Category Archives: Economics

Brace For Impact

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I was asked by Gresham Bouma’s PR guy to speak at a press conference held last Monday.  I had all weekend to think about it.  The idea was to have some local Business people talk about their challenges in running and growing a business in this economy, with emphasis on the old “jobs” meme (a meme I find ridiculous simply because jobs are the side effect of creation and production, which in turn arise from inspiration, which can’t blossum without liberty. If we seek to add “jobs” without addressing all those prerequisites, we’re completely missing the point and if we allow the prerequisites to exist, we don’t have to worry about “jobs”).


It was only as I was driving to the conference that this little thought came;


A lot of people are not so much thinking of hiring right now as they’re just Bracing For Impact.


I wanted to keep it really short, so I just laid out the two visions of government.  In one, I said, the government’s job is to reign us in, control us, direct us, redirect us, tell us what to do and what not to do.  It starts with the notion, which comes to every one of us at some point as we watch other people speaking, debating, or running a company, that WE could do a better job if only WE were in charge.  I made the point that in a free society, that confidence, justified or not, is what inspires us to go out into the market and prove ourselves.  It’s the motivation for the engine of prosperity.


It’s when government comes along, appeals to the spirit that tells us “I can do better”, then promises to take the reins and use the coercive power of government to FORCE people to “do it the right way” that we step off into the abyss.


The other vision of government is that its job is to protect our rights– our property rights and freedom, rather than to direct us.


I looked the press people in the eyes and asked them, personally; “If you were starting a business, under which model of government would you prefer to do it– the one that says government’s job is to rein you in, control you, direct you, pile on requirements and restrict you, and then tax you to pay for public works, or the one in which government is there to protect your rights?  “I think it’s pretty obvious” and I left it at that.  It only took two minutes or so.


I was watching an old episode of Glen Beck a few nights later.  It was almost year old and I’d never seen it, but I was randomly searching the site– something I’d never done because I don’t have the level of subscription that allows me to watch much on there.  But there was that old episode under some other heading, way down on the menu, and in it were those exact same words that Beck said had come to him last summer;  “Brace for Impact”.


So what if things aren’t going to get all that bad.  Maybe we somehow can avoid hyper-inflation, energy and fuel rationing, and all the unrest combined with blatant and not so blatant attacks from all directions by multiple enemies of liberty.  If you’re somewhat ready anyway, the worst that can happen is that you’ll have some extra food, backup power, expanded capabilities and overall greater independence.  That doesn’ seem like a bad thing.

Quote of the day—Roberta X

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Mitt’s probably the best practical hope — and a thin, thin reed indeed. Changing the slope isn’t the same as reversing the slope.

Roberta X
September 27, 2012
“Not Getting it” Less Is Not The Same As Having A Clue
[I agree. And as near as I can tell the slope is such that sliding off the “cliff” is pretty close to inevitable. No set of viable politicians will be, or can be, elected that have the political capital to reverse the slope. Approximately 47% of the population is dependent upon the slope remaining the same or increasing. Reaching them and getting them to vote against their own short term best interest is extremely unlikely.

I see the communists and socialists passing out flyers on the street corners and signs, speeches and chanting in the park across the street from where I work. I feel a chill up my back when I wonder if these are the same indicators that foretold the coming to power of the tyrannical governments of the USSR, China, Italy, and Germany and the deaths of 100+ million people in the last century.

I understand the psychology of postponing the chaos, hardships, and horrors of the “safety net” (it’s really more of a trampoline that bounces people up and then off into the dirt at a later time) and the “guarantees” of other “free” stuff people have come to depend on going away. But it’s going to happen. The only questions are when, how massive the disruption will be, and the form of society as we reboot. Is postponing it going to make it less painful or more? Without data and very little rational thought to support the belief I believe it will make it more painful.

