“The issue today is not communism or socialism versus capitalism; it’s how much regulation of capitalism is optimal. ” – Posner
I DON”T THINK SO
I think the issue today is, regardless of regulation, what norms produce the benefits of capitalism and what norms threaten it.
But then I see the world in decades and centuries so I’m a little more attuned to the long run.
Source date (UTC): 2013-09-24 13:54:00 UTC
http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2013/09/has-capitalism-revivedsurvived-posner.htmlCHALLENGES TO CAPITALISM
“The major modern challenges to capitalism came not from that or any other depression, but from the two world wars of the twentieth century, without which it is hard to believe that the European nations would have lost their colonies, experienced a great depression (in the 1930s), or (in central and eastern Europe) become communist. Without World War I, it is very doubtful that Russia would have become communist; and without the Soviet conquests in eastern and central Europe in World War II, neither would Poland, Rumania, etc. have become communist.”
Source date (UTC): 2013-09-24 13:51:00 UTC
http://berlinbooks.org/brb/2013/09/the-humanities-are-not-your-enemy/THE DISASTER OF POSTMODERNISM: TOTALITARIAN HUMANISM
“Diagnoses of the malaise of the humanities rightly point to anti-intellectual trends in our culture and to the commercialization of our universities. But an honest appraisal would have to acknowledge that some of the damage is self-inflicted. The humanities have yet to recover from the disaster of postmodernism, with its defiant obscurantism, dogmatic relativism, and suffocating political correctness. And they have failed to define a progressive agenda.”
Source date (UTC): 2013-09-24 12:50:00 UTC
http://www.forbes.com/sites/charleskadlec/2012/02/06/the-federal-reserves-explicit-goal-devalue-the-dollar-33/IN 2007 WHEN I SAID THIS WOULD HAPPEN, EVERYONE TREATED ME LIKE AN IDIOT
Told ‘ya. No Other Way Out.
Period.
(Of course, I haven’t had any US dollars since 2009, or US assets since 2010.)
Source date (UTC): 2013-09-20 10:29:00 UTC
http://www.mauldineconomics.com/outsidethebox/the-need-for-a-new-economicsMUST READ
Source date (UTC): 2013-09-18 14:04:00 UTC
More on Buddhism’s strange attraction to the mentally ill.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/shooters-interest-in-buddhism-prompts-debate-about-stereotype-of-peaceful-faith/2013/09/18/f0ecd938-1fcf-11e3-94a2-6c66b668ea55_story.html
Source date (UTC): 2013-09-18 13:38:00 UTC
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/09/the_colorado_recall_was_about_more_than_gun_control.htmlWHAT IF WE’VE HAD ENOUGH?
“What if voters have had enough of ineffective laws being passed just to show to talking heads that ambitious political leaders did something? What if voters have had enough of the political class dictating all the terms, always in pursuit of the media/political class agenda? What if voters have finally had it with bills becoming laws without a proper vetting in advance? What if the voters are tired of ill-informed legislators criminalizing common behavior among the country class because all they care about is the media narrative? What if voters are tired of bureaucratic obfuscation, technocrat double talk and misleading photo-ops in favor of common sense and plain speaking? “
Source date (UTC): 2013-09-17 23:40:00 UTC
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1626522499/ref=tsm_1_fb_lkDUMBER JURORS, DUMBER COURTS
“Surprisingly, the qualities that make someone a successful judge also make them less likely to be confirmed for the same reason that smart, persuasive people are rarely asked to be jurors.”
(No one ever has, and I suspect, no one ever will, allow me to sit on a jury. Not even worth showing up for duty any longer.)
Source date (UTC): 2013-09-17 23:36:00 UTC
“I think that’s right. But I think there’s also another dynamic at work: Liberals love to mock but absolutely hate being mocked. When I was a kid this was called “They can dish it out, but they can’t take it.”
Source date (UTC): 2013-09-17 23:34:00 UTC
ECONOMICS AS ARCHAEOLOGY
“I would happily settle for economics being compared to archaeology and our scientific activity placed on a level with that of the archaeologist. It would be a noble analogy.”
“…the veneer of mathematics tends…[T]o dress scientific brilliancies and scientific absurdities alike in the impressive uniform of formulae
and theorems. Unfortunately however, an absurdity in uniform is far more persuasive than an absurdity unclad.” – Schwartz, 1986, p.22.
“Classical real analysis is only one of at least four mathematical traditions within which economic questions can be formalized and discussed mathematically. Non-standard, constructive and computable analyses have been playing their own roles in the formalization and mathematization of economic entities – but mostly within the closure of neoclassical economic theory.”
(NOTE: a) Real analysis, b) non-standard, c) constructive and d) computable – all must be addressed from finitist perspective.)
“In other words, mathematics is about proof. I believe this to be a valid and standard characterization which helps delineate the different `schools’ of mathematics in terms of it”
(NOTE: mathematics is the process of making proofs ‘balances’, not truths (forecasts and testimonies).)
Source date (UTC): 2013-09-17 01:49:00 UTC