Theme: Institution

  • CHILDREN CANNOT WALK ALONE The reason? a) population density b) anonymity c) los

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-462091/How-children-lost-right-roam-generations.htmlOUR CHILDREN CANNOT WALK ALONE

    The reason? a) population density b) anonymity c) loss of the Right Of Exclusion.

    The real problem here is (c). Unlike other cultures, Americans are prohibited by law from ostracizing people for undesirable behavior. England, Germany, France, and the other advanced nations, all require far greater adherence to norms than we do here in the states.

    The upper middle classe isolate themselves and their children in enclaves whose barrier is the price of a home. The religious move to the same neighborhoods and regions. Meanwhile we try to integrate child molesters into society in group homes, rather than put them in work camps in the middle of the desert.

    The right of exclusion is a good thing. Because with out it, there are terrible consequences.


    Source date (UTC): 2012-08-04 16:45:00 UTC

  • MORE FUN FOR AN EXTERNAL CEO THAN TURNING AROUND A TROUBLED COMPANY I don’t like

    http://business.time.com/2012/08/02/10-ceos-who-are-new-on-the-job-and-trying-to-do-the-impossible/NOTHING MORE FUN FOR AN EXTERNAL CEO THAN TURNING AROUND A TROUBLED COMPANY

    I don’t like to refer anyone to Time Magazine. It’s been the intellectual equivalent of a producer of hazardous waste for most of my life. But this article on the tough job of CEO’s whose job it is to turn around companies that the market has left behind, is not so much worth the read, but worth reminding us of how hard it is to solve some of these problems.


    Source date (UTC): 2012-08-03 10:59:00 UTC

  • SCHOOLS GETTING DOWN THERE IN APPROVAL WITH THAT OF CONGRESS

    http://www.gallup.com/poll/155258/confidence-public-schools-new-low.aspxUS SCHOOLS GETTING DOWN THERE IN APPROVAL WITH THAT OF CONGRESS


    Source date (UTC): 2012-06-25 21:56:00 UTC

  • ONLY INSTITUTION AMERICANS INCREASINGLY TRUST IS THE MILITARY

    http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/losing-faith-in-american-institutions/THE ONLY INSTITUTION AMERICANS INCREASINGLY TRUST IS THE MILITARY


    Source date (UTC): 2012-06-25 21:38:00 UTC

  • In The Us, Is It Realistic To Try To Achieve Labor/progressive Goals In Businesses Through More Active Shareholder Participation Rather Than Government Regulation?

    Being a shareholder is like being a voter. It’s more symbolic than meaningful. Companies of any size are affected either by a) threats to the brand perception by customers or b) threats at regulation.  These two are more effectives strategies than minority share ownership.

    IMHO there is a trending body of thought that suggests shareholders are not owners but speculative lenders. The recent Apple dividend distribution was caused by economists blogging and publicly decrying the company’s hoard.  This caused the company to issue dividends defensively.  And the powerlessness (and frankly, lack of utility) of shareholders was part of that discussion.  Lynn Stout has written a book “The Shareholder Value Myth” and I think it accurately represents the mythology around shareholder ownership.

    https://www.quora.com/In-the-US-is-it-realistic-to-try-to-achieve-labor-progressive-goals-in-businesses-through-more-active-shareholder-participation-rather-than-government-regulation

  • What Is The Difference Between Neoliberalism And Libertarianism?

    An interesting question.

    Neo-liberalism (Neo-classical liberalism) relies upon our classical liberal institutions to create and maintain a minimal state.  “Libertarianism” because of the efforts of the Rothbardians to appropriate the term, has become synonymous with anarcho capitalism.  So, if we are using the word libertarian, we must separate the Libertarian party, from the libertarian sentiment, from the anarcho capitalist philosophy.  They are three different things.  The term “neo-liberalism” is in part an attempt by those people with libertarian sentiments and support for classical liberal institutions to differentiate themselves from ideological anarchists. The term ‘liberal’ has also been appropriated by socialists and democratic socialists.  Classical liberal has an antique meaning. So neo-liberalism is an attempt to create a definition of contemporary economic and political knowledge (all five or six economic strategies) while maintaining a minimal state.

    https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-neoliberalism-and-libertarianism

  • Where Did The Idea That Libertarianism Includes Social Liberties Come From?