I will vote in a few weeks but without passion or even “practical hope”, as Roberta put it, the elections can change much. I’m betting my best interest is in continuing to invest in copper, lead, brass, nitrogen based chemicals, food production, and smart capable friends as my hedge against inflation and the big “splat” at the bottom of the cliff.—Joe]

Random thought of the day

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If people “are crazy, can’t be trusted, and need to be regulated and controlled”, as one Socialist recently told me, then doesn’t that mean that government which are made up of people need the same type of supervision?

It would seem to me that, if you value consistency and hence truth, you must conclude that either both people and governments made up of people need to be controlled or governments/supervisors must be made up of greater beings.

Governments which rule by divine authority have an extremely poor record of generating peace, prosperity, and happiness. Hence I think we can dismiss them outright. That leaves us with governments which have some degree of control over their actions or no control.

Again it would seem the choice is clear. Governments with no controls upon them are historically hostile to peace, prosperity, and happiness. Hence the only question would seem to be how much control. What is the optimal amount of control for a government and it’s people such that some measure of “public good” is optimized?

I suspect we have all the data we really need to answer that question. We have 50 states with various amounts of controls upon the government and the people living in those environments. The question can thus be refined a bit more. How do you measure “public good” and how do the various states rate using that system of measurement? Do there exist states with too much or too little control of government and/or their people? Or can it be shown that all states have too much/little control over government and/or the people and we need to increase/decrease the scope of the regulation of government/people in our experiments to find the optimum?

I think I know the answer but I’m willing to look at the data to see if my hypothesis is correct.

Or course there is also the valid concern of natural rights and where government gets it’s authority to regulated and control people. That is my preferred domain to have a discussion about limits on governments. But it’s challenge enough to get people to think about facts and results. Getting them to think about fundamental principles is generally an advanced topic beyond the scope of ordinary discourse.

Quote of the day—Tyler Durden

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The US is no longer the cleanest dirty shirt, or least syphilitic hooker in the whorehouse as we so responsibly noted previously.

Tyler Durden
September 14, 2012
Europe and US Un-Decoupling
[This is in worldwide economic terms.—Joe]

Who wants to move to Honduras with me?

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Via Say Uncle.

This is very appealing to me. It almost sounds like Galt’s Gulch:

Small government and free-market capitalism are about to get put to the test in Honduras, where the government has agreed to let an investment group build an experimental city with no taxes on income, capital gains or sales.

Proponents say the tiny, as-yet unnamed town will become a Central American beacon of job creation and investment, by combining secure property rights with minimal government interference.

“Once we provide a sound legal system within which to do business, the whole job creation machine – the miracle of capitalism – will get going,” Michael Strong, CEO of the MKG Group, which will build the city and set its laws, told FoxNews.com.

Strong said that the agreement with the Honduran government states that the only tax will be on property.

“Our goal is to be the most economically free entity on Earth,” Strong said.

…

The laws in the city will be separate from those in the rest of Honduras. Strong said that the default law that will be enforced in the city will actually be based on Texas state law, which has relatively few regulations.

“It will be Texas law with more freedom of contract. Texas scores well on state economic freedom rankings,” he explained.

Hmmm… I wonder what I could build and export using native labor and materials.

Quote of the day—Atlas Shrugged Part II Trailer

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If you think you have the right to use force against me bring guns.

Atlas Shrugged Part II Trailer
September 5, 2012

That really resonated with me. But then the entire book did.

There are a bunch of other good quotes in there too.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Brandon Smith

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What is it that makes Keynesians so insanely self destructive? Is it their mindless blind faith in the power of government? Their unfortunate ignorance of the mechanics of monetary stimulus? Their pompous self-righteousness derived from years of intellectual idiocy? Actually, I suspect all of these factors play a role. Needless to say, many of them truly believe that the strategy of fiat injection is viable, even though years of application have proven absolutely fruitless. Anyone with any sense would begin to question what kind of madness it takes to pursue or champion the mindset of the private Federal Reserve bank…

Quantitative easing has shown itself to be impotent in the improvement of America’s economic situation. Despite four years of free reign in central banking, employment remains dismal in the U.S., the housing market continues its freefall, and, our national debt swirls like a vortex at the heart of the Bermuda Triangle. Despite this abject failure of Keynesian theory, the Federal Reserve is attempting once again to convince you, the happy-go-lucky American citizen, that somehow, this time around, everything will be “different”.

