Economics is the study of the use of scarce resources which have alternative uses.--Lionel Robbins
The 17-mile-long underground particle smasher called the Large Hadron Collider restarted in 2015 and began smashing particles together at a higher energy level than humans have ever reached before. And in December, two different detectors at the LHC both spotted the same strange fluctuation, which physicists say could hint at the existence of a brand-new subatomic particle. The data blip could be a sign of a graviton — a long-theorized particle of gravity, Beacham said. Other experts have said it might be hints of a new, undiscovered dimension.
One of the problems in government is the area of diminishing returns. How much safety legislation is enough? Where should OSHA say "Enough."? When should the courts say "Enough?"
Speeding kills people in cars so we create a speed limit. First it's 70mph, then 65, then 55. But the truth is that speed is not the cause of deaths in auto accidents, motion is. The only solution is to get speed to a point where the structure of the car and the safety mechanisms inside make collisions or loss of control insignificant. 5mph? 15? I was in East Germany when the government declared that any driver with detectable--detectable--alcohol in his blood would lose his car (a very expensive event) and go to jail for a year. I don't know if that worked but I'll bet it did a lot to cutting the problem down. Still there will always be those pesky outliers who demand more control, more punishment, and the state just has to ratchet their rules up. How much punishment is enough? How much improvement is enough?
Some people think a perfect world is a world without crime, but that's not true. A perfect world is where people have the ability to commit crimes, but don't.
Progressives worry a lot about low wages in Mexico stealing jobs form Texas, but not at all about a $7.25 minimum wage in Texas stealing jobs from California, where the minimum wage will gradually be increased to $15/hour.
Following this weekend's leak by Greenpeace demonstrating not only that The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is driven entirely by narrow corporate interests, but that Obama is openly willing to reneg on his pro-environment agenda just to pass the Transatlantic Treaty at any cost, the blowback arrived earlier when France became the first major European nation which threatened to reject the huge free trade deal between the U.S. and the European Union, because according to AP "it's too friendly to U.S. business and probably doomed."
The Central States Pension Fund, which handles retirement benefits for current and former Teamster union truck drivers across various states including Texas, Michigan, Wisconsin, Missouri, New York, and Minnesota, and is one of the largest pension funds in the nation, has filed an application to cut benefits, which would be effective July 1 2016, as it "projects" it will become officially insolvent by 2025. (WashPo)
The 17-mile-long underground particle smasher called the Large Hadron Collider restarted in 2015 and began smashing particles together at a higher energy level than humans have ever reached before. And in December, two different detectors at the LHC both spotted the same strange fluctuation, which physicists say could hint at the existence of a brand-new subatomic particle. The data blip could be a sign of a graviton — a long-theorized particle of gravity, Beacham said. Other experts have said it might be hints of a new, undiscovered dimension.
One of the problems in government is the area of diminishing returns. How much safety legislation is enough? Where should OSHA say "Enough."? When should the courts say "Enough?"
Speeding kills people in cars so we create a speed limit. First it's 70mph, then 65, then 55. But the truth is that speed is not the cause of deaths in auto accidents, motion is. The only solution is to get speed to a point where the structure of the car and the safety mechanisms inside make collisions or loss of control insignificant. 5mph? 15? I was in East Germany when the government declared that any driver with detectable--detectable--alcohol in his blood would lose his car (a very expensive event) and go to jail for a year. I don't know if that worked but I'll bet it did a lot to cutting the problem down. Still there will always be those pesky outliers who demand more control, more punishment, and the state just has to ratchet their rules up. How much punishment is enough? How much improvement is enough?
Some people think a perfect world is a world without crime, but that's not true. A perfect world is where people have the ability to commit crimes, but don't.
Progressives worry a lot about low wages in Mexico stealing jobs form Texas, but not at all about a $7.25 minimum wage in Texas stealing jobs from California, where the minimum wage will gradually be increased to $15/hour.
Following this weekend's leak by Greenpeace demonstrating not only that The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is driven entirely by narrow corporate interests, but that Obama is openly willing to reneg on his pro-environment agenda just to pass the Transatlantic Treaty at any cost, the blowback arrived earlier when France became the first major European nation which threatened to reject the huge free trade deal between the U.S. and the European Union, because according to AP "it's too friendly to U.S. business and probably doomed."
Warren Buffet summed up his multi-year bet with hedge fund Protege Partners recently. The bet, initiated by the New York fund back in 2006, was that over a decade, the cumulative returns of five fund-of-funds picked by Protege would outperform a Vanguard S&P 500 index fund, even when including fees. Buffett showed a chart comparing the cumulative returns of the two sides of the bet since 2008. As of the end of 2015, the S&P 500 index fund had a cumulative return of 65.7%, outdoing the hedge fund teams’s 21.9% return. The S&P has outperformed in six of the eight individual years of the bet too. The chart was preamble to the real point Mr. Buffett wanted to make: that passive investors can do better than “hyperactive” investments handled by consultants and managers who charge high fees. “It seems so elementary, but I will guarantee you that no endowment fund, no public pension fund, no extremely rich person” wants to believe it, he said. “They just can’t believe that because they have billions of dollars to invest that they can’t go out and hire somebody who will do better than average. I hear from them all the time.”
This is astonishing. A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing that life expectancy for white women declined slightly from 2013 to 2014. The good news is that the gap in death rates between young-adult blacks and whites is closing fast; the bad news is that soaring death rates for whites account for much of the change.