    There are two libertarian traditions; The christian aristocratic classical liberal (epitomized by Hayek) and the jewish merchant anarchic (epitomized by Rothbard)  Christians were a land holding majority and so needed formal institutions.  Jews were a diasporic religiously governed minority  and favor anarchism.  With the heavy jewish immigration into the USA, jewish authors advocated their means of avoiding the oppression of the state just like christian classical liberals advocated their means of avoiding oppression by the state.  These two traditions became allies.  Then Rothbard and Friedman became the primary intellectual advocates for libertarian policies.  There has not been an evolution in christian classical liberalism.  This is partly because institutional programs are nearly impossible to put into place, and ideological programs that require only ‘belief’ or ‘support’ are much easier to put into place. It is also a failure in part, because classical liberalism is an institutional model that can resolve conflicts in priority among people with similar interests, but it cannot provide (majority rule cannot) a means of resolving conflicts among people with dissimilar interests. (As they warned us in Federalist Papers 10.)  The recent dominance of Rothbardianism on the internet, can be largely attributed to Lew Rockwell’s insight that it was possible to adopt the ideological tactics of the communist movement, and the organizing tactics of Alinsky to promote libertarianism as an ideology through education and community building. His impact through the mises institute cannot be overstated.  So, in essence, we have not created the next evolutionary step in classical liberalism in order to solve  the problem of running an empire in a modern economy where the institution of marriage has become unbound and where women and men have different reproductive strategies and therefore different political sentiments.   THe libertarians (Hans Hoppe in particular) have devised some solutions for small states. But no one has yet determined a solution for large scale states that desire to federate.  As such, because of this failure, the debate for freedom takes place largely in the context of anarchism.  Because the jewish anarchists have supplied the only ideological program that can compete with social parliamentary democracy (ie: it’s communism by other means.)

    You could look at the problem this way: jews have always been a minority and christian classical liberals are becoming a minority — and beginning to act like one.  Only majorities look to provide institutional solutions.  Small groups stick with informal institutions: religions and norms.  Because they lack the power to create formal institutions.

    That’s a lot to cover in one note.  But it’s the answer you’re looking for.

    https://www.quora.com/Where-did-the-idea-that-libertarianism-includes-social-liberties-come-from

  • What Are The Advantages And Disadvantages Of Different Philosophies Of Economics?

    You listed political philosophies but not economic philosophies.  They are two sets of questions.

    1) Political philosophies consider three different questions:
    a) How is the institution of property constructed (is property owned by individuals, the collective, an institution, or an authoritarian figure, and what are the limits on the use of that property)
    b) what institution is used to determine the use of property (the market, heads of families, bureaucracy, or a dictator)
    c) what claims do citizens (shareholders) have on the results of production or the profits from exchange. (Which are technically the same thing.)
    Everything else is trappings.  We know that incentives and the ability to calculate and plan determine the rate of innovation and effort put into work.  So the more individual property rights are, the more consumption is possible at the lowest cost.

    2) Economic philosophies fall into temporal categories from the short term to the long term, and advocates differer not so much on the utility of any given tactic, but on their approval or disapproval of the externalities (secondary consequences) of using the tactic. Economists then, tend to ally with political philosophies based upon those SECONDARY outcomes.

    These outcomes are driven by ‘fears’.  The liberal fears that the poor or less able will experience discomfort.  The conservative fears that society will be made fragile and uncompetitive.  If we work very hard and save then society will become hierarchical but safe.  If we redistribute and only a few work hard then society will have less discomfort but more fragility.  At least, that’s the theory. The left tolerates fragility and the right tolerates discomfort. It really boils down to that simple a difference.

    What economists do agree upon is that stimulating demand (consumption) stimulates the economy and does it quickly.  What they disagree upon is the good or bad consequences that come from stimulating the economy. The different economic strategies insert money into the economy in a range from very short to very long time frames.

    And the political ideologies are biased toward these two time frames: conservative the long term and liberal the short term.  In effect, the left wants the most redistribution possible right away in order to diminish the stress of the natural difference between teh classes, and think incentives are a means of coercion, and the right wants a meritocratic society where people have an incentive to be productive. (These are simply expressions of the feminine and masculine reproductive strategies. Nothing more.) 

    The different economic tactics below are organized from short term (liberal) to long term (conservative).  Economists tend to fall into camps that PREFER one or more of the tactics. 

    The Economic Tactics:
    a) Modern Monetarists (MMT): when necessary, just give money directly to people in order to stimulate consumption.  MMT is a counter intuitive theory that is widely disputed.  But the idea that we should be able to bypass the financial sector and directly credit consumer bank accounts is not a bad one. The data shows that tax incentives are not useful in the short term. (I was one of the people advocating that we just pay down consumer mortgages by 200K – it would be cheaper than letting the world economy collapse for a decade. Galbraith recommended the same thing before he died. And he and I are at opposite ends of the political spectrum.)   The counter arguments are that there isn’t any way to do this today, and it’s pretty hard to not create a moral hazard, and it’s pretty hard to be equitable, because you’re effectively rewarding people who used bad judgement.  FAVORED BY THE RADICAL LEFT

    b) Monetary Policy: when necessary, reduce the cost of credit (interest rates) so that people are more willing to borrow money. This puts cheap money into the banking system and money works its way through consumers and business into the economy.  This works well in ordinary times mostly as fine tuning, but when we are subject to shocks, like the recession, we can’t make money cheap enough that people actually will spend it. Right now, given the rate of inflation, money is effectively free to borrow. But people still aren’t lending or borrowing.  There is wide consensus that monetary policy is necessary under fiat (monopoly) money.  There is wide consensus that monetary policy can decrease the problems of money shortage compared to the gold standard. The criticism is that monetary policy exaggerates booms and busts.  WIDESPREAD CONSENSUS OTHER THAN LIBERTARIANS

