Thousands of TWEETS, Posts, Articles, Pages, chapters, Notes, Diagrams, drafts, sketches and Quotes from 2009 to present
Is There Any Independent, Third-party Research On The Fiscal Grievance Of Catalonia With Spain?
Joe: that’s not what the numbers mean.Catalonia represents 14% of the population and pays 22% of the taxes. The tax rate is both unfair, and harmful, since it is the one region of spain that might form an innovative industrial heartland, in southern Europe. Furthermore, Catalonias speak a slightly different language and have a distinct…
KRUGMAN Straw Man Of The Day : iPhone 5 Shows We Are All Keynesians?
Krugman’s straw man of the day uses discussions about the impact of the iPhone 5 release on the economy to suggest we are all Keynesians, and that government should spend more money. [callout] [/callout] But all actions have costs. And Americans have decided that the cost of funding expansion of government influence, power, and corruption…
SACRED – “SACREDNESS” AS A COMMONS
SACRED – “SACREDNESS” It is very hard to build the concept of ‘sacred’ into the values of a population. External threat, common strife, shared ambition, education, and indoctrination all can achieve it. Sacred concepts are a form of The Commons. They are a community property. And a community property, whether real land, built capital, formal…
A Critique Of Jason Brennan’s Thought Experiment: Just War Is A Utilitarian And Contractual, Not Absolute Moral Concept
Some Thought Experiments Involving Assassination by JASON BRENNAN 1. Suppose an evil demon appears before you and says, “I plan to kill hundreds of thousands of foreign civilians and destroy their country’s architecture unless you kill this one innocent person.” Under these extreme circumstances, might it be permissible for you to kill that innocent person?…
Justice Scalia Explains Textualism And Originalism Without Explaining WHY We Must Rely Upon Them.
Scalia is a bit of a personal hero. I adore his clarity. He appeared on Fox the other day, and explained Textualism and Originalism. (See wiki.) But I was frustrated that he kept stating what he believed, and how these things SHOULD be interpreted, but now WHY they should be interpreted that way. Now, I’m…
Major Concepts In Economics: What Is Malinvestment?
J.C. Hewitt’s answer is correct. The Austrian School of Economics invented the term (I think) and they focus on Monetary Policy, where malinvestment means credit is too cheap, and prices are distorted by cheap credit, and the pricing system cannot signal entrepreneurs how to appropriately invest. Thus, they invest poorly. The term has evolved to…
Behind Paul Krugman’s Daily Straw Men
Paul, 1) THE ART OF CREATING AND ATTACKING STRAW MEN You have mastered the strategy of creating then attacking straw men, and in doing so crafting the typical progressive implication that emotions, stupidity and irrationality drive political behaviors. (See Paul Jonson’s Intellectuals, Thomas Sowell’s Intellectuals and Society, and Richard Posner’s Public Intellectuals. All of which…
An Example Of The Sea Change In Libertarianism
‘AN EXAMPLE OF THE SEA CHANGE IN LIBERTARIANISM (I posted this in response to a comment on The Skeptical Libertarian, which was critical of Tom Woods’ jibe that TSL was not skeptical enough of the government. It’s an opportunity to illustrate the current changes in the libertarian movement. These comments get lost if I don’t…
Rothbard Must Be Understood In His Context
From No Comuna. A subtle criticism of criticism of Rothbard. Children and rights In the Ethics of Liberty Rothbard explores in terms of self-ownership and contract several contentious issues relating to the rights of children. These include women’s right to abortion, the prohibition of aggression of parents against children, as well as the question of…
Is Iraq An Unofficial “vassal” Of Iran?
All civilizations have a ‘core state’ (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The…) except islam, which last relied upon the Turks as the core state. Iran wants to become the core state of islamic civilization, control middle eastern oil, capture the profits from it, and build a military strong enough to ensure it’s centrality, with those profits. If possible, the…
How Can The United States Remain A/the Global Leader?
I am pretty sure that this represents the best overview of the USA’s current circumstances that exists today. There are six factors that play into power: 1) geography,2) demographics,3) economy, 4) currency, 5) technology6) military. They are all inter-related. Here are the major factors affecting the future of US power at the present time. 1)…
Political Strategy: What Is Being Done To Prevent The Development Of A “cold War” Between China And The Us In The Coming Years?
The USA is attempting to allow China to peacefully rise by use of commercial power rather than military power. Commerce creates consumption which addicts citizens to consumerism, which then makes it difficult for governments to jeopardize without insurrection. That is the only strategy. The USA prefers the world consist of good commercial citizens. The fundamental…
What Policies Have Helped The U.s. Come Out Of Recession While Europe Has Failed To Do So?
In simplest terms, none. No policies made the difference. The reason the US began (and has now stopped) coming out of recession, and europe has continued to decline, is that in europe, the protestant germanic states are unwilling to subsidize the catholic mediterranean states. In the USA, this same anti-subsidy conflict is conducted along racial…
How Corrupt Is The U.s. Government?
Government by it’s nature, because it is a monopoly, and concentrates capital, draws corruption. In the USA, corruption tends to be systemic rather than individual. Meaning that the system encourages politicians to work for special interests, and government workers to collect extraordinary benefits – on avearage have retirement benefits equivalent to something like 750K in…
Do Machiavellian Philosophies Carry Over Into The Modern World?
You’d need to define what you mean by Machiavellian tactics. Machiavelli was the first political scientist after Aristotle, and arguably the father of politics as a scientific endeavor. He entreated rulers to move away from ancient traditions, religious or abstract moral principles, to material, logical, evidence based, principles necessary for the state to persist in…
Is Democracy A Viable System For Everyone?
Democracy is, at best, a means of peacefully transferring power. If you mean, can representative democracy (a republic) or even a direct democracy (versus an economic democracy), serve the interests of everyone, the answer is apparently “no” for the following reasons.a) Majority rule is a means by which a group with similar moral codes and…
What Examples Are There Of Chaotic And Inexorable Processes Through The Free Market, Technology And The Global Society?
I will answer this question if you will provide examples of “blind additions” and “these decisions” and why our attempts at controlling them would be ‘better’. Without those bits of information it is very hard to deduce what it is that you’re asking. https://www.quora.com/What-examples-are-there-of-chaotic-and-inexorable-processes-through-the-free-market-technology-and-the-global-society
The Two Sources Of Belonging
We all want to belong to a group. Some of us less or more than others. But few of us want to be ostracized from it. We can obtain that sense of belonging through empathy if we are similar, and duty if we are not. Empathy through shared interpretation. Duty through shared action in pursuit…
What Are The Most In-depth Geopolitical Intelligence Websites?
The best site, hands down, is STRATFOR. It’s worth the subscription.Between STRATFOR, Foreign Policy and the Economist, you’ll get the in-depth understanding. To go for more granularity you have to pretty much subscribe to the think tanks in each country. That actually who does most of the talking internationally. Especially between the USA and Asia.…
Riffing On Scott Sumner: German Membership In The Euro Is Preventing The Advancement Of The Poorer Countries
The eurozone excludes Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, Britain and Switzerland. …Germany is one of the few northern countries that’s actually in the eurozone… And it seems to me that here you have a massive adverse selection problem. Because of Abraham Lincoln, affluent states like Massachusetts can’t suddenly decide they want no part of our fiscal…