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  • Untitled

    http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/11/09/world/europe/right-wings-surge-in-europe-has-the-establishment-rattled.html?hp&_r=0


    Source date (UTC): 2013-11-11 01:56:00 UTC

  • DECLINE OF CREATIVE DESTRUCTION Cause? 1) The loss of relative technical advanta

    http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/11/the_decline_of_4.htmlTHE DECLINE OF CREATIVE DESTRUCTION

    Cause?

    1) The loss of relative technical advantage due to world adoption of consumer capitalism, and abandonment of marxism, socialism, and communism.

    2) Export of production and jobs due to high domestic taxes and cheap foreign labor.

    3) The distortionary effects of credit on innovation – favoring short term speculation rather than long term innovation: a general shortening of time horizons

    4) The misallocation of capital to reinforcing short run sectors including housing.

    5) The misallocation of human capital to finance, government, and housing.

    6) The failure to reform the education system out of its labor origins.

    7) The dilution of the work force by third world immigration

    8) The policy emphasis on consumption growth rather than innovation growth.

    9) …..

    I’ll just stop there…

    HOW MUCH ARE ECONOMISTS RESPONSIBLE?

    A lot actually. Because economics, as it is practiced, is a positivist enterprise incapable of measuring ‘what matters’: informal institutional capital.

    Civilizations fail, for very simple reasons: the instruments of production, calculation, coordination, and cooperation, cannot adapt to changes in circumstances, nor can they resist regressive results under the auspices of ‘innovation’. The reason we get wealthier is in fact ‘science’ or rather ‘extension of empirical tools of calculation’ that allow us to create increasingly complex divisions of knowledge and labor. Accounting is a far better weapon than cannon because one cannot produce a lot of cannon without accounting, nor an army and supply chain to support it. Laws are important but common laws are more important than other forms of law. Geometry is important but calculus is more important than geometry for many categories of problems. Perhaps most importantly, OPERATIONAL LANGUAGE is more important than mystical or allegorical, or moral language, and operation language requires the presence of scientific, operational, evidence. And further, operational language requires quite a few more IQ points than allegorical language.

    WILL TECHNOLOGY SAVE US FROM PROGRESSIVE DESTRUCTION OF THE WEST?

    It is an act of faith. You cannot extrapolate a trend. Most of our gains have been largely the product of harnessing fossil fuels so that we could teach people to read.


    Source date (UTC): 2013-11-11 01:55:00 UTC

  • ON RACE AND DIVERSITY IN LIBERTARIANISM (cross posted for reference) (insights)

    ON RACE AND DIVERSITY IN LIBERTARIANISM

    (cross posted for reference) (insights) (important)

    METHODS

    Methods of justification for libertarianism (or any other political and moral bias)

    1) Sentimental (I like it)

    2) Moral (it’s better)

    3) Historical (it works)

    4) Empirical (direct experimentation)

    5) Economic (indirect experimentation)

    6) Ratio-scientific (cumulative evidence and theory)

    TWO SOURCES OF LIBERTARIAN THOUGHT

    1) Conservative and Classical Liberal Land holders (christian)

    2) Anarchic and religious non-land holders (jewish/gypsies)

    FOUR SOCIAL STRUCTURES

    1) German (Kant/hierarchical/duty/nuclear family)

    2) French ( Rousseau/equalitarian/care/traditional family)

    3) British (smith-hume+ / aristocratic egalitarian / empirical/ absolute nuclear family)

    4) Jewish (ricardo-mises-rothbard/tribalism)

    FOUR AMBITIONS

    1) The british saw free trade as an international means of achieving peace and prosperity for all europeans.

    2) The germans were trying to resist british consumerism’s disruption of ‘social order’ implicit in german ‘duty’.

    3) The french were trying to extend the family to all of society, and demonstrate their nobility having failed to conquer Europe.

    (The failures of the world wars and transformation from demonstrated material achievement, to the use of generosity and diversity to maintain status, explain current european behavior.)

    4) The jews were and are, trying to justify their participation in a host society without integrating.

    THE ANSWER

    There are two basic reasons for ‘tolerance’ in the libertarian movement.

    1) Jewish authors justifying right to inclusion but denial of the necessity of payment into the commons.

    2) christian authors arguing for payment only into non monopolistic commons, while retaining a homogenous moral commons.

    3) feminist and postmodernist influences.

    DOMINANCE OF JEWISH THOUGHT

    I think that Rothbard brought his heritage to the table (just as Hayek stated of Mises) and he conflated the two ambitions.

    This is actually, the reason why rothbard failed to give us a morally tolerable libertarianism. And it is why libertarianism fails to gain traction. Humans are tribal. Immigration is a political problem. And human seek political power. So it is better to have a homogenous, liberty seeking people, for whom no seizure of power is of any group benefit, because the group is already in power. And there is no incentive for status achievement, because in a homogenous society, there is no status value to trying to gain power.

