What the heck was that clever title I thought of?

I gotta start writing things down.

I was reading the articles in this month's Liberty magazine, each recommending a different candidate for liberty friendly reasons. The first is on Libertarian candidate, Bob Barr:

But already in spring 2000, back in the period of our naivete about the threats to our country from international crime, terrorism, and weapons of mass destruction, Barr was there testifying before the House Intelligence Committee. Besides explaining the need to update our laws so as to reflect changing technologies and threats, the former Central Intelligence Agency analyst offered leadership and clear guidance about protecting our liberties as well as our lives. His words are worth quoting at length:

While Americans remain solidly in support of a strong foreign intelligence gathering capability, they are not willing to do so at the expense of their domestic civil liberties. Any blurring of the heretofore bright line between gathering of true, foreign intelligence, and surreptitious gathering of evidence of criminal wrongdoing by our citizens, must be brought into sharp focus, and eliminated. Failure to take the steps to do so will erode the public confidence in our intelligence agencies that is a hallmark of their success. Failure to take steps to do so is a serious breach of our public duty to ensure the Bill of Rights is respected even as our nation defends itself against foreign adversaries and enemies.

The importance of effective foreign intelligence gathering, and of constitutional domestic law enforcement — both of which must respect U.S. citizens’ right to privacy — demands more than stock answers and boilerplate explanations. What is required is a thorough and sifting examination of authorities, jurisdiction, actions, and remedies. This is especially true, given that an entire generation has come and gone since the last time such important steps were taken.

Still further back, in 1998, Barr alone stood with Ron Paul in explaining to their fellow House members why a proposed national ID system would violate our privacy and civil liberties without making us safer. Imagine how much better off we would have been had a Barr Administration responded to the tragedies of September 11.

Bob Barr has a long record working with broad coalitions to make policy. Although a drug warrior in Congress, he often worked with drug war opponents in coalitions to protect privacy and other civil liberties. There is no other choice for those who value our rights and liberties — and our desire to work together to achieve legitimate goals.

And he has lot's more ammo in his magazine in favor of Barr.

The next two recommendations are rather less enthusiastic, focussing on the fact that only a Demopublican can win an American election. Bruce Ramsey gives The Case for Obama, the strongest part of which, to my mind, is a quote of Gene Healy:

Gene Healy, a vice president at Cato, author of “The Cult of the Presidency” (2008) and a contributing editor of Liberty, gave this answer:

...After our recent experience with a “conservative” president who launched the greatest expansion of the welfare state since LBJ, I find it hard to take seriously the notion that libertarians need to line up behind another Republican in order to save the country from looming socialism. Particularly when that Republican is a bellicose TR-worshiper and the dream candidate for the National Greatness Conservatives who’ve done so much damage to the country over the last seven years. . . . Obama’s public positions on war and executive power — even after the recent flip-flop on wiretapping — are preferable to McCain’s from a libertarian perspective. But Bush’s positions on spending and nation building were better than Gore’s in 2000, so who can predict?

And Ramsey's own thoughts:

In any coalition, if the weaker party is to have influence, it has to be willing to leave. Most of the time it will not do that; it will support people it doesn’t totally agree with, in exchange for their support on some things, and the hope of greater influence in the long run. But it always has to be willing to walk out. If it won’t, then it is nothing more than the majority’s poodle.
...
If libertarians are to have any influence on the Right, the neocon-led coalition (and not all Bush voters are neocons) has to be defeated. This already started to happen in the midterm elections of 2006, when the Republicans lost the Senate and the House. But the party hasn’t gotten the message that war is an election-loser. The party still has the White House, and it has nominated a neocon-backed military man to keep it. If McCain wins, the neocons win and the “War on Terror” continues under a leader who promises victory at all costs. On foreign policy, Republicans need to rethink what they think. And for that to happen, the Republican nominee has to lose.

The McCain supporter, Stephen Cox, editor of Liberty, writes:

This year, it’s conceivable that Obama may gain a state, and thus win the election, if there’s an outpouring of antiwar conservative and libertarian votes for Barr. I doubt that will happen, because my humble opinion is that most voters agree with me and vote for one of the major-party candidates, trying to exclude the worse one from the presidency. But now we’ve returned to the only real political issue: Would you rather exclude Obama or McCain? That’s what the presidential election will decide. To say “I’d rather exclude them both” is like answering a survey question, “Would you rather (A) have lower taxes; or (B) have higher taxes,” by saying, “Not applicable: I’d rather have no taxes.” Of course you would. So would I. But that isn’t the question. The question in the 2008 election is simply: Which candidate will be excluded, Obama or McCain?

I say, exclude Obama.
...
And the list of reasons goes on and on: Obama’s glad embrace of black nationalist “liberation” (i.e., neocommunist) theology, until the nature of his church was miraculously revealed; his willingness to lie about his background and associations, many of which can be justified by his followers only on the basis of his cynical willingness to cadge support from nuts and demagogues; his life (and the life of his influential spouse), spent in the service of racial preferences; his slanderous description of people who vote against him as bitter folk who cling like mollusks to their guns and their religion and their “antipathy to people who aren’t like them”; his amorphous political positions, each one dedicated to the proposition that he must be president, for whatever reasons he wants to dream up (if he’s an antiwar candidate, God help the cause of pacifism); and finally, and most egregiously, the pompous condescension that he manifests in every moment of his public being.

He elaborates on that last point quite a bit. Well, for instance:

...[T]he greatest problem about voting Democratic, even when the Democratic candidate isn’t a little Napoleon, is always that Democratic presidencies bring to Washington tens of thousands of counselors, bureaucrats, judges, and social action profiteers, an invading force that is always even farther to the big-government left than their boss, who at least had to be elected by the nation as a whole. The greatest problem with voting Republican is that Republican presidencies bring to Washington tens of thousands of stumblebums who haven’t a clue about how to reduce the size of government, or even to govern intelligently. Is there a clearer political choice? The worst you can say about the Republicans — and this is very bad indeed — is that they behave like Democrats. The best you can say — and it’s not very good, but it is important — is that they are not Democrats. Occasionally they nominate a Justice Thomas. Occasionally they lower taxes. Occasionally they raise speed limits, abolish conscription, or defend the 2nd Amendment. And they never nominate a Messiah.

Doug Casey gives a pretty good case for NOTA (none of the above). I particularly like his points four and five:

4. Voting just encourages them. I’m convinced that most people don’t actually vote for a candidate; they vote against the other candidate. But that’s not how the guy who gets the vote sees it; he thinks it’s a mandate for him to rule. It’s ridiculous to justify voting by endorsing the lesser of two evils.

Incidentally, I got as far as this point in 1980 when, as luck would have it, I did an hour alone on the Phil Donahue Show on the very day before the election. The audience had been very much on my side up to the point at which Phil accused me of voting for Mr. Reagan, and I had to explain why I wasn’t. Unfortunately, telling them they shouldn’t vote was just more than they could handle. The prospect of their stoning me precluded my explaining the fifth and possibly most practical point.

5. Your vote doesn’t count. Politicians and political hacks like to say that every vote counts because it gets everybody into busybody mode. But statistically, one vote in scores of millions makes no more difference than a single grain of sand on the beach. That’s completely apart from the fact that, as voters in Chicago in 1960 and Florida in 2000 can tell you, when it actually is close, things can be rigged. And anyway, officials manifestly do what they want — not what you want — once they’re in office.

The only way your vote counts is to make you complicit in the crimes that will inevitably be committed by its recipient.

I kind of wish they'd have had somebody pushing Nader (Independent), McKinney (Green Party) and Baldwin (Constitution Party) as well. Of the four I see here, I have to say that the strongest case by far is the one for Barr (free bumper-sticker slogan for you, guys). I'm not really partial to Nader or McKinney overall, but I was very impressed by their speeches at the Third Party joint news conference organized by Ron Paul. The main point in Baldwin's favor is that he was working for Ron Paul when the Constitution Party tapped him to be their candidate, and - after Barr snubbed Paul's news conference - Paul endorsed Baldwin.

I'd like to join the snit, but Jansen's case for Barr is too strong.

Barr/Root 2008!

Oh, yeah: Nader, McKinney. Hey! I like this video on McKinney's site.

Where was I? Oh yeah!

Robert Ringer says:

...[W]hat America needs is a hemorrhoid operation, not more bailouts. That means a lot of pain and suffering for all of us. And, make no mistake about it, we deserve it for having allowed our elected officials to turn the Constitution upside-down and dupe us into believing that we are obliged to answer to them rather than the other way around.

As Viktor Frankl once put it, man has a right to suffer. Suffering is a part of life. The time has come for us to tell the politicians that we don't want any more economic salves and ointments. The only way for things to get better is for government to get out of the way and stop making them worse. I say: My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for yourself.

His emphasis. Let's see if I can get a link.

Nope, not up yet, but these articles are close.

