Curt Doolittle

Source: Facebook

  • GOVERNMENT THINGS THAT I AM A FARM ANIMAL

    http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3v9pl6/MY GOVERNMENT THINGS THAT I AM A FARM ANIMAL.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-23 08:17:00 UTC

  • END OF THE CHINESE MIRACLE : AND A FEW POINTS ON THE PRIORITIES OF THE DIFFERENT

    http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/recognizing-end-chinese-economic-miracleTHE END OF THE CHINESE MIRACLE : AND A FEW POINTS ON THE PRIORITIES OF THE DIFFERENT SCHOOLS OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT

    I despise macroeconomic positivism.

    The way I look at economic data is ALWAYS in the context of A) DEMOGRAPHICS, B) GEOGRAPHY C) INSTITUTIONS AND NORMS D) TECHNOLOGY, and E) HISTORY. ONLY within that context does macroeconomic information represent ANYTHING other than NOISE as first BRITAIN’s and then the USA’s Military and Political machine, drive unnatural (meritocratic) behavior into the world economy.

    One organization that consistently provides me with that macro information in which to interpret the macroeconomic noise, so that I can select rare SIGNAL, is STRATFOR. I read everything Friedman puts out. It’s priceless work. And STRATFOR is a valuable intellectual asset for the west if not for humanity.

    Most of us who predicted the crash in 2008 (I was only off by about 90 days) and those of us who have been predicting the Chinese crash (I was off by three years) generally work not with the noise of macroeconomic data, but macroeconomic data tends to inform us about the progress of demographic and institutional change. In the end however, demographics, geography and institution determine economics with technology the disruptive factor that causes change. An organization like STRATFOR helps us interpret macroeconomic noise, pull the signal, and understand what MUST happen over the longer term.

    Now, a gene pool and its culture is a long term investment strategy. And return on perishable commodity speculation is a short term strategy. And return on short term capital imbalances is yet another. Each of us focuses on some different portion of the time scale.

    The different economic factions, from austrians at one end, to monetarists, to Keynesians, to modern monetary theorists at the other, all look at the world through different time frames, because their priorities are different. A modern monetarist tends to see us all as peak life consumers supported by natural and stable momentum, and an austrian as an extended family with shared norms, in a complex and fragile system. Like any other discipline, once you master it, you realize just how ignorant and stupid we all are – and are usually humbled by that experience. You realize that the masculine view of the world is to build a tribe that is better than others, and the female view of the world is to give her children the greatest opportunity to spread her genes. That these two strategies are in conflict is troublesome – but a wise step on evolution’s part. But this competition shows up everywhere in political and economic life. And we tend to see intellectual endeavors in politics and economics as a quest for a universal truth. But it isn’t. It’s a conflict – at best a balance – between the male and female reproductive strategies. And economics at one end or the other, austrian or modern monetary theorist is little more than another example of that conflict – not of truths, but of preferences.

    Most countries do not communicate directly, but through professional communication organizations with personal relationships: think tanks. That most countries would rely on this network is pretty obvious from the differences in incentives between bureaucrats, politicians, and intellectuals. And countries communicate with the least distortion when their intellectuals communicate directly, and the politicians and bureaucrats can make use of the knowledge and relationships between intellectuals. For China and America this is doubly true.

    I am not operating at the level where I have those politically influential connections. Partly because my time preference is very, very long. I’m a pretty ‘male’ male. I care about my tribe. And that’s the domain of politics, ethics, and political economy, not macro economics – which is, for a gene pool, just noise.

    Curt

    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-23 07:42:00 UTC

  • HAVE BEEN THROUGH THE LIFECYLE OF EMPIRE – THE USA IS A FAILED STATE – TIME TO B

    http://www.lewrockwell.com/2013/07/michael-s-rozeff/the-us-is-a-failed-state/WE HAVE BEEN THROUGH THE LIFECYLE OF EMPIRE – THE USA IS A FAILED STATE – TIME TO BREAK IT UP AND START OVER

    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-23 06:58:00 UTC

  • NPOV: POSITIONING AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS VS MAINSTREAM ECONOMICS For you to consider

    NPOV: POSITIONING AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS VS MAINSTREAM ECONOMICS

    For you to consider yourself an Austrian in ECONOMIC theory, the minimum requirement is to subscribe to 1) the subjective theory of value, 2) the austrian theory of the business cycle and possibly 3) that money is non-neutral. That is all that would differentiate you from a mainstream economist.

