskanen's son (also named William Niskanen) went off to Harvard and became a well-known libertarian economist, eventually landing at the conservative think-tank, the Cato Institute. He died in 2011.
The reason I bring him up is, that his death apparently put the Cato Institute in play. The Koch brothers swooped in and tried to take control of the place. It was recently resolved with the head guy stepping down, but with the Koch brothers backing off.
I find two things about this story to be ironic.
1.) William Niskanen's father resorted to asking the federal government to intervene against a monopolistic enterprise, (Greyhound.)
2.) That the Cato Institute almost got swallowed whole by big money.
In both cases, it seems to me a true libertarian would be saying, yeah, go for it. Money deserves whatever it can buy. The big bad government can butt out.
I wonder. Do these guys ever have second thoughts?
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This brings up the fine folks in Colorado Springs who pushed so hard for federal budget cuts only to be upset about a lack of firefighting resources. There are no libertarians in a natural disaster zone.
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