Stossel today

Try Free Enterprise

I suspect that the bailout will do more harm than good, like "aiding" an alcoholic by giving him booze. It perpetuates the moral hazard produced by government guarantees that created the problems in the first place (http://tinyurl.com/5yc4fk). It acts as an enabler by giving more money to opportunistic lenders who assumed they'd be bailed out. And of course the politicians made a bad bailout bill worse by adding in tax breaks for stock-car racers, movie producers, "alternative" energy, etc. Then they insisted that all health insurance must cover mental illness, a requirement that will launch an orgy of fraud and make health insurance unaffordable for millions. The conceit of the anointed knows no bounds.

Huh. That "tinyurl" came along for the ride. I'll leave it in and see if it works.

I like the first commenter, too:

elko.mike
Location: NV
Reply # 1
Date: Oct 8, 2008 - 12:53 AM EST

Subject: Thanks John

My sense since this started was that there were still lenders and borrowers out there. The problems were created when government decided that lending institutions should be in the affirmative action business.

The twin problems of bad loans, which we all get, and inflated properties follow. Inflated properties are a consequence of Fannie and Freddie lending at a rate lower than is justified by the risk. Why not? Congress (er taxpayers) will bail them out. Home buyers are limited by their monthly payment. So lower interest rate means that sellers can ask a little more for the home.

So a consequence of the low rate loans are inflated property values, which caused a bubble. Then all of these institutions found leveraged financial devices, which are good as they cover risk, but are problematic as they are built upon a housing bubble pushed upwards by Fannie and Freddie. When the housing prices began to correct due to default the leverage went the other way. As real estate is somewhat inflated the reverse leverage will be painful.

Eugene started me on a merry chase

with his post of "Pineapple Princess." I went through the Wikipedia article about Annette Funicello and ended with this video interview here.

Let's see if this works. The only thing wrong with putting the video here is you don't get some rather important biographical information, which is on the page I linked, though the Wikipedia article is a lot better.

Well, I ran the TCM today.

I notice that my thighs are sore already, a sure sign of over-training. If I'd done that over the summer, I might have had a decent time. As it was, I almost missed the cut-off for getting a finishers shirt and medal. The "gun time" was showing 5:56:something when I went past. [Hey! Look at this! They've got the chip times up already!]

I must have been just a flash going through, because my wife, who was waiting at the finish line, didn't see me. I also don't remember hearing them announce my name, and obviously she didn't either, but then the blatherers who were doing the announcing had to say things to keep the crowd interested. And I was a bit busy collecting my loot.

The temps were awesome for a race, ranging from the low fifties at the beginning to low sixties by the end. I could have done without the two hour thundershower, though. It made my shoes heavy. Apparently it hit the top finishers the same way, the winning time was 2:16. I wonder if Fernando Cabada will try to bury that on his resume.

The rain and the cold wind made it tough to enjoy running by the lakes in Minneapolis. All right, impossible. Oh, I guess it was 48 degrees at the start. I tossed my sweatshirt in the start corral, because it wasn't that cold and I figured I'd be plenty warm by the time it started raining. I was wrong. The weatherman had to go and nail it dead-on, drat him.

Another thing that slowed me down was that I had to hit the "head" five times. Largely due to trying to avoid the embarassing problem I mentioned in the other blog. And any other embarassing problems that haunted me as I went along. It was a difficult operation with numb hands. I forgot my gloves. I picked up a pair of discarded gloves after a while, wrung out the water and put them on. They helped a lot.

I saw that my dream house is for sale. I'll have to go make an offer. Oddly enough, I can't find a listing on the web. You should see it, half-timbered with fancy brick work, on the east side of Lake Harriet... [Lost in dream-land.] Maybe it's not a single-family dwelling.

I made a point of thanking every volunteer and spectator I could. If they were still out there when I was, they deserved an open display of gratitude. Maybe even a big smooch, but I was too busy to pass out any of those.

Some remarked that I was still smiling. Unfortunately, that brought up the thought, "yeah, it's because I'm not working very hard." The sore legs say otherwise. Maybe I'll post a full litany of excuses later.

Oh, well. The wife cooked me something. I'd better go eat it.

"No people will tamely surrender their Liberties,

nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffusd and Virtue is preservd. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauchd in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders." -- Samuel Adams (letter to James Warren, 4 November 1775)

The Patriot Post: Founders' Quote Daily

I haven't really studied this ProPublica site

but it's pretty darn interesting. That's the page for bailout aftermaths.

I caught a little of the Palin-Biden debate last night.

They were both trying to out-statist each other.

I turned over to baseball talk.

I just added FactCheck.org to my links

I'm surprised I didn't do that before.

Someday I should edit my links in general. There's a couple dead ones there. I could have done it yesterday when I stayed home with a sick kid, but I decided to buy a course on Socrates, Plato and Aristotle from The Teaching Company and listen to that all day instead.

They were having a sale, I got it for 50 bucks.

Aha! I've been looking for a good article on Moral Hazard

and the Wall Street Journal plunks one in my lap:

Now, with big banks dropping like flies and Wall Street vaporizing amid a mortgage meltdown, every corner bar and hair salon is filled with experts on the perils of moral hazard. Everyone gets it: Cut risk down to next to nothing and some people do crazy things.

Borrowers across America took a dive for low- or no-down-payment mortgages buoyed by the Federal Reserve's low-risk interest rates. Wall Street sliced the mortgages thinner than prosciutto ham, "spreading risk," and sold pieces all over the world, where, like magic, they seemed to fatten balance sheets. The deal was so win-win that Bear Stearns, Lehman, Merrill and the rest of the world's mega-banks engorged on their own product. It was as if foie gras geese forced corn and fat down their own throats. The risk of exploding seemed to be nil.

For behind it all sat Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, running mortgage liquidity into the nation's neighborhoods like an open fire hydrant. Several years ago, when the Journal's editorial board met with Fannie Mae's top executives and pressed the issue of financial risks, we were told by way of ending the conversation that Fannie was merely fulfilling the "mandate of Congress" to spread home ownership across the land. Congress, of course, is a temple to moral hazard.

"Moral hazard" is an odd phrase. Its meaning isn't obvious though it does sound like something one ought to avoid. "Moral hazard" dates back hundreds of years in obscurity, but its use eventually settled inside the insurance business in the 19th century. The French call it risque moral.

Back then, it really was taken to mean that reducing risk too much exposed people to the hazard of poor moral judgments. If an insurer charged too little for a policy to replace farms in the English countryside, Farmer Brown might be less careful about cows knocking over oil lamps in the barn.

In time, the economists got their hands on "moral hazard," and the first thing they did was strip out the heavy moral freight to make the concept value-neutral. Now moral hazard became less about judgment and more about the economic "inefficiencies" that occur in riskless environments.

We're back to the original meaning. Losing tons of money for an institution is an economic inefficiency. Lose the nation's financial structure, however, and moral fingers get wagged.

James Bovard says:

Unfortunately, individuals often are unaware of government's true record because the media are working hand in glove with the ruling class.

Statists rely on political arithmetic that begins by erasing all of government's abuses from the ledger. Instead, people should begin by pretending that Leviathan doesn't exist—and then ask what politicians can do to make the masses happy.

Modern political thinking largely consists of glorifying poorly functioning political machinery—the threats, bribes, and legislative cattle prods by which some people are made to submit to other people. It is a delusion to think of the state as something loftier than all the edicts, penalties, prison sentences, and taxes it imposes.

Like Tom Sawyer persuading his friends to pay him for the privilege of painting his aunt's fence, modern politicians expect people to be grateful for the chance to pay for the fetters that government attaches to them. Even though the average family now pays more in taxes than it spends for housing, clothing, and food combined, tax burdens are not an issue for most American political commentators.

To call for government intervention is to demand that some people be given the power to compel others to submit. But coercion is a blunt instrument that produces many ill effects aside from the purported government goal. To rely on coercion to achieve progress is like relying on bulldozers and steamrollers for routine transit. The question is not whether a person can eventually reach a goal driving a steamroller, but how much damage is left in his wake and how much faster the destination could be reached without crushing everything along the way.

Freedom Is Not the Issue? It Just Ain't So! by James Bovard.

That's an article in response to David Brooks...pretty much everything he says.

Further:

It was government and politicians, not freedom, that failed Americans in the new century. It was not freedom that wrecked the U.S. dollar. It was not freedom that made federal spending explode. It was not freedom that spurred a foreign war that has already left tens of thousands of Americans dead and maimed, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead. It was not freedom which announced that the Constitution and the statute book no longer bind the president.

Brooks became a media darling in part because of his vehement warnings about the danger of cynicism. But it is not cynical to have more faith in freedom than in subjugation. It is not cynical to have more faith in individuals vested with rights than in bureaucrats armed with power. It is not cynical to suspect that governments which have cheated so often in the past may not be dealing straight today.

