Curt Doolittle

Theme: Incentives

  • AUTOCRATIC GOVERNMENTS SEEK RENTS SOCIETIES CAN NEVER DEVELOP. —“|Peter Boettk

    http://www.coordinationproblem.org/2015/05/there-is-no-magic-bullet-in-development.htmlIF AUTOCRATIC GOVERNMENTS SEEK RENTS SOCIETIES CAN NEVER DEVELOP.

    —“|Peter Boettke|

    That is what Marshall Poe concludes as the punch line for Robin Grier and Jerry Hough’s The Long Process of Development. As he puts it, development in the Grier and Hough story is about style of governance and the passage of time:

    If autocratic governments do nothing but take rents, the societies they rule will not develop, not ever, no matter how long or hard the governments try to development them. If they are even semi-popular and pro-trade, they will develop, though it will take a very, very long time. There’s no magic bullet. You can’t simply import democracy and capitalism and hope for a rapid transition to freedom and prosperity.

    The process of development takes centuries.”—

    ( Ayelam Valentine Agaliba )

    Source date (UTC): 2015-05-18 11:33:00 UTC

  • 2015 ECONOMIC RISK PERIODS August (vacations cause contemplation) October (Fed +

    2015 ECONOMIC RISK PERIODS

    August (vacations cause contemplation)

    October (Fed + remaining-quarter-analysis)

    January (post-holiday contemplation)

    You see, workplace momentum has an exaggerated effect on economies. It’s more prevalent (and an unstated virtue of american work environments) that there is less room for contemplation, and high pressure of momentum. So what we see in august and in January, are periods of contemplation wherein people assess their recent memory, and change their plans.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-05-17 06:39:00 UTC

  • TERRITORIAL, and TECHNOLOGICAL COMPETITIVE VALUE (profound) I’ve been arguing fo

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/17/upshot/dont-be-so-sure-the-economy-will-return-to-normal.html?smid=tw-upshotnyt&_r=0&abt=0002&abg=0NORMATIVE, TERRITORIAL, and TECHNOLOGICAL COMPETITIVE VALUE

    (profound)

    I’ve been arguing for two decades that we have had 500 years of ‘unusual’ as we spread the voluntary organization of production around the world (often by force), and conquered and exploited two new continents. And that what we see is the new normal. There aren’t enough asymmetries to exploit any longer to maintain the prior asymmetry of wealth.

    Or rather, normative asymmetries (institutions) are terribly productive and last for generations if maintained, territorial asymmetries are almost as productive, and can last for generations if trade routes are maintained, while technological asymmetries are decreasingly durable.

    Or as technologists tend to say: “technology is not a competitive advantage” because it is so easily neutralized.

    Conversely, territorial, trade route, and normative asymmetries produce for the long run.

    Hence my (and Taleb’s) concern about fragility. And my concern that the progressive fantasy of technology as savior, and norm as inhibitor is backwards.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-05-17 06:36:00 UTC

  • NO MARKET FAILURES? Market Failure is a Propertarian Trigger Word I am working o

    NO MARKET FAILURES?

    Market Failure is a Propertarian Trigger Word

    I am working on the Market Failure topic today. And I honestly can’t think of any that are not caused by positive actions of government.

    Or the failure of the common law, because of it’s lack of independence from government.

    Or a failure to prohibit free riding on commons, by requiring some form of contribution to the commons in order to benefit from it.

    Or the interference of government in the suppression of dysgenic reproduction.

    Or a failure to accept/acknowledge that dysgenia is the WORST POSSIBLE form of externality production.

    I don’t make the argument government is unnecessary or undesirable. I make the argument that the law is the law and independent, and the production of commons is a competitive advantage, as long as it produces no dysgenic externalities.

    —

    Types of market failure:

    1) Positive externalities – Goods / services which give benefit to a third party, e.g. less congestion from cycling

    2) Negative externalities – Goods / services which impose cost on a third party, e.g. cancer from passive smoking

    3) Merit goods – People underestimate the benefit of good, e.g. education

    4) Demerit goods – People underestimate the costs of good, e.g. smoking

    5) Public Goods – Goods which are non-rival and non-excludable – e.g. police, national defence.

    6) Monopoly Power – when a firm controls the market and can set higher prices.

    Inequality – unfair distribution of resources in free market

    7) Factor Immobility – E.g. geographical / occupational immobility

    Agriculture – Agriculture is often subject to market failure – due to volatile prices and externalities.

    #propertarianism

    Source date (UTC): 2015-05-17 04:53:00 UTC

  • (how is apple stealing market share from samsung in china? what don’t I get?)

    (how is apple stealing market share from samsung in china? what don’t I get?)

    Source date (UTC): 2015-05-11 17:32:00 UTC

  • The Evolution of Suppression of Free Riding

    [E]volution:

    1) Higher Income reduces opportunity costs and risk (liberalism). Lower income increases opportunity cost and risk(conservatism).

