Author: Curt Doolittle

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/alarm-as-dutch-lab-creates-highly-contagious-killer-flu-6279474.html”WE DON’T HAVE TO WEAPONIZE IT. THE BIRDS ARE DOING THAT FOR US”

I had the nasty flu that killed so many people back in 1977, and my health has never fully recovered. I don’t know if the conspiracy nuts are right or wrong in suggesting that the Swine Flu escaped the lab. But either way it wasn’t very fun.

I also got the flu that killed a few hundred people in Europe in the winter of 1996-1997. (It made for an interesting vacation. I soldiered onward anyway. I lost 25 pounds because of it.)

H5N1 (the bird flu) only has an R0 (reproductive rate) of 1.14+. But it had a 60% mortality rate. (They call it ‘morbidity rate’ in the literature.) The relatively low rate of transmission was due to the fact that you had to be in pretty close contact to get it. I’ve seen a few other studies where the measured reproductive rate reached over 2.0 (although they were smaller samples.) The common flu we get every year seems to come in at around 2.

But these researchers have bred an aerosol variant (one that can be spread by sneezing for example). And sure, the really scary diseases have R0’s of 5 to 15. But let’s just say that that we go from 1.14 to 1.6, to something like 2.2 to 4.

I mean, Soderberg’s movie is scary enough as it is.

http://modeledbehavior.com/2011/12/19/whats-changed-on-climate-change/Changes to The Signals On Climate Change

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/opinion/krugman-will-china-break.htmlCHINA CRASH

I’d originally predicted that the China bubble would pop over Christmas of 2010 — a year ago now — based upon the relationship between prices, inventory and incomes. I’m not sure I was wrong about when it popped, even if it’s taking a long time to become visible. But It’s certainly happening right now. In 50 of 70 Cities prices are in free fall. What I don’t know, is how their economy will ‘recalculate’ prices and actions. Totalitarians are great at spending money, but now people are schooled, trained, invested, and habituated to a future that can’t exist. Recalculating a new future is going to be expensive and likely painful for them, as much as it has been for us.

2012 will be a very, very, interesting year. It’s the 1870’s and the 1930’s all over again. And we’re finally seeing the big guns in economics calling this a DEPRESSION. Finally.

http://www.capitalismv3.com/index.php/glossary/#schumpeterian%20intellectualsECONOMISTS AS THE ACOLYTES OF TOTALITARIANISM

“Once people decided that they wanted to make a living from giving economic advice, they needed customers. The government was the obvious target. The new class of professional economists said that politicians could spend the taxpayer’s money willy-nilly, even on total waste. And, that all their remaining economic problems could be solved, without cost or effort, by monetary manipulation, in time for the next election. This proved to be a big seller, and it remains so today.” (- Courtesy of Forbes)

See: Schumpeterian Intellectuals in my Glossary of Political Economy

GEEK HUMOR:

QUESTION: What’s the difference between an economist and a used car salesman?

ANSWER: Only the used car salesman knows when he’s lying to you.

(Courtesy of Newmark’s Door)

FB isn’t really going to replace the profile pages with Timeline? I mean, it’s HORRIBLE. Is there a way to turn it off?

Why can’t you edit your own FB Posts?

(Too many grammatical errors between the keyboard and the chair.)

BLEEDING HEARTS OR ANARCHISTS?

There is a movement called ‘Neo-Classical Liberalism’, whose members refer to themselves as “bleeding heart libertarians”. This movement combines classical anglo american political institutions and the classical liberal sentiments in favor of freedom and innovation, with libertarian economic and political insights, new institutional economics, and modern macro economics.

I’m torn between trying to coalesce that movement somewhat or simply attempting to repair Austrian Libertarian theory on it’s own by fixing the hole left in praxeology by the failure to incorporate forgone opportunity costs. — It is really a matter of audiences. But audiences matter.

The rothbardian movement is doing such a good job of promoting libertarianism – albiet among relative populists. The Hoppeians are infinitesimally small in number. (Hans might not like it but I consider myself a Hoppeian). But the Neo-Classical Liberal program has a chance of selling to the broad conservative audience.

So my plan is to bring the ‘Propertarian Methodology’ of Rothbard and Hoppe to the Neo-Classical Liberal framework, by adding my work on forgone opportunity costs to the Propertarian body of work. This should solve the problem of explaining the differences between Hayek and Mises, and represent them as a single, unified, spectrum of reasoning differing only in temporal preference.

Propertarian reasoning is the only fully rational explanation of ethics ever developed. Propertarianism unites ethics, economics and politics with econometrics. Combined with the insights provided by the debate over economic calculation and incentives, Propertarianism allows us to fully describe human activity as rational, but limited by knowledge, and fraught with error.

I realize this is geek speak. But maybe there are a handful of geeks out there who are vaguely interested. 🙂

My other goal is to write in short, clear sentences.

I have less confidence in achieving that goal than in solving the greater philosophical problems that I’ve set my mind to.

Well, I’m taking the leap: I’m going to write economic and political philosophy full time. I’ve resigned as CEO of my company.

WHY? A bunch of reasons.

a) I’ve wanted to write full time for at least six years. I want to write while I’m still young enough to make a difference. It is my real passion in life.

b) The various movements around the western world that are being driven by the return of ‘white people’ to their traditional status as a weak minority both in numbers and in influence is creating interesting political and economic changes that are equal to those from the reawakening of Asia now that it has adopted capitalism.

c) Completing the merger both financially and strategically positioned the combined business for investment.

d) I was able to lock in what I considered a good if not great share price. The only way to lock the price is really to resign.

e) The team is quite good. There are rifts and a few key personnel shortages, but everyone knows what they are, and how to fix them. Getting both Steve and Ryan was a feat. Getting the product was another one.

So I can depart and claim victory for myself and my partners.

Yes there were things that were really bothering me. But it all comes down to having a dream that you find so compelling that it drives everything else in your life into irrelevancy. And anything that blocks that dream, simply frustrates you. And over time, that frustration turns to either anger or acquiescence. And for me, as someone who is fairly relentless, it had turned to anger which was making me caustic with people I care about. I want to follow my passion. So I chose to lock in a good price (Of course! What else would I do?) and then claim victory, and move on to fulfill my passion.

GOALS

I hope to be able to use the insights of anarchic libertarian philosophical reasoning to develop a rational, and economically sound language for anglo american conservatives, so that they are no longer a prisoner of their historical, religious, and allegorical language. Then perhaps the left and the right and the ‘middle’ will be able to engage in meaningful dialog rather than talking past each other. For well over a century humans have discussed a difference in ‘values’ as if they are arbitrary preferences with neutral economic consequences, and therefore preferences not ‘truths’. It is possible to express all human preferences as economic statements and in doing so convert discourse over preferences into discourse over empirical truths. But to do so requires I both write in a language that is more accessible than I am used to, and that I establish a broad set of explicit definitions, as well as explain some fuzzy and erroneous reasoning in the history of thought and in our common vernacular, and to provide a solution for our political institutions that updates our western democratic system for the current state of our economy, and the newfound complexity that has come from increased populations living largely in cities. No civilization in history on any continent has survived this level of urbanization. (It’s true.) Agrarian soft and hard institutions were unable to maintain the ability of people to cooperate and adapt under those pressures. So someone has to solve this problem, and I’m going to at least give it a good try. 😉

Tonight: Salmon Potato Soup. White onion, Leeks, potatoes (cook then hand blender), red pepper, black pepper, pancetta, salmon cooked in a bit of bacon, a bit of milk. Served with garlic bread. Took about an hour. Hearty.