    Mainstream economists TEND to argue that macro monetary policy is ‘above’ all of that:

    i) that the business cycle MAY be affected by the government, but that the net result is actually still better than it would be if we constrained the government.

    ii) The idea that we push problems down the road is fine, because in the progressive view, technology will save us in the future. (Really.)

    iii) that individual benefits are distributed by complex means, so that in the end, it all works our if they take your property and give it to someone else, and increase risk and government debt.

    iiii) Austrian economics is logical, but does not place an emphasis on the empirical, or at least, casts doubt on the empirical statements mainstream economists make. And since economics as a discipline is actually econometrics then this means you have no place in economics departments.

    You would CHOOSE to study Austrian economics only if you either have a) a moral objection to Keynesianism, or b) it violates your observation about human nature, or c) the externalities it will produce accumulate into even more serious problems than the business cycle. (That’s what libertarians argue.)

    The reason some of us tend to choose Austrian economics is because we have a political interest in the long term effects of policy on society. And because we think norms and institutions are not arbitrary. This category of questions is in the domain of POLITICAL ECONOMY, not really that of monetary economics. And as such, most of us would recommend that you study Austrian economics in the context of political science, or ethical philosophy, rather than monetary economics, and do so in support of a political science degree where first year macro and micro economics really are sufficient.

    GMU does teach Austrianism and their program is competitive, and their students are sought out precisely for that reason. The developing world, where corruption is a serious problem, also tends to have austrian influence, because it explains at least in part, why these countries remain poor: they don’t have property rights.

    The truth is that in our advanced countries, where we do have at least marginal property rights and limited corruption, Austrian principles are not as important as macro principles. So I think it is more that Austrianism is an early stage way of looking at the world, and once you’ve succeeded with institutions at the austrian level you can more easily make use of macro institutions without such substantially negative externalities. Although most dedicated Austrians (the ideological kind) might disagree with me, I kind of doubt that I’d lose the argument.) 🙂

    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-22 16:13:00 UTC

  • OUTLINE

    http://www.propertarianism.com/2013/07/22/a-defense-and-criticism-of-the-class-philosophy-we-call-libertarianism/WORKING OUTLINE

    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-22 14:27:00 UTC

  • YOU CAN”T HAVE AN ARISTOCRATIC CONSTITUTION, ARISTOCRATIC HOUSES OF GOVERNMENT A

    YOU CAN”T HAVE AN ARISTOCRATIC CONSTITUTION, ARISTOCRATIC HOUSES OF GOVERNMENT AND ARISTOCRATIC JUSTICE IF YOU DON”T HAVE ARISTOCRATS.

    Natural aristocracy is determined by business and war. It is not determined by competition for who can be the greatest expert at exploiting the property rights of individuals.

    Democracy is a competition of crooks.

    Direct democracy, or no democracy.

    Privatize everything.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-22 06:15:00 UTC

  • ON FINITISM, PLATONISM, MEASUREMENT, SCIENCE (I have been working for the past f

    ON FINITISM, PLATONISM, MEASUREMENT, SCIENCE

    (I have been working for the past few weeks on the problem of what I see as platonism in libertarian theory, and am trying to correct that by basing political theory on science instead. This post from another group illustrates the direction I’m going.)

    Steven:

    Thank you for helping me with this.

    “But this wouldn’t entail anything about the infinity or non-infinity of reality, or of theories understood in the sense of Popper’s ‘objective knowledge’…”

    Of WHAT in reality? What measurement could I take in reality that was not finite in a finite period of time? Given change, the idea of infinity is not logical, since at any point state (a) vs state (b) no longer has any non-arbitrary meaning.