Brandon Smith
September 14, 2012
Get Ready For An Epic Fiat Currency Avalanche
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

In the search for meaning

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We often come up empty-handed.  There are always a lot of words being said and written, but the far less meaning.  Our job is to search for the meaning.  It’s fun.


Seen on a paper grocery bag;



“[Big grocery chain] has partnered with [presumably Obama stash money-funded green energy company] to convert their waste into power for the community.


This initiative will help produce 3 mega-watts of power.  Enough to power 3,000 homes for one year!”


What does that mean?  It’s only a one-year project?  What happens after that?  Or is it that someone flunked their high school physics classes and doesn’t know the difference between power and energy? 


Then there’s that all too convenient, catch-all word in there; “help”.  Let’s say for sake of argument that all the Columbia hydroelectric projects combined produce on average 100 gigawatts.  All by myself then, I could help produce 100 gigawatts by pissing in the river.  I could help produce 100 gigawats for one year, each year, by pissing in the river once per year.  Hope and Change.


In fact it doesn’t mean anything as written, but either we are supposed to believe that it means something anyway, and love them for it, or the people who wrote it are ignorant and can’t be bothered with looking things up, or both.  And among the listed items of “output” from this “initiative” are “green power” and “carbon credits”.  Oh goody.  I guess the recycling of the paper into new paper is no longer good enough, and the use of food waste as animal feed is no longer a good thing.  So we can burn this stuff, cut down more trees and use more farmland.  For carbon credits.  Hope and Change.


Then there was this “Halftime in America” ad from Chrysler that many people thought meant something really great.  It’s one of the more artfully meaningless, and/or misleading bits in television.  In fact, if it means anything at all, it means that the government bailout and takeover of Chrysler, using taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars to hand a company over to the unions, is The Way to get out of an economic downturn.  It also implies strongly that if one auto company goes into receivership, we stop making cars– a wildly ignorant idea if ever there was one.  In fact there is the very real and very well-proven concept of “creative destruction” wherein one badly-run company goes out, making the way for the next, better-run company to flourish, the end result of which is more and better, and more affordable cars, with more stable car-making jobs as a side benefit.  “Halftime in America” conveniently ignores all that, instead using pure (false) assumption and building on it with innuendo.  And if there is a “halftime” provision written into the U.S. constitution, at which time we were presumed to have entertained the Central Planners for 100 years, started going broke as a result, then regrouped with more central planning to fix the destruction from the earlier Central Planning, then I am Karl Marx’s uncle.  In fact we are under attack by the Progressive movement and the only way out is to rid ourselves of it and get back to our beautiful American Principles of Liberty.


The arena with probably the least meaning of all is politics.  When millions of people were swooning over Sarah Palin during the Palin/Whatshisname campaign, I went over to her personal web site to see if I could find any meaning.  I have to hand it to her– she is very, very good at combining words, thousands of them, into sentence after sentence, without a scintilla of meaning.  Total blank-out.  Very impressive.


At the same time, Obama told us he wanted “Redistributive Change” and that “When you spread the wealth around everybody benefits” out of one side of his mouth, while telling us he would have the most transparent, open and fiscally responsible administration ever.  Right there, at that moment, he proves to the whole world, with just those two assertions, that he is a lying piece of shit.  Then we elected him.  I guess searching for meaning isn’t a hobby for many people.


Make a point of it.  Next time you see a politician speaking, or an advertisement, or anything really, try to see if there is any meaning, and what, exactly, is the meaning.

Quote of the day—Richard

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I told my broker about 5 years ago, “I wish I had had $150,000.00 worth of rifles instead of all that stock.”

