Curt Doolittle

Source: Facebook

  • PRIVILEGE: TAX THE HELL OUT OF WORKING CHILDLESS WOMEN They are experiencing the

    PRIVILEGE: TAX THE HELL OUT OF WORKING CHILDLESS WOMEN

    They are experiencing the greatest luxury, greatest conspicuous consumption, at the greatest social expense.

    —“Japan has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, with each woman bearing an average of 1.4 children. At that rate, demographers project a plunge from 127 million people today to 87 million by 2060, sapping the workforce of its vital young workers and putting an enormous strain on state finances. The shrinkage has already begun. In 2013, Japan’s population declined by a record-breaking 244,000 people. All of which has led to some rather creative policy proposals from the Chamber of Commerce, such as retaining 70-year-old’s in the workforce, doubling government expenditures on childcare and encouraging men to ask working women out on a date.”—

    Furthermore, keeping 70 year olds in the work force is an excellent idea. Adding 14 year olds to the work force is a better idea. Growth from demographic expansion is a bad idea. Collapse from demographic contraction is a very, very bad idea.

    No one gets a free ride.

    Tax the hell out of working single women.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-18 04:52:00 UTC

  • PICKETTY I don’t share Don very often. But here are two (OBVIOUS) criticisms of

    http://cafehayek.com/2014/05/two-piketty-links.htmlCONTRA PICKETTY

    I don’t share Don very often. But here are two (OBVIOUS) criticisms of Picketty’s work that reflect austrian understanding of economics and behavior.

    TWO QUOTES

    —“In other words, there are two ways to explain why the mean wealth of the x% has grown faster than the mean wealth of the whole population. According to Piketty, it means that the richer you are in the first place, the faster your capital grows over time (hence, the dynastic wealth world he foresees). But it might also be the opposite: this phenomenon is exactly what we should expect to see in a world of high wealth turnover, a world where fortune rewards skills, hard work and risk taking. Quite symptomatically, Piketty and its numerous followers have completely dismissed that possibility.”—Guillaume Nicoulaud.

    —“But what if people don’t spend down their savings? That seems to be Piketty’s assumption, at least for the very rich: they build more and more wealth which they don’t spend, and that wealth generates capital income, which they also don’t spend, and so on. If that happens, then the capital-output ratio does keep rising. But this also means that Piketty’s rich-get-ever-richer projection can happen only if the rich don’t live like rich people, that is, that they don’t spend their wealth or the income generated by their wealth. All those savings just sit there making the economy more productive and, in the process, raising wages for the proletariat while the top 1% don’t actually consume any of the returns on those savings. Piketty’s scenario is close to Charles Murray’s desire that the rich live a little less ostentatiously.”—Andrew Biggs.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-18 04:44:00 UTC

  • OPERATIONALISM, PROPERTARIAN DEFINITION OF PROPERTY, AND STRICT CONSTRUCTIONISM

    http://www.amazon.com/Supreme-Court-Attitudinal-Model-Revisited/dp/0521789710WHY OPERATIONALISM, PROPERTARIAN DEFINITION OF PROPERTY, AND STRICT CONSTRUCTIONISM ARE NECESSARY FOR RULE OF LAW

    The “Attitudinal Model”: When decisions are unclear, they are made by moral intuitions. Not by reason.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-17 22:22:00 UTC

  • REVELATIONS There are revelations that you are glad you had, and revelations tha

    REVELATIONS

    There are revelations that you are glad you had, and revelations that you’re sad you’ve had. I’ve had a lot of great revelations that filled me with awe. And a small number that have filled me with …. depression.

    Most of us remember when we realized our parents are not people we really should listen to any longer.

    The hard one for me was realizing just how dim most people were. They weren’t evil really. The just don’t know better. The idea of going through life like that, as an ordinary person, was terrifying. I was depressed for months.

    Today was just one of those days where you realize that the number of ‘human’ humans is actually very, very small. And the rest are just trained apes that we hope don’t do too much damage.

    How do you know you’re talking to a human? You know when you cross disciplinary boundaries and someone can follow you, and you them. Because the ultimate wisdom is in how we know what we can know, and how to go about the possibility of knowing it. Regardless of discipline.

    Everyone else is just imitating some behavior or other, like a well trained pet.

    I know why Socrates tried to walk out of athens, and why Lao Tzu and St Patrick did. It seems completely hopeless.