    As far as we know, any reality in which we can take action is geometric on actionable time scale.

    As far as we know, language, like mathematics can describe both the real and unreal, and given its ability to expand, it can indeed construct infinite names, descriptions, and statements. But likewise, as far as we know, this does not apply to measurements, which must meet the criteria of observability – hence bounded by time. What ‘real’ phenomenon can be expressed as a measurement that is infinite? I can’t think of any. And as far as I know, this applies forward and backward in time. If it didn’t physics wouldn’t be possible. Micro-scale actions, even in n-dimensional space, still equilibrate at any observable, measurable unit-size.

    Logic and mathematics also address this position in the FINITIST movement, and even Aristotle was, to some degree a Finitist. (I’ve read that Wittgenstein also was, but I haven’t spent enough time on him to judge for myself.)

    As far as I know, and as far as I can prove anyone knows, reality and measurement are ARITHMETIC, NOT MATHEMATIC.

    As far as I know, Mathematical and Logical constructs are platonic, while arithmetic are real.

    As far as I know there is very little that cannot be expressed in very basic real numbers. And that which can be is also platonic. And as far as I know, there is no measurable activity that cannot be expressed in Finitist terms.

    The problem of relative relations requires ratios (calculus) whenever we cannot produce a mechanical measurement (a complex fluid system for example), but the problem of geometric measures requires only natural numbers.

    My problem is not philosophy. The problem is mathematics. I just don’t know the field at this level although it’s pretty much intuitive to me. Philosophy departments are overwhelmingly platonic. It gives them something to do. Otherwise they’d have to focus on empirical problems like economists and physicists. 🙂

    But this position ties in with Matt’s statement on Koertge:

    why did popper have to invent this theory anyway? Because of morality of his time. Popper had to destroy certitude, not just in mathematics, but in politics, in order to undermine what was thought to be scientific socialism.

    From my perspective, mathematical platonism, physics as mysticism, and postmodernism, are all political biases that have invaded academia with marxist and freudian mysticism.

    Like Freidrich Hayek, I am fairly sure that this era will have been considered a new era of magianism ushered in by Marx and Freud, and the einsteinan revolution used by every possible academic department to claim psychological legitimacy by making relativistic claims. And in particular by liberal arts departments, envious of their replacement by physics and economics, as means to promote the secular religion of Postmodernism, which makes use of all of these platonic and magical properties.

    This may cross a bit too many different disciplines for this forum but I am fairly sure it is a correct analysis.

    As I’ve stated in another post, I think CR / Falsification is a defense against cognitive bias, and an attack on relativism, but I am not sure that it is in fact a statement about reality.

    Probably one of the more profound things discussed on FB today, I’m sure. 🙂

    Thanks for giving me an opportunity to test my thoughts by articulating them.

    Curt

    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-22 02:22:00 UTC

  • Oct 07, 2012After two days in a skeevy apartment, I move into the Impressa hotel

    Oct 07, 2012After two days in a skeevy apartment, I move into the Impressa hotel.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-21 17:07:00 UTC

  • Oct 05, 2012Fifth of October, arrive from Munich via Poland. Met at the airport

    Oct 05, 2012Fifth of October, arrive from Munich via Poland. Met at the airport by my friend Roman Saskiw. Place: Kyiv, Ukraine (50.45, 30.5233)Address: Kyiv, Ukraine

    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-21 17:03:00 UTC

  • ENOUGH LIBERTARIANISM FOR ONE DAY Enough libertarianism for one day. I will have

    ENOUGH LIBERTARIANISM FOR ONE DAY

    Enough libertarianism for one day. I will have to solve this damned problem over the next few weeks. Didn’t think I could do it but I’m almost there. Almost. Every logical argument that I can find rests upon the representation of ratios not measures. I still have the 20th century to get thru but I am pretty sure it will hold up.

    Now, we have to pick a restaurant. I want… fish! and Pasta! lol

    Actually I want chocolate. But I have willpower enough to resist it. 🙂

    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-21 13:21:00 UTC