Richard
September 16, 2012
Comment to We Are Of Different Worlds.
[I don’t own nearly as many guns as many people I know. But I can’t think of any gun, except those with exceptionally heavy use, that might have gone down in value. Nearly all have gone up in value. I have a lot of ammunition components (and a far amount of factory ammo). All of it has gone way up in value. Investing in lead and copper has paid off. Not as much as gold and silver has but you can’t eat gold or silver. And you can’t defend yourself, your family, or your possessions with a piece of gold or silver.—Joe]

Au *= (1 + 0.023/s);

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Gee… I wonder could have caused that step change in the price of gold yesterday…

gold20120914

Could it be that QE3 means dollars are worth less today than they were yesterday?

Graphic from http://www.goldprice.com/.

*Electrical Engineers who write software will understand the title.

Quote of the day—Mark McHugh

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My Doctor’s an idiot. A few years ago, he started expressing concerns about my weight, pointing at this chart supposedly showing how much a man of my height should weigh. One glance at his stupid chart and it was clear to me that he had completely misdiagnosed my condition. There was nothing wrong with my weight, I just wasn’t tall enough. Clearly I needed to grow my way out of this. So I went home and googled “how to stimulate growth.” Once I got past the all the baldness cures and penis pumps (it’s not my bag, baby), I found hundreds of papers so incredibly boring I knew they had to be true. In no time, I was able to design and implement my own stimulus plan based on the irrefutable scientificky principles of Nobel prize winners and other people so smart they never had to do an honest day’s work in their lives. Despite the difficulty climbing stairs, I was feeling pretty good about things until my last check-up….

“Hi, Doc.”

“Hi,” he said, examining my file. He looked up, “You’ve put on twenty pounds since the last time I saw you”

“Thanks for noticing,” I beamed.

He frowned. “I remember now. You’re the guy on the diet designed to make you grow. What’s that called again?”

“The Keynesian Plan.”

Mark McHugh
August 31, 2012
Gold Is A Barbeque Relish
[Read the whole thing.—Joe]

Atlas is shrugging

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Although it doesn’t show up on balance sheets I’m sure there is intellectual capital that is headed for Gault’s Gulch as well as the financial capital:

Spain saw close to a 40 percent rise in capital outflow in June, Bank of Spain data showed on Friday, as investor confidence in a country struggling to balance its public accounts eroded further.

The central bank reported that net capital outflow, not including central bank operations, was 56.6 billion euros ($71 billion) in June, after an outflow of 41.3 billion euros in May.

A total of 315.6 billion euros of capital has left the country in the year to end-June, equivalent to nearly one-third of the country’s economic output. In the first half of 2012 capital outflow was 220 billion euros.

Emphasis added.

This is one of the Achilles Heels of the “tax the rich” schemes. Those that demand “tax the rich, feed the poor, until there are rich no more” can succeed, but the success is achieved in an unintended manner. The rich, in essence, evaporate. They either leave the country and take both their intellectual and financial wealth with them or they say, “It’s not worth it” and just stop producing wealth. In either case the looters run out of places to loot. The end result is that everyone is worse off than if the looters had produced wealth on their own rather than demanded they be given the wealth of others.

Socialism is like a herd of hogs turned loose in a corn field. They feed extraordinarily well for a few days but destroy the crop that should have lasted through the winter and provided seed for the following year.

Brains, learning, and school

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I had started writing a essay on learning and the brain and
current understandings about it, and realized as it grew HUGE that it revolved around examining some rhetorical
questions. Here are some of the core questions, with their import and details left
as an exercise to the readers and commenters, unless there is significant
interest in a particular one being addressed in some future essay.

Compare and contrast data,
information, and knowledge.
                Why do people use them
interchangeably, and what problems arise when people do?

Compare and contrast school
and education.
                Must one imply the other
(or the other, one)?

Compare and contrast smart
and educated.
                Why do educated people get
them confused so much more often than smart people (both in themselves and
others)?

Compare and contrast teaching
and learning.
                How do you measure the
effectiveness of a teacher?