I haven't mentioned it before now,

but I agree with Ralph Nader that the most important thing happening in American politics is the alignment of the third parties on these issues:

Foreign Policy: The Iraq War must end as quickly as possible with removal of all our soldiers from the region. We must initiate the return of our soldiers from around the world, including Korea, Japan, Europe and the entire Middle East. We must cease the war propaganda, threats of a blockade and plans for attacks on Iran, nor should we re-ignite the cold war with Russia over Georgia. We must be willing to talk to all countries and offer friendship and trade and travel to all who are willing. We must take off the table the threat of a nuclear first strike against all nations.

Privacy: We must protect the privacy and civil liberties of all persons under US jurisdiction. We must repeal or radically change the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and the FISA legislation. We must reject the notion and practice of torture, eliminations of habeas corpus, secret tribunals, and secret prisons. We must deny immunity for corporations that spy willingly on the people for the benefit of the government. We must reject the unitary presidency, the illegal use of signing statements and excessive use of executive orders.

The National Debt: We believe that there should be no increase in the national debt. The burden of debt placed on the next generation is unjust and already threatening our economy and the value of our dollar. We must pay our bills as we go along and not unfairly place this burden on a future generation.

The Federal Reserve: We seek a thorough investigation, evaluation and audit of the Federal Reserve System and its cozy relationships with the banking, corporate, and other financial institutions. The arbitrary power to create money and credit out of thin air behind closed doors for the benefit of commercial interests must be ended. There should be no taxpayer bailouts of corporations and no corporate subsidies. Corporations should be aggressively prosecuted for their crimes and frauds.

We support opening up the debates beyond the two parties and the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), a private corporation co-chaired by former chairmen of the Republican and Democratic Party. It is time for our Presidential Debates to once again be hosted by a truly non-partisan civic-minded association.

I see nothing to quibble with here. Though I think I'll take Ron Paul's advice and vote for Chuck Baldwin. Or maybe I should link his article "No Amnesty for Wall Street."

I think I'll vote third party right down the line, unless I find an incumbent who voted against any boondoggles. "Any and all boondoggles" I should say. I'd get more of what I want out of the Naderites and Greens than from any Republicans I know of (let alone the Democrats). Of course, down-ticket Libertarians will get my vote, but I don't know of any running for anything in my district, except for my old buddy Mary O'Conner.

Something that's been bothering me most of my life

can now be laid to rest, thank Google.

We had the radio on at work and the song "Blinded by the Light" came on. I commented that Springsteen wrote it back about 1970 and I'm surprised it wasn't forgotten 30 years ago.

It's a catchy tune. The tune deserves #1 status it achieved when Manfred Mann covered it in 1977 - makes you want to learn the song so you can sing it. But then you're repelled by the idiocy of the lyrics.

But it's "deuce", not "douche."

"Revved up like a deuce."

Takes a load off my mind.

Of course, that ain't how Springsteen sang it. Apparently, Manfred Mann's poor enunciation is what has led to its popularity and longevity. "Hahaha, he said 'douche'."

Nah, the longevity comes from the brilliance of the tune.

That doesn't save the rest of the lyrics, though.

"Yesterday was one of the worst days in decades for the power elite. It was one of the best for liberty."

--Lew Rockwell.

I gotta watch

this video. It comes highly recommended by David R. Henderson.

SAVE THE FATCATS!! copyright Alan Erkkila 2008

Make that into a bumper sticker by copying and pasting it into a word processing program and blowing it up as big as you want, print it out and tape it on with box sealing tape.

That's the cheapest and quickest way. Or you can print it out on label stock.

Here it is again:

SAVE THE FATCATS!!

BTW: add this article and the comments to the Reader.

Here you go

The Mises.org Bailout Reader. Read up.

This is the worst.

The worst.

I know a relative. She was pretty incensed at the insensitive, ignorant comments some people were making here.

Too bad all the kind things to say are cliches. It seems. I never know what to say.

God bless you, mom.

How about that Abel Upsher!

I've taken this from the intorduction to A BRIEF ENQUIRY INTO THE TRUE NATURE AND CHARACTER OF OUR FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: BEING A REVIEW OF JUDGE STORY'S COMMENTARIES ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES:

This review of Judge Story's Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States is perhaps the ablest analysis of the nature and character of the Federal Government that has ever been published. It has remained unanswered. Indeed, we are not aware that any attempt has been made to invalidate the soundness of its reasoning. As a law writer, Judge Story has been regarded as one of the ablest of his school, which was that of the straightest type of "Federalists" of the elder Adams's party. His commentaries are a good deal marred with the peculiar partisan doctrines of that school of politicians; indeed, they may be looked upon as a plea for the severe political principles which ruled the administration of President John Adams. The Alien and Sedition Laws, which have long since passed into a by-word of reproach, will still find abundant support in Judge Story's Commentaries. He perpetually insisted on construing the Constitution from the standpoint of that small and defeated party in the Federal Convention which wanted to form a government on the model of the English monarchy in everything but the name.

The interesting thing is that, for the first half century of our independence, the Federalist interpretation of the Constitution didn't have much sway. The Anti-Federalists lost the battle against the Constitution, but won the war over its interpretation.

I got that info from FEE's Sheldon Richman in one of his recent TGIF articles, and one he cited; either Richman's Was the Constitution Really Meant to Constrain the Government or The Constitution or Liberty, I forget which. Oh, it was the first article, last link. You'll know it when you see it.

How about those "non-economic factors"?

Walter Williams says:

A completely ignored aspect of restricting private property rights is the restriction on the right to profits. Pretend you own a firm and you can hire one of two equally capable secretaries. The pretty secretary demands $300 a week, while the homely secretary is willing to work for $200. If you hired the homely secretary, your profits would be $100 greater. But what if there were a 50 percent profit tax? The tax would reduce your profit, thereby reducing your cost of discriminating against the homely secretary. Before the profit tax, the cost of discriminating against the homely secretary would be $100. After the profit tax, that discrimination would cost you only $50. Discriminating against the homely secretary would be consistent with the predictions of the law of demand: the lower the cost of doing something, the more people will do it. Hiring the pretty secretary would put the profits in a non monetary and hence nontaxable form. Wherever private property rights to profits are attenuated, we expect more choices to be made on the basis of non-economic factors, such as race and other physical attributes. That’s especially the case where there is no profit motive at all, such as nonprofit entities like government and universities.

How government makes discrimination affordable.

Apropos of nothing, fifty bucks goes pretty damn quick if you spend it to look at pretty women.

Note for later

I gotta check this out. It's a Weird Al song.

Whattaya think?

Left Libertarianism?

Although the state capitalism of the twentieth century (as opposed to the earlier misnamed "laissez faire" variant, in which the statist character of the system was largely disguised as a "neutral" legal framework) had its roots in the mid-nineteenth century, it received great impetus as an elite ideology during the depression of the 1890s. From that time on, the problems of overproduction and surplus capital, the danger of domestic class warfare, and the need for the state to solve them, figured large in the perception of the corporate elite. The shift in elite consensus in the 1890s (toward corporate liberalism and foreign expansion) was as profound as that of the 1970s, when reaction to wildcat strikes, the "crisis of governability," and the looming "capital shortage" led the power elite to abandon corporate liberalism in favor of neo-liberalism.

That's as close as I want to get to a conspiracy theory. This is Terry Arthur, but I got the article via Kevin Carson.

Kevin's gone and gotten famous around here.

Get out your Equinox costumes!

Sol crosses the Equator at 3:44 this afternoon - you want to be ready to celebrate!

How do you celebrate the Equinox?

I usually dress like a fairy and dance around a Maypole.

Sorry, I lost my camera. (Whew!)

Here's FEE's In Brief for today:

The Freeman: The Recurring Crisis

9/18/2008

Recently the governor of the Bank of England announced that the nice times had come to an end. (In the Bank's lexicon, NICE = Non-Inflationary Constant Expansion). This news will not come as any shock to the many Americans who have had their homes repossessed recently, but it does appear to have startled many of the scribblers who make their living from the financial pages on my side of the Pond. One of the two most striking features of the current financial contretemps is the way it has seemingly come as a complete surprise to most financial commentators and economists. (The other is the way that financiers and bankers who have spent the last few years presenting themselves as buccaneering entrepreneurs have suddenly discovered a fondness for taxpayer bailouts.) As recently as a year ago, most commentators in the financial press were convinced there was no real prospect of a major correction to the real-estate market, much less a serious financial crisis. There were dissenting Jeremiahs who warned that things could not go on as they had been, but they were in the minority. (They included the most successful investor in America, Warren Buffett.) With no sense of satisfaction I report that I was, in my own small way, one of the Jeremiahs. I did not foresee all that has happened -- neither did anybody else -- but the broad outline was clear. Why did the majority miss it? The answer is a combination of common sense and a historical perspective informed by a certain approach to economics. More . . .

A NEW article by Stephen Davies


Central Banks Pump Money into Markets

9/18/2008

"The Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and other central banks massively escalated the assistance offered to global money markets on Thursday, coordinating efforts to ease funding constraints stemming from the financial turmoil emanating from Wall Street." (New York Times, Thursday)

If one inept central bank can't handle things, the obvious answer is a consortium of inept central banks.