    c) Fiscal Policy (Keynesians) : when necessary, the government borrows (or prints) and spends money on all sorts of programs in order to put money into the economy using the goverment’s spending network.  The problem is that it does take some time to work its way into people’s hands. There are not “shovel ready’ projects available and they take time.  And the real reason people object is because it finances political corruption, and the party in power tends to spend it in partisan fashion. (WHich is why the republicans won’t allow it right now.)  The other reason is that people just don’t trust the government any longer.  So they don’t want to reward the government.  The third reason is that conservatives in particular do not want to expand the government, but contract it.  FAVORED BY THE LEFT

    d) Industrial Policy: the government should (as do most other countries) invest in particular industries that will create jobs and lead to a competitive advantage.  INdustrial policy is usually accompanied by TRADE POLICY (import export controls and taxation).  The asian countries have used these policies to their benefit. China in particular.  The right and libertarians abandoned industrial policy and moved to free trade when the unions allied with the left.  But industrial policy is naturally attractive to the right.  For all intents and purposes, industrial policy has been abandoned in the USA. FAVORED BY THE RIGHT, DESPISED BY LIBERTARIANS.

    e) Human capital policy (Education) : Education policy is the means of improving the competitive value of citizens in relation to other countries.  It takes a very long time for  education policy to take effect.  The germans have demonstrated the best understanding of education. Although most americans would find their model invasive.
    FAVORED BY THE RIGHT, FAVORED BY LIBERTARIANS, ACTIVELY UNDERMINED BY THE LEFT.

    f) Strategic Policy (Military Policy): control of global trade routes, oil, and petro dollars is one of the most important reasons for the USA’s standard of living, despite the relative lack of competitiveness of it’s working classes.  This is a very complex and long topic, but strategic policy IS ECONOMIC POLICY.  The average american gets a pretty big return on his military expenditures. But that’s an unpleasant reality for many.  Strategic policy takes a very long time to play out. But most countries engage in it.  Iran for example is trying to become the core state of islamic civilization and control world oil supplies and prices, and by doing so, eliminate the discount that western citizens pay for oil. 
    FAVORED BY THE RIGHT, DESPISED BY LIBERTARIANS AND THE LEFT

    This needs to be a book length topic but hopefully it illustrates that political philosophy and economic philosophy are two different things.  But that economic philosophy is divided into specialties that correlate with the different sides of the political spectrum.

    One thing is for certain: economists will talk as if they are far more certain than they are or can be. We are too inexperienced in the field of economics, and the problem is far too complex for us to be sure of what we are doing. In effect, we are running a very big experiment on humanity. It seems to be working reasonably well. But some patients are definitely harmed in the process.  The most important of which is that we are expanding the population to questionable levels.

    (I have a splitting headache so i will have to come back and check this for edits this later.  -Cheers)

    https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-different-philosophies-of-economics

  • In The Us, Is It Realistic To Try To Achieve Labor/progressive Goals In Businesses Through More Active Shareholder Participation Rather Than Government Regulation?

    Being a shareholder is like being a voter. It’s more symbolic than meaningful. Companies of any size are affected either by a) threats to the brand perception by customers or b) threats at regulation.  These two are more effectives strategies than minority share ownership.

    IMHO there is a trending body of thought that suggests shareholders are not owners but speculative lenders. The recent Apple dividend distribution was caused by economists blogging and publicly decrying the company’s hoard.  This caused the company to issue dividends defensively.  And the powerlessness (and frankly, lack of utility) of shareholders was part of that discussion.  Lynn Stout has written a book “The Shareholder Value Myth” and I think it accurately represents the mythology around shareholder ownership.

    https://www.quora.com/In-the-US-is-it-realistic-to-try-to-achieve-labor-progressive-goals-in-businesses-through-more-active-shareholder-participation-rather-than-government-regulation

  • What Is The Difference Between Neoliberalism And Libertarianism?

    An interesting question.

    Neo-liberalism (Neo-classical liberalism) relies upon our classical liberal institutions to create and maintain a minimal state.  “Libertarianism” because of the efforts of the Rothbardians to appropriate the term, has become synonymous with anarcho capitalism.  So, if we are using the word libertarian, we must separate the Libertarian party, from the libertarian sentiment, from the anarcho capitalist philosophy.  They are three different things.  The term “neo-liberalism” is in part an attempt by those people with libertarian sentiments and support for classical liberal institutions to differentiate themselves from ideological anarchists. The term ‘liberal’ has also been appropriated by socialists and democratic socialists.  Classical liberal has an antique meaning. So neo-liberalism is an attempt to create a definition of contemporary economic and political knowledge (all five or six economic strategies) while maintaining a minimal state.

    https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-neoliberalism-and-libertarianism