Compare and contrast knowing,
understanding and wisdom.
                How does one get turned
into the other?

Compare and contrast intrinsic
aptitude and interest.
                Can one be leveraged into
the other, or are they merely randomly connected?

What is the most important thing a human should learn?
                Rank, in order, the top 10
things one should learn by voting age. Why?

How can you tell truth from falsity?
                How often do you ask
yourself “how do I know that? What
are my assumptions?”

At its most basic (biological) level, what is learning?
                What makes this happen?
How are repetition and strong emotional tagging different?

Is it important for children or young adults to learn how the brain learns and works at some point, before they become an adult?
               How could learning this help children in school?

How can a neural connection be strengthened, or made more interconnected
with others?
                Compare and contrast a
single, strong connection, with highly interconnected knowledge.

How many strong emotional “tags” are there in a very safe,
nearly risk-free, environment?
                Would this present a
challenge to learning?

What makes the brain think something is important enough to
learn (that is, remember and think about enough to apply the knowledge later)?

What is the brain designed to do, and in what sort of
environment?
                WHY? HOW? Can we use this to help teach and learn?

Random thought of the day

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How is it people can think communism is viable when even very small children and animals defend their property and territory?

I have to conclude either they are incredibly naïve, stupid, or intend to be the enforcers and hence are incredibly evil.

Quote of the day—Mark McHugh

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The path we’re on ends with mountains of corpses when the great experiment fails.

Mark McHugh
August 19, 2012
Shhhh…It’s Even Worse Than The Great Depression
[H/T to Tyler Durden.

One of his main points to support this prophecy is that the velocity of money in this country is lower than even during the Great Depression. That alone is a scary data point.

The prophecy that a lot of people are going to die as a result of government interference with the free market is consistent with what I have been saying for years. The only questions I see unanswered are the relative contribution of economic policy versus social policy and who, in what order, and how high people are stacked.—Joe]

Time Travel

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I gotta tell ya’, time travel is a thing of beauty.

A week or ten days ago, I clicked on a link and got a
Microsoft Security Essentials warning about an attack from that web site. I
closed the window, and ran a full check. It found something, appeared to clean
it off, and things looked cool. Then, a few days later, I started to get some
weird behavior, such as doing a search that had OK looking results, and then ANY result I clicked on sent
me so some overseas site selling various things. “Ah, shit!” I said, and closed
the browser and everything else, then ran another full cleaning. A couple more
things found and removed. The OhShit!Ometer seemed to fade back from yellow into
green.

Then, a couple days ago, I decided I should to do a manual
“check for updates on Windows and MSE”, and I got an odd error. Crud. OhShit!Ometer
was up into the yellow. Dig, dig, dig. Update not working at all. And now I
can’t scan for problems because it says I don’t have security services running.
I check. It’s not even listed as a service. “Ah, shiiiiit!” Just pegged the
OhShit!Ometer hard over in the red.

Dig, dig, dig. Several
things are not listed as services that Update needs. Uninstall MSE,
download and install it again which also puts in the latest updates, run it,
clean out a bunch of un-cool stuff. Too much stuff. NOT GOOD. Can’t get
updates, MSE can’t update any more, not sure everything is off the system, so
there’s a bunch of stuff I can’t do, or at least can’t be sure of.

Try using the Win7 built-in System Restore to go back to an
earlier restore point. No dice, they are all bad.

Download the free SuperAntiSpyWare sweeper, and the free
ESET virus checker. Clean out some MORE stuff. Enough evil bits to gag TRON.
Well, I think it’s all gone, now, but
security and updates are still shot. Save my recent work off to the server,
then… Well, time to pull out the big guns.

Time Travel. Go back and Don’t
click that link!

I get out the Windows Home Server “Recovery” disk, pop it
in, planning on having my problems solved. It can’t find the server… “Ah,
@#$)(*&%$***!@!#$%!!” OhShit!Ometer just broke the peg.