FEE Timely Classic
"Banking Before the Federal Reserve: The U.S. and Canada Compared" by Donald R. Wells



GM Wants Government Loans for High-Tech Cars

9/18/2008

"General Motors chief executive Rick Wagoner yesterday offered no guarantee that the auto giant would use American-made batteries in its new electric-powered car, the Chevrolet Volt, even as Detroit automakers pressed for $25 billion in U.S. government loans to support the development of advanced-technology vehicles in this country." (Washington Post, Thursday)

If you think business favors free markets, read some history.

FEE Timely Classic
"Atlas Shrugged and the Corporate State" by Sheldon Richman

Does anybody know what

"Seeking transcendence one relationship at a time" means?

It makes me think of the song "Margaritaville" for some reason.

Hey! It's Constitution Day!

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, secure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America.

I won't quote the whole thing, just section 1 of each article.

Article I, section 1: All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

Section 8 holds the enumerated powers of the government. Well worth your time to study.

Article II, section 1: The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows.

The rest of that thought is completed in the next article. Good thing none of my English teachers never saw that.

Article III, section 1: The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behavior, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.

Article IV, section 1: Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State; And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.

Article V: The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

Article VI, section 1: All debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.

Article VII: The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.

Done in Convention by the unanimous consent of the States present the seventeenth day of September in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth.

Next up, Bill of Rights Day on the 15th of December.

In case you don't read this all the way to the bottom, here's the conclusion

From The Fed Should Inflate to End the Financial Crisis? It Just Ain't So!
By Ivan Pongracic, Jr.

It's not surprising that Wall Street wants to be bailed out through inflation. They would receive the benefits of the increased liquidity while the rest of us would bear the costs. Their profits would remain private while their losses would be socialized and spread out among the rest of the society through inflation. It is exactly this kind of policy that contributed to the current mess. In 1998 the Long-Term Capital Management hedge fund was deemed “too big to fail” and was bailed out. In the process, the Fed created a severe moral hazard: by protecting some people from the downside of their risky actions, the central bank encouraged such actions. The Fed's bailout policy is at least partly responsible for the Wall Street excesses; the hedge funds came to expect that the Fed would not chance a failure of the financial system. The so-called “Greenspan put” is now clearly the “Bernanke put.”

Yeah, I never heard it called that before either.

If the Fed continues to inflate, as Makin recommends, it would simply postpone the day of reckoning. Rather than letting the bad investments be cleared out now, reflation would further distort relative prices, likely leading to significant errors down the road and more bubbles in other sectors (as may already be happening in the commodities markets). This is how one crisis begets a bigger one. We must allow the distortions introduced by the activist Fed to be discovered and corrected. The odds that the government will eventually nationalize the mortgage markets will be much higher if the current crisis is treated by planting the seeds for a much bigger one in the future.

Pongracic also wrote a review of Mark Skousen's Vienna & Chicago: Friends or Foes?, A Tale of Two Schools of Free-Market Economics which he titled Methodenstreit Comix

Just so that we are clear here — readers, please forgive the tedium — praxeology does not mean that the economist does no historical research. It means that theory itself is not generated and proven by means of historical studies. Theory is employed to understand history, and history to illuminate theory. (See Mises's Theory and History.) Doing history without theory answers no questions about causation, and ends in intellectual chaos. And although Skousen himself admits that empirical evidence can go awry, he proclaims at the end of the chapter that Chicago is the winner of the methodological dispute.

...

Worth mentioning is the chapter on gold and fiat money. After a rather thorough discussion about the pluses and minuses of the fractional reserve system, after declaring gold and silver "as honest money," Skousen seemed like he was going to pronounce the Austrians as winners. I became suspicious, however, when Skousen attacked Rothbard's The Case Against the Fed as too radical. The Fed, according to Skousen, cannot be that bad. After all, the Fed is a part of a serious system. "And most importantly, Fed actions are graded every day in the stock, bond and foreign currency market."

Is Skousen really that naïve? The Fed under the Greenspan leadership has been anything but graded in the financial market. It has been behaving like there is no tomorrow. There is now an increasing number of financial experts calling Greenspan the worst Fed chief ever. According to these individuals, Greenspan intentionally created a bubble over the last decade — several bubbles — that can only end in catastrophe. Preaching deregulation, he created a mountain of bad debt that will create a mountain of bankruptcies and a runaway inflation, with a high possibility of a deep recession, or even worse.

This review was written in 2005, not yesterday. Read the whole thing.

The Truth Laid Bear must be glitching again.

He's calling me a large mammal today. Either a bunch of people have decided they hate him and dropped out, or he's got some fixin' to do.

Oop. Update: I'm back down to "Flappy Bird." Which is better than what I've been the past few months.

Update II: Ah crap, back to normal.

Hey! Cool!

Look at this! Thanks, Mr. Pt!

Who is your favorite Whig?
	Thomas Jefferson
	John Locke
	Abe Lincoln
	Thomas Macauley
	Lord Acton
	Lord Shaftesbury
	Henry Clay
	Edmund Burke
	Me
	Other
pollcode.com free polls

Arthur Silber, whom I read fairly often,

but I doubt if I've ever quoted, says (and I'm quoting the same section FNN quoted):

A major part (perhaps the major part) of the U.S. economy has treated debts as assets for a long time. The best and brightest made it appear sophisticated and smart: they took debts and securitized them, chopped them up, repackaged them, recombined them, splintered them some more, repackaged and sold those, and on and on it went. This process doesn't turn nothing into something: it spreads the nothing among more and more institutions and makes the entire system increasingly vulnerable. Everyone pretends that the nothing is backed by something, but it isn't. To be more precise, as in the case of Fannie and Freddie, for example, there is $1 of something for every $80 of nothing. In fact, there's much more nothing, when you add in the repackaging, recombining, splintering, selling and reselling. That's a lot of nothing, and almost no something.

This is how con games work. Your parents probably explained this to you, many years ago. You forgot, or you didn't believe it. Believe it now.

There's more there about where we're at. Go read it.

I get a lot of stock advisory emails from people I generally,

sort of, trust, in a way.

I'll probably get myself excommunicated from a bunch of lists for telling you about this guy, The Stock Gumshoe, who goes over the copy of these things and tells you what they're all about. Transparency is the watchword in investing, and this guy gives it to you.

I've never invested a nickel in any of these newsletters, I just take the free ones and wonder "Which idea can I invest my pittance in. What can I really believe?" The Gumshoe separates the bs from the truth for you.

Mark Thornton says

If we want to avoid the next great depression, all such government interventions should cease. [That's all the housing stuff he's talking about. -Al] The Treasury Department should revise their recent action and turn their proposed conservatorship of Fannie and Freddie into a bankruptcy receivership that would ultimately liquidate the corporation and their liabilities. Meanwhile the Fed should announce its intent to stop Term Auction Facilities and close the discount window to all but its traditional customers. To reduce the negative impact of the recession, government should cease foreign hostilities, reduce military spending, balance the budget, and cut taxes and regulations.

How to Avoid Another Depression.

I recommend reading this alongside The Nation's article on the Freddie and Fannie takeover, State Capitalism Comes to America.

I made fun of the Birchers a while back, but

I can't find a thing wrong with this video series though.

Watch it and we'll talk.

The only reason it's "impossible" to re-establish the Free Enterprise System

is political will: the people's and those who should be working to persuade them. Benjamin Rogge explained what's up in "The Case for Economic Freedom". Here's that section of the article:

The Moral Case

You will note as I develop my case that I attach relatively little importance to the demonstrated efficiency of the free-market system in promoting economic growth, in raising levels of living. In fact, my central thesis is that the most important part of the case for economic freedom is not its vaunted efficiency as a system for organizing resources, not its dramatic success in promoting economic growth, but rather its consistency with certain fundamental moral principles of life itself.

I say, the most important part of the case for two reasons. First, the significance I attach to those moral principles would lead me to prefer the free enterprise system even if it were demonstrably less efficient than alternative systems, even if it were to produce a slower rate of economic growth than systems of central direction and control. Second, the great mass of the people of any country is never really going to understand the purely economic workings of any economic system, be it free enterprise or socialism. Hence, most people are going to judge an economic system by its consistency with their moral principles rather than by its purely scientific operating characteristics. If economic freedom survives in the years ahead, it will be only because a majority of the people accept its basic morality. The success of the system in bringing ever higher levels of living will be no more persuasive in the future than it has been in the past. Let me illustrate.

The doctrine of man held in general in nineteenth-century America argued that each man was ultimately responsible for what happened to him, for his own salvation, both in the here and now and in the hereafter. Thus, whether a man prospered or failed in economic life was each man’s individual responsibility: Each man had a right to the rewards for success and, in the same sense, deserved the punishment that came with failure. It followed as well that it is explicitly immoral to use the power of government to take from one man to give to another, to legalize Robin Hood. This doctrine of man found its economic counterpart in the system of free enterprise and, hence, the system of free enterprise was accepted and respected by many who had no real understanding of its subtleties as a technique for organizing resource use.

