Author: Curt Doolittle

http://blog.mises.org/15272/mises-org-is-the-10-in-a-most-influential-study/We are getting there. Slowly. Accumulating people. Accumulating influence. All thanks to Lou and crew at Mises.org. If we become influential does that mean that we’re mainstream? And if we’re mainstream does that mean that we’re no longer radicals? “Let Us Rid Economics Of The Ludic Fallacy.” Probabilism in economics is a failure.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/09/gabrielle-giffords-shooting-rightwing-rhetoricThe problem with the guardian’s position, is that Gifford’s attacker is a radical LEFTIST. He wasn’t agitated about anything ‘right wing’. He was angry that the congresswoman wasn’t LEFT WING ENOUGH. (Yet another example of the vast delta between the urgency of news reporting and the accuracy of what’s reported.)

A laugh. From a Galambos Fan. A link to a posting on Dubai’s economy.

“Capitalism is that societal structure whose mechanism is capable of protecting all forms of property completely.” — Galambos   Is the new epic-center of capitalism to be the Islamic World?

They already have a religion… 😉 But let’s look at this Islamic world:

• Low median iq.
• Poor education.
• Science-denying biases.
• Rampant mysticism.
• Religious schism.
• No core state

Dubai simply has no oil and wants to be the Switzerland of the Muslim world. This is not a capitalist strategy per se. It makes no appeal to the social order.  Instead It is a casino strategy – draw from extended regions whomever you can regardless of how they obtained their money.  Capitalism is either a social order with incentives for all members, or it is a platonic and absurd personal philosophy that runs counter to the facts.  😉 Curt

I’ve read Hayek’s The Constitution Of Liberty twice again lately while editing it so that I could convert the text to spoken audio. The resulting audio is imperfect — because my editing of the multitude of optically recognized characters is imperfect — but for personal consumption it’s works just fine. But editing a text forces you to read it more carefully than casual reading does. The first time I read it I did not really appreciate the book’s depth of reasoning. I don’t even remember when I did read it the first time. I was probably in my early thirties? But it’s more than that. Because one needs considerable knowledge of the field, it is not apparent to the casual reader that he is making logically NECESSARY arguments – especially given Hayek’s gentle, advisory, tone. Hayek felt that the writer should show sympathy for his opponents. A technique which is very useful in engaging the reader, but a tone that is also prone to misinterpretation of the underlying purpose of his arguments. I have, and so have others, said, that Hayek’s great failing was in failing to defeat Keynes. He left that task for history because he thought it so obvious. But he did not understand the attractiveness of the positivist methodology when opposed only by the conservative libertarian framework that solves for freedom as an absolute good.

[callout]Freedom is intuitive as an experience, but counter-intuitive as a process.[/callout]