Dig, dig, dig. I have Win7, my old WHS is based on an old
version of Win NT, it needs an older 32bit NIC driver. Dig, dig, dig,
eventually I find the right one, boot on the Recovery disk, with the 32-bit NIC
drivers on a USB flash drive, FINALLY find my Home server from the recovery
program, and tell it “pave the C: drive FLAT, turn back the clock and make it like it was two Saturdays
ago.”

The platters on the drive go ‘round and ‘round, ‘round and
‘round, ‘round and ‘round… Grind, grind, grind. Go to dinner. When I come back,
my C: drive is like it was two Saturdays ago. Run Virus scans. Get updates.
Uninstall Java. Get more updates. Scan more. Clean a couple of things out that
apparently were there before Update broke. Restore recent work files, get
better malware protection installed. Scan again. Scan with something else,
again. The meter appears to be edging cautiously back in the green again.

And I will NOT be clicking on that interesting looking link
again, because it took me too long to go back in time and straighten it all out
again.

But that fact is, that is more or less what happened,
because I have a WHS backing up my stuff every night, for every machine in the
house. An old HP EX470, the first official WHS model. And yet MSFT is doing
everything they can (product management-wise) to kill Windows Home Server for
some reason…. And yet, it’s the only product they have that is GOOD at home computer
time travel. It is something that I think EVERY home should have, if they have
more than one computer and any data of any value. It’s the second time it’s
saved my butt. Worth every penny I’ve spent on it. MSFT has really blown the marketing campaign for
their home server product.

And… virus writers who make stuff like what I just ran into need
to spend some serious time in jail.

Gun Law Bleg

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I’ve spent hours looking.  Lots of opinions and assertions from sellers but few citations.  Plus, retailing is not the same thing as manufacturing.  I also searched the NRA HQ site and turned up nothing that obviously dealt with the issue of manufacturing and shipping an 1860s style pistol.  Idaho’s 18-3315A is pretty awesome, but I want to address manufacturing and trade across states.


I did like this bit from the link above;



(2)  A personal firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured commercially or privately in Idaho and that remains within the borders of Idaho is not subject to federal law or federal regulation, including registration, under the authority of congress to regulate interstate commerce.


—


(4)  Subsections (2) and (3) of this section do not apply to:

(a)  A firearm that cannot be carried and used by one (1) person;

(b)  A firearm that has a bore diameter greater than one and one-half (1 1/2) inches and that uses smokeless powder…

 

I had to read that twice.  It does say one AND one half inches.  so anything under that figure is Kosher?  And if you, or any “one person” can carry it, you’re good.  Giddy up.  Let’s see; do I know any professional weight lifters?

 

So OK; what is the STATE law, and what is the fed law with regard to manufacturing and interstate trade of black powder percussion pistols?  I saw one comment; “You can’t find out because there aren’t any.”  I wish we had a free country.

 

The barriers a guy has to get through to bail out this fucked up Progressive economy and drag people, kicking and screaming, back into prosperity and hope…  How long will we tolerate this insult?  I want an exhaustive, nationwide, all-states firearm law guide that will fit on one side of a postcard…in large print.  “Thou shall not murder.  Thou shall not steal.”  I think that about covers it, no?  NO?

Quote of the day—charles hugh smith

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Central bankers present themselves as Masters of the Universe. They are, but only in their own little Theater of the Absurd. In the real world, they are as clueless as any other mortals about the unintended consequences of their actions and the speed with which the corrupted, unsustainable financial Status Quo will decay and die.

The only attribute they possess in abundance is hubris. Their claims to godhood are comical when viewed in their little Theater of the Absurd, but they become tragic when the consequences of their actions play out in the real world.

Their job, such as it is, is to deflate a tottering system based on phantom assets slowly enough that it doesn’t implode. Stripped of mumbo-jumbo, their strategy to accomplish this is to inflate other phantom assets to replace the phantom assets that are falling to zero.

All their promises, preening and posturing boil down to patting their breast pocket and speaking vaguely about a “secret plan” to end the crisis without bringing down the system that spawned the crisis as a consequence of its very nature.

