Why Is Gold Considered So Precious And Why Does It Have Such High Prices, And What Satisfaction Do People Derive From This Â??preciousâ?? Metal?
These answers are pretty humorous. But the correct answer is quite simple: **Everybody wants gold because everybody else wants gold, and its hard to get.** I mean, really, that’s the reason it’s so precious. The real question then, is how did everyone come to want gold so much? Originally it was ornamental – desirable as…
Dear Libertarians. Join the 21’st Century. Don’t Fight The Last War: It’s Postmodernism, Not Socialism.
ITS POSTMODERNISM, NOT SOCIALISM [A]ll generals try to fight the last war. And it seems like all our libertarian intellectuals try to fight central control: socialism. Which is … fighting the last war. A war that we won, by the way, at least against the statist intellectuals. The strategic, political and economic war was won…
Islamic Fundamentalism is a Totalitarian Political Movement, Not a Religion.
(Following up on Salman Rushdie’s argument that Islam is a weaponized and militarized religion) Serious Stuff – The New Republic [T]he author reiterates the point that Islamic fundamentalism is a totalitarian political movement. I’ve been saying this for years. And it’s true. It may be structured as a religion, the way marxism was a religion…
False: Krugman Gets It Wrong On Purpose Again. 🙂
FALSE Conservatives and Sewars – The NYT 1) It doesn’t follow that a one time expense, followed by fees for use is the same as redistribution that creates dependencies. the first requires action, the second does not. THe free-rider problem is different from the progressive-fees problem. Free riding is a negative signal that says free…
Cultures Are Portfolios Of Property Rights
[C]ultures are portfolios of property rights. The composition of, and distribution of those property rights, varies from culture to culture. In each culture, those rights are expressed as norms. Property rights themselves are a norm. Those property rights perpetuated by norms may be more or less beneficial than other portfolios of property rights. But any…
The Economist Magazine Is Wrong On Oligarchs: Flaunt It. Flaunt It Everywhere. Always.
The Economist: Don’t Flaunt It *That’s what a Republic is. A Natural Rotation Of Oligarchs.* [E]very country has an oligarchy. Oligarchies are NECESSARY and they are unavoidable. The question is which composition of people do you want to be governed by: (a) soldiers, (b) priests or (c) commerce? Why that list of three? Because there…
Are There Objectively Moral Statements?
“There is no such thing as objective morality only preferences and demonstrated preferences.” I’m not sure that’s true. [I]n every society, the portfolio of norms consisting of maners (signals of fitness for voluntary transfer), ethics and morals (prohibitions on involuntary transfer), vary considerably. But all of them are signals of fitness, signals of contribution to…
Property, Praxeology And Violence
[U]nfortunately, while humans demonstrate a preference for the consumption that is made possible by the combination of private property, the division of knowledge and labor, and the experimental innovation the market drives us to, humans also demonstrate an equal preference for violence, theft, fraud, omission, interference, free riding, privatization of the commons, socialization of losses,…
Statism And Corporatism vs Partnerships And The Common Law
[C]an you imagine commercial trade and the market without the abstract entity we call the corporation? Sure you can. The corporation is just a partnership that the government has granted limited liability to in order to increase tax revenues from ventures that are both expensive and high risk. THink of it as off-book investment in…
Reading: On Law As A Problem Of Calculation, Coordination, And Dispute Resolution, In The Face Of Necessary Ignorance And Diversity Of Interest
[T]he common law depends upon experience (scientific evidence), not logic or reason (untested theory), and is relatively impervious to authoritarian influence. In any reading list on Law, I don’t necessarily want to communicate the history of law, so much as emphasize the pervasive problems of the social cognitive biases: a) False Consensus bias, b) the…
How Uneducated Are Americans? How Many People Skipped “intellectual Refinement” (no High School, No College And Beyond)?
A MORE INTERESTING QUESTION THAN IT FIRST APPEARS. I”LL TRY TO DO IT JUSITC. 1) Americans have the highest confidence despite middling education by comparison to other countries. (Google it.) 2) Americans are disproportionately wealthy so our lower classes can express their ideas, and are more confident expressing those ideas. 3) Our education system promotes…
When Did The Capitalist Regime Under Which We Currently Live *begin*?
INTERESTING QUESTION. I”LL TRY TO DO IT JUSTICE. The west has been more ‘capitalist’ since its inception 4500 years ago, because it’s been more individualistic, and it’s property rights have been more widely distributed and therefore power has been distributed and balanced for most of our history.  It’s also true that enfranchisement in those property…
How Does The Role Of A Startup Cto Change Over Time?
Depends upon the technical dependency of the business. You start with designing the product or offering, and building a team. You end up selling to customers, administering talent, constraining budgets, allocating in investments, and briefing (educating) the management team.  If you educate the rest of the management team well enough then your job should simplify…
How Dedicated Should An Entrepreneur Be To Their Start-up, How Much Is Too Much?
Sacrifice time, sleep, security, health, wealth, relationships – everything. The only limit is your ability to do something or not. These sacrifices must be balanced against the rewards. So, there is only whether a) you CAN endure sacrifices and b) whether the sacrifices you make are worth the return to YOU. https://www.quora.com/How-dedicated-should-an-entrepreneur-be-to-their-start-up-how-much-is-too-much
Which Articles Of The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights Are Negative Rights?
1-2 Address who is included in these rights. 3-20 Address negative rights. These rights prohibit everyone, including government, from violating the life, body, movement, association, speech, and property of individuals in various ways. 21-29 Address positive rights.These are ambitions that all governments are chartered with attempting to achieve. 30 closes prohibiting exception. https://www.quora.com/Which-articles-of-the-Universal-Declaration-of-Human-Rights-are-negative-rights