    2) Economic velocity is produced by the centralization of rents, which lowers local (productive) transaction costs at the expense of high total cost (taxation).

    3) Once rents are centralized, we seek to obtain or privatize (redistribute) those rents (economic liberalism) through enfranchisement.

    4) In a perfect world we seek to eliminate those rents (anglo classical liberalism).

    5) But the diversity of ability leads to class warfare since meritocracy is valuable only to a minority, and rents, and parasitismare beneficial to the majority..

    6) In a perfect world we pay the less able, parasitic, and rent seeking minority directly for the maintenance of the meritocratic commons, and thereby circumvent the parasitism of the bureaucratic, and political classes. And perhaps more importantly, prevent the misallocation of capital.

    7) To accomplish this perfect world requires we develop institutions that allow us to produce commons, and pay people for producing those commons: meritocracy included.

    GRAPH

    X-Axis: Equalitarian/Socialist-Compromise/Social Democracy – Meritocratic/Classical Liberal Monarchy.
    Y-Axis: Totalitarian- Democratic – Anarchic
    Z-Axis: Wealth (elimination of transaction costs by the suppression of free riding)

    Suppression of parasitism comes first. Centralize it to eliminate it locally. Then outlaw it, and eliminate it from the central bureaucracy. Economic velocity is determined by the suppression of free riding in all its forms at all levels in the polity.

    (Read Emmanuel Todd’s Invention of Europe. Ricardo Duchsene’s Uniqueness of the West, Hayek’s Constitution of Liberty, Hoppe’s Democracy the God that Failed, and follow my humble efforts.)

    Cheers

  • The Evolution of Suppression of Free Riding

    [E]volution:

    1) Higher Income reduces opportunity costs and risk (liberalism). Lower income increases opportunity cost and risk(conservatism).

    2) Economic velocity is produced by the centralization of rents, which lowers local (productive) transaction costs at the expense of high total cost (taxation).

    3) Once rents are centralized, we seek to obtain or privatize (redistribute) those rents (economic liberalism) through enfranchisement.

    4) In a perfect world we seek to eliminate those rents (anglo classical liberalism).

    5) But the diversity of ability leads to class warfare since meritocracy is valuable only to a minority, and rents, and parasitismare beneficial to the majority..

    6) In a perfect world we pay the less able, parasitic, and rent seeking minority directly for the maintenance of the meritocratic commons, and thereby circumvent the parasitism of the bureaucratic, and political classes. And perhaps more importantly, prevent the misallocation of capital.

    7) To accomplish this perfect world requires we develop institutions that allow us to produce commons, and pay people for producing those commons: meritocracy included.

    GRAPH

    X-Axis: Equalitarian/Socialist-Compromise/Social Democracy – Meritocratic/Classical Liberal Monarchy.
    Y-Axis: Totalitarian- Democratic – Anarchic
    Z-Axis: Wealth (elimination of transaction costs by the suppression of free riding)

    Suppression of parasitism comes first. Centralize it to eliminate it locally. Then outlaw it, and eliminate it from the central bureaucracy. Economic velocity is determined by the suppression of free riding in all its forms at all levels in the polity.

    (Read Emmanuel Todd’s Invention of Europe. Ricardo Duchsene’s Uniqueness of the West, Hayek’s Constitution of Liberty, Hoppe’s Democracy the God that Failed, and follow my humble efforts.)

    Cheers

  • GENERAL RULE Centralize rents to reduce transaction costs (and pay for the reduc

    GENERAL RULE

    Centralize rents to reduce transaction costs (and pay for the reduction in transaction costs) then eliminate the centralized rents.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-05-10 09:12:00 UTC

  • (James Santagata corrects me.) My argument was this: that consumers provide an e

    (James Santagata corrects me.)

    My argument was this: that consumers provide an exceptional means of low cost R&D because they make small investments at low transaction costs. However, the ‘big money’ outside of advertising (gambling) is still in the enterprise customer. That is because the switching costs for consumers is low, and the switching cost for the enterprise is high.

    It has taken a long time for hurricane caused by the justice department’s flapping of butterfly wings to dissipate, but it’s clear that it’s dissipating and that massive consolidation will be possible.

    Why? because owning customer relationships and the curatorial influence of brand has been suppressed for a decade. And I see a peak over there on the horizon.

    The accumulated value of prior generatoins anchored past customer-owners. That anchor has dissipated also.

    More later.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-05-08 09:12:00 UTC

  • WHY USE LESS ENERGY TO FUND DYSGENIA? Why should I stop driving, heating, coolin

    WHY USE LESS ENERGY TO FUND DYSGENIA?

    Why should I stop driving, heating, cooling, burning, manufacturing, so that the underclasses can engage in dysgeic reproduction?

    It’s harmful to mankind to fund dysgenia. It’s the worst possible strategic action that we can take.

    There isn’t any global warming crisis, any more than there is any other pollution crisis. There is a dysgenic overbreeding crisis.

    This isn’t complicated.

    Solve the right problem.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-05-07 05:24:00 UTC