There is no secret plan, of course, and no secret financial weapons; all they really have is artifice and the hubris to present artifice as reality.

charles hugh smith
July 31, 2012
The Central Banking Theater of the Absurd
Emphasis in the original.
[In the history books and in stories from my parents I heard of bankers and brokers in 1929 jumping out the windows of tall buildings and utilizing “Smith & Wesson” retirement plans. I don’t hear of that sort of thing these days even though by many measures the financial situation is just as bad or worse as in The Great Depression.

I keep wondering if the reason for the difference is that we have different types of people in the banks and positions of power this time around. The sociopaths don’t care and the Marxists intend for our system to fail.

What I don’t think they understand is that when people get hungry enough they will figure out the reason for the failure of the system, have nothing to lose by going after those responsible, there will be no place to hide, and retirement, in whatever form, will be forced upon those who destroyed the greatest economic and political system the world has ever known.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Bill Buckler

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In their Ten Thousand Commandments 2012 report which was released in June, the CEI estimates the cost of US government regulation at $US 1.75 TRILLION. That is just under half (48 percent) of the budget of the federal government. It is almost ten times the total of all corporate taxes collected and almost double the total collected from individual income taxes. It is also one-third higher than the total of all pre-tax corporate profits. It is the hidden cost of doing business in an interventionist economy. The fact that the cost of complying with these regulations is substantially higher than the total of corporate profits is a stark illustration of the end result of economic intervention. That end result is capital consumption.

In the US, the federal government lists its regulations in what is called the Code of Federal Regulations. These rules of the economic “game” cover 169,000 pages and more than ten new ones are added every day, seven days a week and 365 days a year. In 2011, the US Congress passed a total of 81 new “laws” while government agencies issued 3,807 new regulations. As the CEI points out, if there ever was an example of government without the consent of ANYONE – this is it.

Bill Buckler
July 22, 2012
The Cost Of Government Regulation: $1.75 Trillion
[Emphasis in the original.

And please don’t ever forget there are those who believe they were “born to regulate”, “And it is a thrill; it’s a high… I love it; I absolutely love it.”

I need a new frontier.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Simon Black

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Today, it’s nice to know that human beings are a lot more enlightened. We know that the dimensions of someone’s skull or nose don’t matter much in the way of intelligence or integrity.

And we can wonder with absolute incredulity how anyone could have passed off such nonsense as science.

Here’s the irony, though. In the future, they’ll wonder the same thing about us. The difference is that our faux-science is economics.

In the future, they’ll wonder with utter incredulity how these ridiculous assertions about conjuring money out of thin air and borrowing your way out of debt could possibly pass as science.

They’ll be mystified at how political leaders listen to these modern day soothsayers, directing national policy and robbing wealth from hundreds of millions of people based on this faux-science.

And they’ll be completely floored when they see that we actually award our most esteemed prizes to these men who tell us that we can spend our way out of recession and tax our way into prosperity.

To give you an example, I’ve just finished Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz’s new book The Price of Inequality in which he writes something that may be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard from an economist:

“[T]he success of [Apple and Google], and indeed the viability of our entire economy, depends heavily on a well-performing public sector. There are creative entrepreneurs all over the world. What makes a difference. . . is the government.”

Simon Black
July 17, 2012
Guest Post: Quite Possibly The Dumbest Thing I’ve Heard An Economist Say
[I’ll grant that government makes a difference. A government that enforces contracts, protects the rights of individuals to own property, and to exchange in free trade is what makes for a thriving economy. Government involvement to a greater or lesser amount may reap short term benefits for some people but the long term result is a less successful economy and society.

Or as Presidential candidate Mitt Romney said, it’s both startling and revealing (H/T to son James) that the President of the United States also adheres to that philosophy:

President Obama either demonstrated profound ignorance and/or ill-intent and deserves all the ridicule he gets. He does not deserve to be president of anything in our country.—Joe]