    HOPPE’S CORRECTION

    Hoppe, through admittedly interesting logic, has shown that rothbard was wrong. I have I think, with rather scientific rather than purely rational terms, demonstrated that Rothbard was wrong.

    CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT

    There is a very great difference between ‘we will not fight despite our differences if we trade’ and ‘we are all equal and can politically cohabitate without conflict’. Politics is a family matter. Trade is a cross-family matter. We can easily trade, but we cannot be politically diverse without replacing conflict over trade with conflict over politics.

    ROTHBARD WAS WRONG.

    THE STATUS ECONOMY RULES. We don’t ‘need’ much as human beings, except to hold onto our status, improve our status, and prevent loss of status. Loss aversion is more applicable to status than any other human trait except perhaps life and limb. We accumulate status, and desperately hold onto it.


    Source date (UTC): 2013-11-11 01:52:00 UTC

  • What happend to Ayelam Valentine Agaliba? FB page missing?

    What happend to Ayelam Valentine Agaliba? FB page missing?


    Source date (UTC): 2013-11-10 15:26:00 UTC

  • HELPING OTHERS WITH OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY…. … is just a cheap way to demonstr

    HELPING OTHERS WITH OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY….

    … is just a cheap way to demonstrate conspicuous consumption because of your wealth. It’s Status seeking. It’s selfish. If you want to change the world, then pay for it yourself.

    It doesnt take much. Just a little self sacrifice.

    But everyone is a wanna-be. A pretender.

    “Artificial feel-good.”

    If it doesn’t cost it doesn’t have value.


    Source date (UTC): 2013-11-10 15:03:00 UTC

  • I…. REALLY want to go hit the clubs tonight. Little crazy dancing. Loud music.

    I…. REALLY want to go hit the clubs tonight.

    Little crazy dancing. Loud music. Lots of pretty white people. Some good whiskey.

    Find a place and sing a little Nirvana LOUD.

    Hug and high-five random people.

    But… no. It’s a school night. Lots of work to do this week. 🙂


    Source date (UTC): 2013-11-10 14:59:00 UTC

  • helplessness. Reap dependence.” – Roman Skaskiw

    http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/11/08/legal-concealed-carry-permit-protects-two-college-students-from-six-time-felon-now-they-face-expulsion/”Sow helplessness. Reap dependence.” – Roman Skaskiw


    Source date (UTC): 2013-11-10 10:52:00 UTC

  • DID THE LEFT LEARN FROM THE FINANCIAL CRISIS? (They never learn anything. As Bra

    http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/11/justin-fox-what-weve-learned-from-the-financial-crisis-noted.htmlWHAT DID THE LEFT LEARN FROM THE FINANCIAL CRISIS?

    (They never learn anything. As Brad Delong demonstrates yet again.)

    What “we” Learned is more interesting.

    (a) Capital flows were catastrophically risk producing.

    (b) Regulation of financial instruments was too weak to prevent fraud on a massive scale, and government created the incentive to commit systemic fraud, and the need to conform to systemic fraud because of a lack of regulation.

    (c) That the state allowed, and encouraged, the privatization of gains and the socialization of losses.

    (d) That the state still prevents individuals and organizations from suing individuals and institutions from regulating company, and financial system behavior via the courts, by declaration of standing, as a means of preserving the political right and responsibility for regulation of those institutions – and thereby creating the incentive for political influence and corruption. That they both create the problem and then offer to solve it isn’t lost on some of us.

    (e) The Austrian theory of the trade cycle is correct, yet again. Expanding credit causes misallocation and eventually, structural unemployment.

    (f) That the left blocked attempts to produce a compromise deal for spending that suited left leaning supporters, and reforms that suited right wing supporters. And that this block continues today.

    (g) We tried very hard, and, it looks as though it is possible to bankrupt the state if we work at it long enough. And either we bankrupt it or it bankrupts us and our families. Our view is that our families are family and that the state is an arbiter, not that all citizens are ‘family’.

    BUT THEN AGAIN, We aren’t positivists. 🙂 And the left is. Because it’s convenient.


    Source date (UTC): 2013-11-10 10:51:00 UTC

  • precise but fun. 🙂

    http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/11/everyone-in-world-needs-at-least-4000.htmlNot precise but fun. 🙂


    Source date (UTC): 2013-11-10 07:39:00 UTC

  • Bitcoin bus, train and taxi fares? hmmm

    Bitcoin bus, train and taxi fares? hmmm…


    Source date (UTC): 2013-11-10 07:32:00 UTC