Libertarianism had its one brief shining day in power in alliance with the anti racist, anti slavery brigade, was swiftly kicked out of that alliance, and has been beaten over the head with race stick ever since, despite endlessly begging to be allowed to renew the alliance. Since then, the only times it has ever gotten anywhere is in alliance with the “racistâ€, aka white, faction.
Category: economics
On Funding Science
Funding science is not a job that government can do, due to diseconomies of scale, and because government is inherently a religious organization. It winds up funding pseudo science, thus damaging real science. The patron has to know and appreciate that field that he is patronizing, and has to personally gain status from the success of his clients. Otherwise he has the wrong incentives and the wrong knowledge, so patronizes the wrong things, resulting in pseudo science substituting for science.
Keynsianism manufactures its own truth
Nigel asks: A problem is over-reliance on foreign work to produce goods. The jobs that are left here are service jobs and managerial jobs. Did we get this way by free trade or by government intervention? In “Death of the Doctor”, the virtue of a character is proved by that character having traveled around protesting: “he’s picketing an oil rig” “you’re fighting oil barons and factories” Fighting factories. Not any specific kind of factory – just, factories, as if it …
The Keynesian Fallacy
The Keynesian fallacy is not that Keynesians believe that governments can stimulate. Of course governments armed with fiat money can stimulate. Look at Argentina! Look at Zimbabwe! Look at the Wiemar Republic! The Keynesian fallacy is that Keynesians believe that turning labor into goods is easy, so excess demand will mop up excess labor, resulting in the expected level of production. Some of the conditions required to turn labor into goods are security of property rights, the rule of law, …
The cause of social decay
Prosperity is not the problem. Many great nations have declined before we did, showing much the same symptoms as we are showing, and none of them were as prosperous as eighteenth century America. I suggest the root of civilization is patriarchy. Firstly, patriarchy with monogamy gives men posterity, and civilization is what men build for posterity. In a society where most men do not have children or do not know who their children are, do not raise their sons, they …
Marriage, supply and demand
The old deal, legally enforced before 1857, and socially enforced before 1960, was that a man got: The role of head of household. Marriage for life. Not to be denied sex by his wife. A bride who gives him her youth, virginity, and submission. This gave all males a powerful incentive to build civilization for their posterity, to invest in the future and in themselves. The deal has been endlessly changed to be worse, and yet supply and demand tilted …
GDP and lies
When a government moves left, it damages the economy. When it moves left far enough and fast enough, this becomes embarrassing, so it lies about the economy. North Korea, Cuba, and Argentina are infamous examples of this, the Soviet Union used to be an infamous example. Lately the USA has been understating inflation and overstating real GDP growth. How far out of contact with reality have things gone?
On ripple
Ripple is a scam cryptocurrency. Pity, since the alleged design is more scalable than bitcoin. A cryptocurrency is mainly worth its speculative value, worth the possibility it could replace the US$. Obviously Ripple is not going to replace the US$, being a wholly controlled muppet of Cathedral minions. If Ripple was funded by Baidu rather than Google, I would be on it like a tomcat on a pussy in heat.
Selecting for stupid
Before Google became a huge success, it tried to select for the smartest people, in so far as it was legally possible to do. It then became a huge success. Today, Google’s chief human resources officer tells us selecting for smart does not work, so Google does not do it any more. (Hat tip, Lion of the Blogosphere) What do you think is more likely: That selecting for smart does not work, or that it gives politically incorrect results? This …
Economic efficiency of slavery
For tasks requiring intelligence and independent judgement, for the kind of job where one would ordinarily employ a contractor or high level free employee, slave owners generally gave one of their best slaves an incentive environment approximating that of a high level free employee, where the slave had a future career path, the opportunity to save and invest, to own money and buy assets, including buying other slaves, indicating that slavery does not work to get such tasks done – hence …