FREEDOM IS INTUITIVE AS AN EXPERIENCE, BUT COUNTER-INTUITIVE AS A PROCESS Besides being both an [glossary:appropriated term], and an [glossary:expanded term], Freedom is a proscription against the political input of actions for the purpose of obtaining unspecified (and promissory) output actions. And as such Freedom is logically inconsistent to the human mind, whose action orientation finds such systemic solutions all but impossible to believe, and in retrospect finds the relations between cause and effect, deterministic or accidental, rather than the result of a policy of restraint – “not acting”. While the cause of our tradition of freedom is to be found in the military tactics of western chieftains and their retinue, and their distrust of the concentration of power, and the social status accorded those who rose as leaders by merit in commerce and war, it bears noting that the rarity of Freedom as a sentiment is in no small part due, to the fact that the very idea of unorganized action is illogical to the human mind. HAYEK SOLVES FOR FREEDOM Hayek is ‘solving’ for freedom and western civilization. I think the assumption is that by solving for these things, we create great wealth. But human beings do not solve for freedom, they solve for gaining experience and certainty of gaining them at the lowest cost and risk. While different social classes solve for different TIME frames in which they gain those experience, and how they perceive risk, we all solve for experiences. We call this acquisitiveness, which is a vulgar commercial way of expressing the same series of concepts. Solving for that which is incomprehensible as an input, and which cannot logically be connected with outputs assumes that the reader agrees with the proposition that freedom is a ‘good’ in the first place. SOLVING FOR UNEMPLOYMENT They Keynesian prescription is to solve for unemployment and use monetary policy, despite the fact that doing so exaggerates booms and busts. They Hayekian prescription is to solve for productivity and prices, and then unemployment will maintain natural levels. The social democratic prescription (which is the only option available to smaller states) is to solve for high taxation and high redistribution that pays the unemployed to stay home. The Poor Totalitarian prescription (in china) is to employ everyone in some productive capacity and redistribute via state control of capital. The Poorer Socialist prescription (India) is to pay the private sector to accomplish what the state lacks the resources to do. (Which I’m a fan of.) The worst solution is solving for unemployment because it distorts the economy. NOTE: While I use the term Freedom here, I use the term “Sovereignty” in my work because Freedom is an appropriated and expanded term that has lost meaning. Liberty likewise, holds a similar problem. These terms too often describe experiences rather than necessary causes. Sovereignty means that you have a monopoly over yourself and your property. Freedom means the absence of coercion. And that is too loose a definition. Monopoly over one’s self and property is much clearer. It means that the individual is the only state.

Putin Slams West for Wikileaks’ Assange Arrest : Putin Suggests U.S. Criticism Is the Pot Calling the Kettle http://abcnews.go.com/International/putin-slams-west-wikileaks-arrest/story?id=12364345 Putin criticizes supposedly democratic institutions for clamping down on a dissident.

“The villagers say, that if your neighbor’s cow is mooing, yours better be silent”. Which is the Russian equivalent of ‘the pot calling the kettle black’.

[callout] In fact, what’s impressive about the Wikileaks data, is that the USA actually looks like a pretty benevolent, if mildly overstretched and incompetent, empire, whose only material problem is creating a responsible, peaceful, core state for Islam[/callout]

I wrote two days ago that arresting Assange is nonsense unless we have a real property crime. Unless property is transferred (technology secrets) and unless there is material harm ( our people get killed), or a trust is broken on a contract with a foreign government (we are trying to help rescue some government from oppression) there is not really a crime. In fact, what’s impressive about the Wikileaks data, is that the USA actually looks like a pretty benevolent, if mildly overstretched and incompetent, empire, whose only material problems are assisting in the maturity of market-participating states everywhere, and in particular creating a responsible, peaceful, core state for Islam – solving a serious problem for the world by helping modernize a violent, non-market, ignorant, superstitious and primitive expansionist culture so that it can play with the rest of the grownups in the world. Putin is one of my personal Heroes. I think, for Russia, he’s a perfect leader, and the leader that they need. Is Russia, and is all of Byzantine Christianity corrupt? Yes. Is the state an oligarchy? Yes. Is that bad for Russia at this point in it’s lifetime? No. Democracy, or at least, civic republicanism is NOT something that’s intrinsically good. Corruption is bad. Democracy can be a check on corruption. But only when the middle class is fully active, and fully enfranchised. Otherwise, the people will vote themselves into totalitarianism. Russians in particular will do so. Putin should be Tzar. Russia needs a King. The west needs kings. We all need kings. Not kings that can write laws. Kings that can veto abuses of the law. We may not know what we should do. But we can know what we should not do. And that is a job of a great monarch. Kings make it impossible to compete for political power, and force people to compete for economic power. That’s the beauty of monarchy.