As this doctrine of man was replaced by one which made of man a helpless victim of his subconscious and his environment—responsible for neither his successes nor his failures—the free enterprise system came to be rejected by many who still had no real understanding of its actual operating characteristics.

And Rogge kindly describes the Libertarian Vision for me:

The vulgar calculus of the marketplace, as its critics have described it, is still the most humane way man has yet found for solving those questions of economic allocation and division which are ubiquitous in human society. By what must seem fortunate coincidence, it is also the system most likely to produce the affluent society, to move mankind above an existence in which life is mean, nasty, brutish, and short. But, of course, this is not just coincidence. Under economic freedom, only man’s destructive instincts are curbed by law. All of his creative instincts are released and freed to work those wonders of which free men are capable. In the controlled society only the creativity of the few at the top can be utilized, and much of this creativity must be expended in maintaining control and in fending off rivals. In the free society, the creativity of every man can be expressed—and surely by now we know that we cannot predict who will prove to be the most creative.

And all it takes is the Zero Aggression Principle. [I was going to link El Neil, but I thought a little more explanation might be in order. This guy does a pretty good job too. He's not as dry.]

Speaking of Mr. Smith, whattaya think of this version of American History? To Smith: You know... I'm trying to find reasons to like McCain, here!

Somebody just sent me that "Ship High in Transit" story.

Snopes isn't letting me cut and paste from there, but they handle it beautifully. Basically, Old English words don't come from acronyms. Not even f---.

What's the scoop on crap?

Snopes doesn't have it, but I here you go:

crap
"defecate" 1846 (v.), 1898 (n.), from one of a cluster of words generally applied to things cast off or discarded (e.g. "weeds growing among corn" (1425), "residue from renderings" (1490s), 18c. underworld slang for "money," and in Shropshire, "dregs of beer or ale"), all probably from M.E. crappe "grain that was trodden underfoot in a barn, chaff" (c.1440), from M.Fr. crape "siftings," from O.Fr. crappe, from M.L. crappa, crapinum "chaff." Sense of "rubbish, nonsense" also first recorded 1898. Despite folk etymology insistence, not from Thomas Crapper (1837-1910) who was, however, a busy plumber and may have had some minor role in the development of modern toilets. The name Crapper is a northern form of Cropper (attested from 1221), an occupational surname, obviously, but the exact reference is unclear.

Wags welcome.

I believe I might just let myself be swayed

by the pretty face of Sarah Palin.

Don't wast time on BS

and, particularly, don't waste police resources on things you'll never get control of. That's a major message of mine and Art Carden reinforces my point in Sex, Violence, and the Culture War:

Stewardship demands that we use our resources wisely. This extends to the moral and political sphere as well as to personal finance. The relationship between pornography and crime illustrates the fact that in an imperfect world with limited resources — and, therefore, tradeoffs — seemingly black-and-white moral issues are more complex than they first appear. These studies suggest that legislative battles against pornography are likely to be counterproductive.

That's the last paragraph. I encourage you to read the rest. The important point is that it looks like the availability of internet porn reduces the number of rapes significantly. Keep the pervs at home, eh?

Is that ad for The Cult of the Presidency

still on my sidebar? That's a book I want to get and read. Not that I don't already have hundreds of books that I bought and really want to read.

Here's the link, in case the ad goes away. Actually, I should give you this link to the Reason review.

Right now, I'm reading Government Failure: a Primer in Public Choice, by Tullock, Seldon and Brady, and The New Nation: A History of the United States During the Confederation 1781-1789, by Merrill Jensen.

I don't know that I'll learn anything new from Government Failure, it's what I've mostly been writing about - at least it's what I've meant to be writing about - for the last five [Five?! Holy Cow!] years. But it's great to see it laid out systematically.

I learn something new on almost every page of The New Nation. But I think I'll try to curb my enthusiasm until I finish it. Maybe I'll actually takes notes and write a real review, rather than just posting a few exerpts that surprised or thrilled me and then losing the book in the pile, like I usually do.

Here, I just got this over at Amazon; I think I'll put it here. I can't think of where else to put it without screwing up my template. Or annoying my family.

Hey! Austrian Economics in a nutshell!

From the introduction to Hans-Hermann Hoppe's Democracy: The God That Failed:

Human action is an actor's purposeful pursuit of valued ends with scarce means. No one can purposefully not act. Every action is aimed at improving the actor's subjective well-being above what it otherwise would have been. A larger quantity of a good is valued more highly than a smaller quantity of the same good. Satisfaction earlier is preferred over satisfaction later. Production must proceed consumption. What is consumed now cannot be consumed again in the future. If the price of a good is lowered, either the same quantity or more will be bought than otherwise. Prices fixed below market clearing prices will lead to lasting shortages. Without private property in factors of production there can be no factor prices, and without factor prices cost-accounting is impossible. Taxes are an imposition on producers and/or wealth owners and reduce production and/or wealth below what it otherwise would have been. Interpersonal conflict is possible only if and insofar as things are scarce. No thing or part of a thing can be owned exclusively by more than one person at a time. Democracy (majority rule) is incompatible with private property (individual ownership and rule). No form of taxation can be uniform (equal), but every taxation involves the creation of two distinct and unequal classes of tax-payers vs. tax-receiver-consumers. Property and property titles are distinct entities, and an increase of the latter without a corresponding increase of the former does not raise social wealth but leads to a redistribution of existing wealth.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident," to abuse Mr. Jefferson's phrase.

Well! Someone has expressed an interest in my opinion!

There's something that doesn't happen every day. And it's not even my birthday anymore.

BTW, I resent the crack about the wacko in the basement. Who do you think you're talking to, sir? Of course, I don't claim to be a political party (although I am, apparently, the only bourgeois philistine in Minnesota).

Comments on Modern Whiggism, as I'm reading their website:
The block grant idea would be an improvement over what we're doing now. Of course, it would be better yet if the central government weren't the distributor of our taxes.

The Iraq and Afghanistan points are two steps in the right direction. I wouldn't bitch much if we did just that.

I think you'll discover the true meaning of "Government Failure" if you enact the policies in "Environmental Protection and National Security." Somebody will have to make judgments, and it won't be me or you. If it were me, I suspect you'd be sounding like an AFSCME member during the '80s.

Immigration: ah, it's another step in the right direction. But only assuming you accept the status quo. I like Ron Paul, but I thought his position on this was excessively statist.

China, Foreign Aid and the WTO: Tax breaks and deregulation in this country, re-establishing America as The Land of Opportunity are all we need. I can see tough inspections of foreign goods entering the country as well. Apply that to the people, too.

Israel: Agreed, though I haven't heard much to justify those settlement blocks.

Religion: Christmas and other religious displays on public property should be handled like any other demonstration. I think I'm agreeing with you here.

Gay Rights: damn right.

Health Care: freedom is the answer; not more mandates. But, like you, I question why birth control is excluded from drug coverage. I want to hear that excuse.

Abortion: I'll go for that.

Affirmative Action: yeah, that'd be better than the status quo.

Science and Technology: Damn! Amen, buddy!

On the matters where you advocate Federalism: I don't respect the states that much; St. Paul is every bit as much of a thorn in my side as Washington. Let's talk about bringing the authority down to the county level. Of course, in the end, I want it at the individual level.

OK, now I have to read somebody a story. You probably didn't notice that I had to stop and read to the littler girl once already.

45

There is now, therefore, no new thing under the sun.

At least, not me.

Mr. Richman says...

A couple things, actually, though they're all tending to the same effect (hm, I thought I was quoting The Declaration, but I guess not)... Anyway, he has some gloomy news for us in two articles.

From "Was the Constitution Really Meant to Constrain the Government?"

A shortcut favored by most advocates of limited government is "restoration" of the Constitution. "If only we could get back to the Constitution as it was written," people say. It's a sincere wish, but as a path to a free society, it's riddled with potholes. Not that I don't want the Constitution interpreted in the most restrictive way in order to prevent violations of liberty. Of course I do. The problem is how we can get there from here. Many advocates of liberty have thought they just had to appeal to the “original meaning” of the Constitution and things would more or less take care of themselves. But if that were so, why are we in the mess we're in now? I presume that earlier generations interpreted the Constitution in a way more to the liking of today's constitutionalists. What happened? Since that time, the Constitution has never been suspended; the government wasn't replaced by a non-constitutional regime. The formal Constitution has been in force continuously since 1789. Everything that happened was justified constitutionally.

And from The Constitution or Liberty:

It is important to separate two issues: what the Constitution appears to say and how we evaluate it. We must resist the temptation to let our political-moral views warp our reading of the document. The ultimate political value for libertarians is not the Constitution but liberty-and-justice. If the former fails to support the latter, we must not hesitate to say so. We gain nothing for the cause by supporting it with arguments that are easily knocked down.

If the foundation of our case for liberty is nothing more than the Constitution -- rather than natural-law justice -- we will continue to be trumped by our opponents. After all, the Constitution was in effect all during the time the national government expanded and liberty shrank. As Lysander Spooner wrote, the Constitution "has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it." Liberty's champions have to come to terms with that logic.