    Sigh. Bad day.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-17 16:54:00 UTC

  • DEAR UKRAINIAN FRIENDS – CHARGE RUSSIA FOR CRIMEA IN GAS Russia stole territory.

    DEAR UKRAINIAN FRIENDS – CHARGE RUSSIA FOR CRIMEA IN GAS

    Russia stole territory. Lets just estimate the value of Crimea and the oil and gas fields. Say, at $4T Euros. So we will just take $4T euros as gas as payment for the seized territory at 22% interest, which is the going rate for high risk capital. This means Ukraine will not have to pay for gas for many years.

    If they don’t like it then we must collect our debt from Russia forcibly.

    I think that’s a pretty good deal. Don’t you?

    🙂

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-17 15:46:00 UTC

  • IN A CORRUPT SOCIETY, FEDERALIZATION = FEUDALIZATION —“We need to be honest wi

    IN A CORRUPT SOCIETY, FEDERALIZATION = FEUDALIZATION

    —“We need to be honest with each other: if someone wants to dismember the county and carry out not a federalization, dear ladies and gentlemen, but feudalization – there has been one Yanukovych and now they want 27 “Yanukovychs” in smaller regions. … That is my personal stance as a citizen: I will oppose to the last and Ukraine will never be dismembered,”—

    Yatsenyuk

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-17 13:46:00 UTC

  • DEAR UKRAINIAN FRIENDS Take the war to Russia. Russia is a fragile economy. We’v

    DEAR UKRAINIAN FRIENDS

    Take the war to Russia. Russia is a fragile economy. We’ve blown a few gas lines already. It works. These lines are fragile. They cover vast distances. Those vast distances are very expensive to defend. They are nearly impossible to logistically defend.

    Russia cannot leverage european dependence on gas if it cannot sell gas. Europe cannot remain neutral, because it is dependent upon gas, if it cannot purchase gas.

    The army has artillery shells in storage. Every shell, easily converted into a bomb, deprives the Russian economy of tens of millions of dollars. A few shells in sequence deprive the Russian economy of tens of billions.

    You know, 50% of Russians are dependent upon that revenue. The entire corrupt pyramid depends upon that gas and oil.

    Two men, a shovel, a flashlight and a motorcycle, and a camping trip.

    Take the war to Russia.

    If you kill the body the head will die.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-17 10:06:00 UTC

  • “I’M FOR PUNISHMENT” —“Summers told Taleb that he was for more capital, more l

    “I’M FOR PUNISHMENT”

    —“Summers told Taleb that he was for more capital, more liquidity, living wills for banks and procedures to wind them down. “What are you for?” he challenged. “I’m for punishment,” Taleb replied. Taleb outlined a system in which everyone would know which systemically important banks would be bailed out, but would presumably see strict oversight of bonuses and operations afterward. Other institutions would be left to fail, he said.”—

    I’m for punishment too. Without punishment it’s not cooperation, it’s not a market, and it’s not capitalism.

    I have a better punishment in mind and it’s a permanent one: if the government is going to produce liquidity (inflation) then give every citizen a debit card and distribute the money directly to consumers bypassing the banks.

    That will rapidly correct the abuses of our financial sector. Because they will have to satisfy consumers to get their hands on cash.

    Not that I’m in favor of government’s printing money. But if you’re going to print it, at least do it intelligently -without creating fragility, and without creating a moral hazard.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-17 09:52:00 UTC

  • STRATEGY? Now, we have spent the past century or more criticizing the keynesians

    STRATEGY?

    Now, we have spent the past century or more criticizing the keynesians, leftists, and progressives for creating systemic fragility. Not only in our culture, our laws, our institutions, our economy – but in our complex infrastructure and systems.

    It used to take armies to implement political change. Then it took mobs. Recently is takes insurgents. And at present it takes only individuals.

    Welcome to fragility.

    They made it possible to get our freedom back.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-17 08:02:00 UTC

  • ARISTOCRATIC EGALITARIAN LIBERTARIANISM A kinship of property rights. The initia

    ARISTOCRATIC EGALITARIAN LIBERTARIANISM

    A kinship of property rights.

    The initiatic brotherhood of warriors.

    The cult of egalitarian sovereignty

    The origins of western exceptionalism.

    The only possible means of possessing liberty.

    I didn’t invent it. I just wrote it down. For the first time in 4000 years.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-17 07:30:00 UTC