I hadn’t read Hugo Grotius’ Commentary before today. It is an interesting attempt to provide a coherent set of legal principles. Even if it is just very simply a recitation of Biblical principles with european legal conventions. I would never agree to place such faith in Magistrates, or any other officer of the state. They are only human beings, and not exceptional human beings at that. I give my violence to the state to use justly on my behalf, so that I may spend my time in other activities, in our division of knowledge and labor. That does not mean that it has the ability to act justly on my behalf, or the will to act justly on my behalf, nor has it demonstrated that it has the tendency to act justly on my behalf. I do not believe that any officer of the state is better equipped to make judgements over property than I am. And those are the only judgements a man need know. If he must do other than that, he submits to servitude. Now, once we possess a significant market, we must have administrators, and regulators of that market, and citizens who adhere to the manners, morals, ethics, taxes and regulations that prevent fraud, theft, and violence within that market, are it’s shareholders. Those shareholders will often seek to escape payment, or to transfer liability and risk onto others, or to draw more than their earnings from the corporation of the market that we call the state. I recognize that such thefts are invisible to men without the adminstration of the state to monitor them. As such, I agree that we must have courts and jurors. However, should these men, in the observance of their duties, abridge the laws of property, of theft, of violence, or fraud and deception in the course of their duties — even if it is to pursue just ends, or if such men, in the name of ease, or efficiency, or laziness or stupidity, or most importantly, the fallacy of just democratic law making, then I do not allow them to use my violence on my behalf, to seek reparation from my fellow men. And instead, I must withdraw my violence from the account of the state, and use it at my own discretion.

Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty [1603] by Hugo Grotius Table Of Rules And Laws Compiled From Chapter II Of The Commentary Rules rule i. What God has shown to be His Will, that is law. rule ii. What the common consent of mankind has shown to be the will of all, that is law. rule iii. What each individual has indicated to be his will, that is law with respect to him. rule iv. What the commonwealth has indicated to be its will, that is law for the whole body of citizens. rule v. What the commonwealth has indicated to be its will, that is law for the individual citizens in their mutual relations. rule vi. What the magistrate has indicated to be his will, that is law in regard to the whole body of citizens. rule vii. What the magistrate has indicated to be his will, that is law in regard to the citizens as individuals. rule viii. Whatever all states have indicated to be their will, that is law in regard to all of them. rule ix. In regard to judicial procedure, precedence shall be given to the state which is the defendant, or whose citizen is the defendant; but if the said state proves remiss in the discharge of its judicial duty, then that state shall be the judge, which is itself the plaintiff, or whose citizen is the plaintiff. Laws law i. It shall be permissible to defend [one’s own] life and to shun that which threatens to prove injurious. law ii. It shall be permissible to acquire for oneself, and to retain, those things which are useful for life. law iii. Let no one inflict injury upon his fellow. law iv. Let no one seize possession of that which has been taken into the possession of another. law v. Evil deeds must be corrected. law vi. Good deeds must be recompensed. law vii. Individual citizens should not only refrain from injuring other citizens, but should furthermore protect them, both as a whole and as individuals. law viii. Citizens should not only refrain from seizing one another’s possessions, whether these be held privately or in common, but should furthermore contribute individually both that which is necessary to [other] individuals and that which is necessary to the whole. law ix. No citizen shall seek to enforce his own right against a fellow citizen, save by judicial procedure. law x. The magistrate shall act in all matters for the good of the state. law xi. The state shall uphold as valid every act of the magistrate. law xii. Neither the state nor any citizen thereof shall seek to enforce his own right against another state or its citizens, save by judicial procedure. law xiii. In cases where [the laws] can be observed simultaneously, let them [all] be observed; when this is impossible, the law of superior rank shall prevail.

http://www.christkindlesmarkt.de/english/index.php?navi=1&rid=2Nürnberg (Neuremberg) Christmas Market Envy – Sigh. No one does Christmas right like Germans.

http://www.m-ms.com/us/dark/dark_game.jspCute game. Could have done a better job with the brand tho.

Looks like I have to become Canadian. My ancestors are rolling over in their graves. — The things I have to do for my business partners.

Trying (For four weeks now) to catch up on all the recent tech on the web and changes going on. Tipping point is past. In mulitple areas. Fascinating.