But, back to the more recent article:

My message is not one of despair. But we will not cause the freedom philosophy to prevail merely by invoking a political document written by men who thought the main problem with America was too little, not too much, government. Rather, we must cut to the chase and convince people directly that our concepts of freedom and justice best accord with logic -- and their own deepest moral sense.

And don't ignore the

To be continued.

Siegfried is Armenius!

I wrote a paper on the Nibelungenlied in my Middle High German class in college and I new a fair bit about Armenius (Hermann the German). I think it's cool as hell that the philologists have brought these two together.

Oh! The link!

Hey, guys! I bet you can't wait to sink your teeth

into this: the world's oldest edible ham!

I was just browsing around the Roadside America website and ran across that.

© Al Erkkila 2008

I just found out you can type those things just by holding down your Alt key and typing in numbers.

Š ¨

I guess I gotta track down my ANSI character codes.

;&ouml.

No, that's not it...

How the pros do it:

One illustration of the difficulty of prediction is to look at the job analysts have done in predicting the earnings of companies they are paid to follow and study. Investment expert David Dreman studied analyst forecasts in collaboration with Michael Berry of James Madison University.3 The study was subsequently updated to include data to 1996. They took analysts’ quarterly forecasts and compared them to the actual quarterly earnings for the period 1973 through 1996. The forecasts included 94,251 consensus forecasts (each consensus forecast included at least four separate analyst predictions resulting in over 500,000 individual predictions).

The analysts were able to speak with management to help guide them in their own forecasts. They were also able to change their forecasts within three months of quarter-end. These analysts are highly compensated and often educated at the nation’s top schools; their compensation is often tied to their ability to predict.

Despite all these advantages, the study found the average error rate was 44 percent. The error rates also seemed to grow larger over time. Thus despite advances in communications and technology, error rates in the last eight years of the study (from 1996) averaged 50 percent, with two of those years having error rates of 57 and 65 percent.

Dreman eliminated all earnings estimates less than ten cents per share to prevent large percentage errors from distorting the study. (The difference between 3 cents and 4 cents is a whopping 33 percent.) Even after this conservative adjustment, the error rates still averaged 23 percent. This means that, on average, if the consensus forecast called for a dollar in quarterly earnings, the analysts were off by an average of 23 cents. Dreman and Berry further broke down the data and found that the error rates were indistinguishable by industry type. Mature or budding industry, analysts were often wrong by wide margins.

It is astounding that they were so wrong so often.

Then they go on to wonder how things are going at the Fed.

Quote of the week (probably)

Economists and Scarcity, by Steven Horwitz

In the short run, exchange—whether a trade between two people or an act of production that trades inputs for outputs—makes people better off. This results not by creating more physical stuff but by rearranging what exists to make it more valuable to human beings. While we each think we’re better off when we make an exchange, mutual benefit does not require a denial of scarcity; rather, exchange is one more way we push back against it.

This mutual benefit reinforces the point that value is a product of human minds, not of the objective physical world. In fact, we cannot even understand the concept “resource” without recognizing this point. For most of human history oil was a nuisance. People didn’t want land with oil on it because it polluted the soil. However, once human minds realized that it could be converted to energy, it became a resource, and as we begin to create substitutes for it, as with copper wire, it will become less of a resource. From an economic perspective, what makes something a resource and what determines its scarcity is the interplay between its physical quantity and the human mind’s perception that it can satisfy human wants.

In the longer run, the benefits of exchange, when combined with the institutions of the market, create the wealth that people can save in order to finance the investments that will lead to better and cheaper products for exchange. Real, tangible economic growth happens—not just for the wealthy, but for all. Again, we stretch the resources we do have even farther.

Theory aside, it would also be hard to deny that several centuries of more or less free markets have produced a tremendous rise in the living standards of the poorest people in the West. The same is beginning to happen elsewhere. To argue that the wealth of the wealthy is the cause of the poverty of the poor (the “some win at the expense of others” argument) flies in the face of historical facts.

Poverty and early death have been the norm throughout history. The power of private property, free exchange, and markets to change that norm has been the single most progressive force in human history. Scarcity is all too real and causes all too much human suffering, which is why we need genuine market institutions to continue to reduce its effects, especially on those who suffer most.

You see, we do care. Our way, the system of natural liberty, works. Those others don't.

I agree with the New Zealanders

about Eve Mendez' ad.

As a marketing student, though, I have to ask, does that ad sell what Calvin Klein want to sell? It just makes me want to buy Eva Mendez.

Think I should write something?

I'm aghast at the Favre situation. Solzhenytzin died yesterday, and we went to the Deer River Rendezvous last weekend. Didn't have enough spare cash to "really" have fun, but we camped, we explored, we shopped, we told stories around the fire.

I borrowed 10 bucks from a guy to buy a throwing knife. ["I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a deadly weapon today."] Just when I was starting to get the hang of it, I bent the blade. I'm going to have to try out my new anvil.

Hey, Robert Ringer says the economy's about to go to s**t, so we should vote in the socialists so they can take the rap. I'll tell ya something, though: they might manage to mitigate the disaster by cutting our military spending. Of course, they'll keep asking the military to save the world, just without using money. And it'll be under the aegis of the UN.

Vote for Barr.

Gary North says:

I’m in a good mood because everything is happening as it should.
When people spend too much money...when speculators gamble too
recklessly...when the government gives out to much cash and credit – there
have to be consequences. A free market is not a system designed to give
people a free lunch. It’s designed to make them better people – by
rewarding them when they do the right thing and punishing them when they
do the wrong thing. For the last 20 years – at least – people have been
doing things that the old economists would have regarded as ‘moral
failings.’ That is, they’ve been spending more than they make...for
example. Now, they’ve being punished. They’re being re-educated. And
they’re going to end up poorer...but wiser.

Frankly, we’d rather be dumber and richer, but the markets don’t give you
that choice. They separate fools from their money. That’s what they’re
doing now. So, what’s to be unhappy about?

My emphasis.

The workings of Demand-Side (aka Keynesian) Economics.

Remember who said "We're all Keynesians now"? Would you buy an apple from the man?

Sorry I haven't seemed to be around.

I checked in and looked a couple times, but I've been busy loading software and playing with it. I had Adobe read from Rothbard's Man, Economy and State to me, and I let Rosie load a game on here that wouldn't work on the old computer, and we've been goofing around with that. Checked out the new Works word processor. It's almost as good as Word.

I'm trying to figure out where I got ACDSee from. It's on one of my photoprocessing disks I think. I'd like to have that on here.

I ran seven miles today. Took me 80 minutes. Sucks. I'm trying to come back from the hip problem and the broken toe. It's slow going, but the bike should help. It's a five mile ride to work (I can't take the most direct route - it wouldn't be safe), so if I ride to work every day of my wife's summer vacation, I should make pretty big strides in my conditioning.

My plan, as of this moment, is to run 2 1/2 miles before riding to work tomorrow, just do the ride Tuesday and do my lunch hour walk whenever I feel up to it. We'll see whether I feel like running Wednesday, or whether I should rest more.

And biking to work will save quite a bit of gas, of course. We certainly need to do that now.

Hey Kids!

I got a new computer! How much do people usually tell about their new computers on the web? Oh, well, nobody's really looking anyway.

We went cheap, it's a Dell Inspiron, with blah-biddy-blah Mb memory and a blah-de-blah Mb harddrive. All I really know is that we've got four times the memory of our old computer for a quarter the price.

Can I really tell the difference? Yeah, sure. We'll give her a real workout after Rosie goes to bed. She's bugging me to read to her. And not from the blog. Not even your blog.

I notice it (the blog) looks a bit screwed up. I'll have to do something about that, I suppose.

I also got my bike fixed up. I rode it to work today.

Maybe this quote

from Albert J. Nock's "On Doing the Right Thing," more rightly belongs up top:

In suggesting that we try freedom, therefore, the anarchist and individualist has a strictly practical aim. He aims at the production of a race of responsible beings. He wants more room for the savoir se gener, more scope for the noblesse oblige, a larger place of the sense of the Right Thing. If our legalists and authoritarians could once get this well through their heads, they would save themselves a vast deal of silly insistence on a half-truth and upon the suppressio veri, which is the meanest and lowest form of misrepresentation. Freedom, for example, as they keep insisting, undoubtedly means freedom to drink oneself to death. The anarchist grants this at once; but at the smae time he points out that it also means freedom to say with the grave digger in "Les Miserables," "I have studied, I have graduated; I never drink." It unquestionably means freedom to go on without any code of morals at all; but it also means freedom to rationalise, construct and adhere to a code of one's own. The anarchist presses the point invariably overlooked, that freedom to the one without correlative freedom to do the other is impossible; and that just here comes in the moral education which legalism and authoritarianism, with their denial of freedom, can never furnish.

Or not. Might need some paraphrasing, I don't know.

I'm tempted to put this first paragraph up on top

of the blog. L. Neil Smith says:

[I]t should be a major objective of any popular reform movement to abolish Sovereign Immunity, that ancient and highly evil custom under which "the King can do no wrong" and a supposedly democratic government has to give its permission to be sued.

Along with this reform, two others are called for. First, any law—including a portion of the Constitution—that shields politicians from crimes they commit in office must be struck down. And to those holdouts who maintain that if these things were done, the government would be buried in lawsuits and unable to "get anything done" (and this is bad because ... ?), you have but to adopt the "loser pays" rule in civil court, to diminish the number of "nuisance" suits that are filed.

There also needs to be a Penalty Clause written into the Bill of Rights.

The corporate equivalent of Sovereign Immunity is called "Limited Liability", a so-called "legal fiction" (English translation: a highly profitable lie, courtesy of the splendid legal profession) under which corporations are viewed and dealt with as individuals, the debts of their owners are limited to whatever they have invested in the corporation (this is exactly like fining a murderer only whatever he paid for the knife, skillet, monkey-wrench, or gun he used to kill somebody with), and the owners of corporations evade responsibility for the evil committed by, say, a Halliburton or a Blackwater USA. Without this change, while the politicians face war crimes trials, the directors and stockholders can sit back and watch the whole thing on TV.

Here's another fun quote, from Michael Rozeff at LewRockwell.com:

The notion of "We the People" hides a critical weakness in this political theory of Government, which otherwise is extremely attractive in its affirmation of a person’s rights and in its view of the derivative rights (or powers) of a Government. The theory leaves unanswered two questions. First, how do good People become a People? Second, how does a People provide its consent to a Government?

Shouldn’t they logically become a People in such a way as to maintain their primary rights? Shouldn’t they logically provide their consent to a Government while maintaining their primary rights? They should. Otherwise, the foundations of the theory are being contradicted.

And another, from Vin Suprynowicz:

[Y]our public school teacher had a fatal conflict of interest when he or she taught you "why we need to have a central state, with the power to shoot or jail people who don't pay up." I'll bet he or she never mentioned, as one of the reasons, "Because otherwise my paychecks would stop coming."

Be deeply suspicious therefore of most of the reasons you've been given for "why we need a central state." When stop signs are removed and speed limits raised or eliminated -- when people stop depending on the false assurance that such "rules" will bind the drunk and disorderly -- accident rates go down, not up (see John Staddon, in this month's Atlantic.) When more potential crime victims are "allowed" to carry concealed handguns, violent crime rates go down, not up (See John Lott's "More Guns, Less Crime.")

Feel free to extend this premise to most of the other reasons you've been told we "need" a powerful government regulating everything, most especially the notion that we "need" the guvgoons to jail hundreds of thousands of drug users. Nobody jailed them before 1914, and America was so safe that hardly anyone locked their doors.

Christopher Westley has an economic history lesson for us:

How Fannie and Freddie Made Me a Grumpy Economist:

From the beginning, first Fannie and then Freddie (which was created in 1970) served the purpose of shielding the public from the adverse effects of expansive government — and bad fiscal policy in particular. This makes government relatively more tolerable to the rank and file.

The creation of both entities, I told the host, was a mistake, because it created greater investment in housing and home ownership than would have been justified by market forces. The result is an inefficient use of resources — a malinvestment. Furthermore, entities like Fannie and Freddie forced out private firms that otherwise would have satisfied the demand for housing, but couldn't, because they lacked the preferential treatment from which Fannie and Freddie benefited, especially in terms of taxes and regulations.

By the 1960s, Fannie was turned into a GSE — a government-sponsored enterprise. (Freddie was created as a GSE from the beginning.) This structured their operations so that they would become more like private firms, required to offer stock and compete in the marketplace, with the understanding that they would finance themselves out of their own profits. This is not an arrangement that has worked well for the post office or Amtrak, but with the first of the baby boomers getting their starter homes, and then later when the dollar's last remaining ties to gold were severed, it worked better for Fannie and Freddie, especially since they were allowed to maintain some of the privileges denied their competitors.

For most of their history, Fannie and Freddie were (in my opinion) relatively benign. They never should have been created, but they didn't do much harm. This would change in the 1990s, when they became big players in the economy. That is when the current problems began.

See the previous post.

A new "Road to Serfdom"

From THE SAD ROAD TO SOCIALISM: What happens When Private Property is No Longer a Right, by John Loeffler

The Three Steps of Socialism

Socialism is the mechanism which transforms government from its noble role as a protector into a predator and, since the citizens of our fine country seem determined to plow through socialism to its bitter end, we should examine the territory through which these three sad steps lead. The core result of socialism is the destruction of private property and wealth.

The events described in this piece are a composite of the ravages of socialism experienced in other countries. While each country does experience all the events portrayed, all socialist countries follow the same miserable path. The U.S. doesn’t have to go down this path, but it seems determines to do so.

We’re Off to See the Wizard

One of the great dangers of any government by the people is that sooner or later their politicians discover they can vote largess from the public trust. Their first experiment at this bold new adventure invariably revolves around social programs enacted in the name of morality and the public good or even solving some current crisis. Who could oppose that? “After all,” it will be argued, “don’t you care about people, or the welfare of the country, or the environment?”

The lure of this argument has been absolutely irresistible from the Roman Empire to the French and Bolshevik revolutions to Socialist Parties (D) and (R) in the USA today.

We can "care about people, or the welfare of the country, or the environment" without bringing in the guys with guns.

I read a most interesting article this morning before work.

Contra Anarcho-Capitalism: A Term of Contradiction and Historic Ignorance, by Ante Simtapalic.

“But what’s so wrong with the word capitalism? Don’t you love the free-market?” an “Anarcho-capitalist” might ask.

To answer, that so many conflate free-market with capitalism remains one of the greatest disappointments of political terminology; completely divergent from the principle of free and voluntary association, as Kropotkin and Rothbard both aspire to create, the system of capitalism is one of economic exploitation by the definition of the word, or at least in its original phraseology. As created in the context of an economic system, the coinage of the word capitalism, far from referring to the actual substance of a free-market, mostly references the symptoms of the world seen by many socialists as exploitative. Proven indirectly from contemporary socialists describing capitalism as “the social system which now exists in all countries of the world” and directly from the nature by which the first anti-capitalists observed the capitalist mentality, that capitalism always meant economic coercion by the strong lording over the weak seems fairly ironclad. Arguing that capitalism is what modern society suffers from, socialists make it clear that capitalism is not synonymous with free-market, since the free-market does not at all resemble the capitalist society of today, the 19th century, or any era; furthermore, being indirect inheritors of the first socialist position on capitalism, it becomes easy to see that socialists merely argue against what they observe as the defined system of capitalism, and not against the logic of liberty itself.

My linguistics instructors told me that synonyms have to be used with care; two words never have exactly the same meaning. Otherwise, why have two separate words?

Mises, Rand and many others do conflate Capitalism with the Free Market, but they're not at all talking about the same thing that the socialist coiners of the term meant by it. Of course, capital, strictly speaking, is the stuff required to produce comsumable products, so there logical linguistic reason to try to steal the term. The trouble with the conflation is that it taints the Free Market in the minds of confused individuals, who see our capitalist system and all its problems and blame freedom as the cause.

Damning this system as capitalist, coining the term capitalism itself, the socialists are absolutely right! The system of capitalism, from which the socialists observed, absolutely existed and exists to exploit not only the workers, but every honest entrepreneur without connections to the violent state. Yes, originally used as a pejorative to describe the economic system of the day, the socialists and state-socialists (or Marxists) apparently delved no deeper into the defining of the term than the evident consequences of the system around them. Pointing to their primary concerns with conditions at the time and not with the moral arguments for freedom, capitalism’s establishment comes with the pillars of the 19th century as an eternal reference. Regarding capitalism as the apparent, socialists took it to be evil; associating capitalism with the realities of their society, it seems that they did so correctly.

The term capitalism being determined by the scene of the 19th century then, the idea that a capitalist economy could find any common definition with the free-market seems absolutely ludicrous. Indeed, for from early antiquity, to the 19th century, and even to this day, the plague of statism infests the very same economies that all correctly hail as capitalist. ... So, understanding the historical unfree-market of Europe, if the motives behind the objections to the system of capitalism launched from the inequitable scenes seen, then as the word capitalism was only coined to describe that which caused the effects of inequity and not the theoretical free-market itself, it must be concluded that which is, was, and will ever be capitalism cannot be free-market! For what free market could include blatantly authoritarian institutions like Central Banks, land trusts inherited from the remnants of feudal lords, and “monopolies granted by governments to associations of merchants and craftsmen who [aid] in the collection of taxes, in return for the assurance of profits by excluding native and foreign competitors” (Rothbard 18)? Certainly no free-market in the Mutualist, Rothbardian, or Austrian traditions! Yes, with capitalism defined in terms of a historic perspective, if those advocating a free-market oppose protectionism and economic exploitation as seen in that context, then the free-marketer, the libertarian, the Market Anarchist must understand his inherent position against capitalism as a free-market anti-capitalist!

So, hmm...

Something to think about.

Here's Rothbard's side of the argument: The Death Wish of the Anarcho-Communists.

That's what I said!

The WSJ editorial page (Who's Partying Naked?)
does it a bit better, though.

Don't go there expecting Girls Gone Wild (sorry, I don't have the link for that). It's about short-selling and the SEC.

Hey! What the Hell! It's the witching hour on Hump Night!

Anybody got a problem with me posting this link that I got from Old Blue?

"It's all GWB's fault!"

Probligo says.

Seen the front page of the Wall Street Journal today? The SEC's getting into the act.

First the Fed, then Treasury and now this. Whose administration is it?

Curbing short-selling will only artificially support irrationally high stock prices and make The Market less transparent. Short-sellers have reason to believe that a particular stock is going to drop: the company's fundamentals don't match its price. It deserves to be taken down a peg.

Short-sellers deserve our support.
-----------
Wait a minute! What?!

Under current rules, a short seller must first locate shares to borrow, but does not have to enter into a contract with the share lender. Often, more than one trader is able to borrow the same shares, creating a multiplier effect in the size of the total short position.

That ain't how my informants told me how it's done! That sounds like fraud to me!

Under the emergency order, a short seller would be required to have an actual agreement to borrow the shares. The new move would effectively take shares out of the market for borrowing, which could reduce the amount of stock available for selling short.

The only trouble with that is that it will take shares out of the game that ought to be in it. Typical ham-handed beaurocracy. But I agree that two or more people selling the same shares at the same time is fraud. It's a con game. Real people bought those shares and lost money on them! And you never even had them to sell!

Is there really a lot of that "naked shorting" going on?

On Sunday, the SEC said it would crack down on firms or individuals that illegally spread false rumors. In its various short-selling investigations, the SEC has sent subpoenas to more than 50 hedge funds, some as recently as Monday.

Critics of the SEC's move Tuesday asked why certain financial firms were being protected -- but not the broader market -- especially when many of those firms are also active short sellers.

"For heaven's sakes, they're the very ones we believe have been doing this...to thousands of public companies," said James "Wes" Christian, a lawyer with Texas law firm Christian, Smith & Jewell, who represents companies who have filed lawsuits relating to short selling.

I thought TR and FDR fixed all this crap early in the 20th Century.

New York hedge-fund manager Whitney Tilson called the proposals a "desperation move" that could end up silencing investors who are among the first to point out problems at troubled companies.

Agreed, but you can't do it by selling pretend stocks! Or am I reacting to a misimpression? If the shorters are doing it sequentially, then there's no fraud. The overseers only need to make sure that only one entity is disposing of the stock at a time.

You woke me up, guys!

Actually, I've been making a wooden bucket. I bought a couple books a plane and a small anvil for the purpose. I'll try to get you a picture of what I've got so far, as soon as I track down my digital camera.

I ran across this pamphlet, NATURAL LAW or THE SCIENCE OF JUSTICE, by Lysander Spooner yesterday:

Chapter I, The Science of Justice

Section I

The science of mine and thine - the science of justice - is the science of all human rights: of all a man's rights of person and property; of all his rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is the science which alone can tell any man what he can, and cannot, do; what he can, and cannot, have; what he can, and cannot, say, without infringing the rights of any other person.

It is the science of peace; and the only science of peace: since it is the science which alone can tell us on what conditions mankind can live in peace, or ought to live in peace, with each other.

These conditions are simply these: viz., first, that each man shall do, towards every other, all that justice requires him to do; as, for example, that he shall pay his debts, that he shall return borrowed or stolen property to its owner, and that he shall make reparation for any injury he may have done to the person or property of another.

The second condition is that each man shall abstain from doing to another, anything which justice forbids him to do; as, for example, that he shall abstain from committing theft, robbery, arson, murder, or any other crime against the person or property of another.

So long as these conditions are fulfilled, men are at peace, and ought to remain at peace, with each other. But when either of these conditions is violated, men are at war. And they must necessarily remain at war until justice is re-established.

Through all time, so far as history informs us, wherever mankind have attempted to live in peace with each other, both the natural instincts, and the collective wisdom of the human race, have acknowledged and prescribed, as an indispensable condition, obedience to this one only universal obligation: viz., that each should live honestly towards every other.

The ancient maxim makes the sum of a man's legal duty to his fellow men to be simply this: "To live honestly, to hurt no one, to give to every one his due." [“Honeste vivere, neminem laedere, suum cuique tribuere" - Ulpianus, Regularum in Digesto, lib. I, 10, 1].

This entire maxim is really expressed in the single words, to live honestly: since to live honestly is to hurt no one, and give to every one his due.

Or, as The Duke put it, "I won't be wronged. I won't be insulted. I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people. I expect the same in return."

Did I say that before? That word "wronged" seems a little ill-defined. As, of course, does "insulted." And what are the consequences? These thing need to be laid out plainly. Spooner starts to do just that here.

Robert Ringer set this up for me to quote:

Our "nation" does not deserve better presidential choices than the McBamas who are running. Remember, people always get the government they deserve. When the vast majority of people (1) wake up, (2) admit to themselves what has happened (and is happening) to America, (3) are willing to give up all notions of entitlements, and (4) are prepared to fight back, then they will deserve better.

If somebody agitates hard enough, I link the post where he says that.

This year we've got the most left-wing Republican running against the most left-wing Democrat. The third largest party is offering the most right-wing Libertarian... The Constitution Party is running another wacko Bircher...

I live in Hell.

Hey! I ran across this blog, TyroSphere,

[LINK] while looking up instructions for coopering (making barrels). I want to do that and this guy's learning to do it right now in France! At a real cooperage!

Oh, wait! I guess that was a year ago.

He even had to make hoops. I think I could do that, just using the old charcoal grill, but I'd like to ask him how that's done.

Modern cooperages have a lot of equipment that I don't have in my basement, on my back porch or in my garage, but I think I have what I need to make a keg out of pine right here. I need to get some steel straps, but that's nothin'.

Oh, I remember what I wanted to ask him: how do they get the temporary hoops off and put the permanent hoops on? And do I need the temps? I'm planning to use strap clamps to bend the wood, and I'm sure I won't need nearly as much tension to bend pine as you do to bend fine oak. And, yes, I know I'm not going to get a wine cask out of my scrap wood; I'll only end up with a dry barrel - useful only for storing dry goods. But, you all know I have a need for such a thing, and I know a market that could absorb as many as I can make.

I haven't whittled a single stave yet and I'm wondering about that.

Oh, our young hero is heir to all this, btw. God bless them!

I had a great Fourth!

How about you?

We went to the Cloquet Rendezvous.

No time to flesh anything out, but here are some highlights:

Front row seats at the fireworks, which were launched right across the river from our campsite.

Listening in on all the blackpowder talk, firing a flintlock myself for the first time... Come to think of it, I don't think anybody was actually using blackpowder. That crap's dangerous!

But the guys across the path from us had several little cannons that they kept loading to the gills with powder and blasting 'em off. The one has a super thick barrel that allows them to load, they say, the equivalent of a stick or two (Kevin told me two; I heard him tell a tourist "one"... maybe he thought somebody with no experience with explosives wouldn't believe him) of dynamite. Sure sounds like it.

BOOOOOMMM!!!

You don't sleep in at Rendezvous.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to go to sleep early either. The bar across the highway just got an outdoor patio. We got to listen to the local bands every night until about 1:00 AM. Thank God we were in hicksville! They roll up the sidewalks early, even on holidays.

I got the usual amount of exercise for a Rendezvous, hauling 50 lb. loads of all kinds of assorted stuff - canvas, water, firewood, clothes - all over, everywhere. Of course, the real Voyageurs were hauling three and more times that. All day, every day until it killed them.

Saturday night Dave, who brain-tans hides (as his hobby - he teaches Orchestra for a living), brought his violin to the neighbor's tent and started fiddling to my daughter. Then Kenny, who leads a country band and has played in Nashville, brought over his guitar, and they jammed together, playing silly songs to entertain the kids and some country and folk songs for us older folks.

It was awesome!

James Watt: Hero

"All unaided, this supreme toiler thus slowly and painfully evolved the steam engine after long years of constant labor and anxiety, bringing to the task a union of qualities and of powers of head and hand which no other man of his time--may we not venture to say of all time--was ever know to possess or ever exhibited." - Andrew Carnegie, Life of James Watt, 1905, p. 75 (or 88 of the pdf).

Yes, that Andrew Carnegie.
.............
I feel a deep bitter-sweetness reading this book. Carnegie casually mentions so many matters in passing... I would have loved to have read this with my father. To have him explain the sticking points.

!!!!!!

But wait!! My father-in-law is almost an exact clone of my father!

He's not a steam-boat engineer - he was a blacksmith... Maybe he's looked into steam power enough to explain some of these things to me. If not, maybe he knows somebody who could.

I gotta send him this link!