Chess champion Kasparov is living in the U.S. and a passionate anti-communist. He wrote recently on his political views with particular application to Sanders. Here is an interesting observation--ending in an important question:
"A popular rebuttal is to invoke the socialist leanings of several European countries with high living standards, especially in Scandinavia. Why can't America be more like happy Denmark, with its high taxes and giant public sector, or at least more like France? Even the more pro-free-market United Kingdom has national health care, after all. First off, comparing relatively small, homogeneous populations to the churning, ocean-spanning American giant is rarely useful. And even the most socialist of the European countries only became wealthy enough to embrace redistribution after free-market success made them rich....As long as Europe had America taking risks, investing ambitiously, attracting the world's dreamers and entrepreneurs, and yes, being unequal, it could benefit from the results without making the same sacrifices. Add to that the incalculable windfall of not having to spend on national defense thanks to America's massive investment in a global security umbrella. America doesn't have the same luxury of coasting on the ambition and sacrifice of another country....Who will be America's America?"
This is astonishing. A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing that life expectancy for white women declined slightly from 2013 to 2014. The good news is that the gap in death rates between young-adult blacks and whites is closing fast; the bad news is that soaring death rates for whites account for much of the change.
Chess champion Kasparov is living in the U.S. and a passionate anti-communist. He wrote recently on his political views with particular application to Sanders. Here is an interesting observation--ending in an important question:
"A popular rebuttal is to invoke the socialist leanings of several European countries with high living standards, especially in Scandinavia. Why can't America be more like happy Denmark, with its high taxes and giant public sector, or at least more like France? Even the more pro-free-market United Kingdom has national health care, after all. First off, comparing relatively small, homogeneous populations to the churning, ocean-spanning American giant is rarely useful. And even the most socialist of the European countries only became wealthy enough to embrace redistribution after free-market success made them rich....As long as Europe had America taking risks, investing ambitiously, attracting the world's dreamers and entrepreneurs, and yes, being unequal, it could benefit from the results without making the same sacrifices. Add to that the incalculable windfall of not having to spend on national defense thanks to America's massive investment in a global security umbrella. America doesn't have the same luxury of coasting on the ambition and sacrifice of another country....Who will be America's America?"
The emotional pattern seems to be something like, “[Karl] Polanyi, a person of the left like me, says many true things, beautifully. Therefore his tales about what happened in economic history must be true.” Marx before him got similar treatment. Lately the more eloquent of the environmentalists, such as Wendell Berry, get it too. People want to believe that beauty is truth. A supporting emotional frame on the left arises from the very idea of historical progress: “We must be able to do so much better than this wretched capitalism.” It is not true, but it motivates.--Deirdre McCloskey
Condign: a Geo. Will word. adj: Well-deserved, appropriate. ety From Middle English condigne, from Anglo French, from Latin condignus, from com- (completely) + dignus (worthy). Ultimately from Indo-European root dek- (to take, accept), which is the ancestor of other words such as dignity, discipline, doctor, decorate, docile, and deign. Earliest documented use: 1413. usage:“Were [Trump] to be nominated, conservatives would have two tasks. One would be to help him lose 50 states -- condign punishment for his comprehensive disdain for conservative essentials, including the manners and grace that should lubricate the nation’s civic life.”
George F. Will; If Trump is Nominated, the GOP Must Keep Him Out of the White House; The Washington Post; Apr 29, 2016. (WebCite)
One of the great achievements of our benign leadership class has been the Climate Change suggestions--SUGGESTIONS--that came out of the goofy Paris meeting. Obama was so proud. However, a new peer-reviewed paper by Dr. Bjorn Lomborg published in the Global Policy journal measures the actual impact of all significant climate promises made ahead of the Paris climate summit. It is estimated that Paris "commitments" will reduce temperatures by just 0.05°C in 2100. 0.05 degrees. Never mind. Our work here in Paris is done. Off to Cuba.
George F. Will; If Trump is Nominated, the GOP Must Keep Him Out of the White House; The Washington Post; Apr 29, 2016. (WebCite)
One of the great achievements of our benign leadership class has been the Climate Change suggestions--SUGGESTIONS--that came out of the goofy Paris meeting. Obama was so proud. However, a new peer-reviewed paper by Dr. Bjorn Lomborg published in the Global Policy journal measures the actual impact of all significant climate promises made ahead of the Paris climate summit. It is estimated that Paris "commitments" will reduce temperatures by just 0.05°C in 2100. 0.05 degrees. Never mind. Our work here in Paris is done. Off to Cuba.
Should something with specific value in one thing be applied to all? For example, should statistics, which can evaluate a leadoff hitter in baseball, be applied to earned income as an evaluation of personal success or ability? Bordeaux on the notion of the value of majority decision making: "Given the existence of the U.S. government, majoritarian representative democracy might be the best option for making some select few choices, such as the size of the state’s military budget. But why must ‘we’ choose collectively the minimum wages that employers pay to employees? Why must ‘we’ choose collectively the rate at which water runs out of the faucets of individual homes and places of business? Why must ‘we’ choose collectively the minimum amounts that workers save for their retirements? Why must ‘we’ choose collectively a set of substances that ‘we’ are not permitted to ingest? Why must ‘we’ choose collectively what foreign goods consumers are permitted to purchase? Why must ‘we’ choose collectively the professional qualifications of physicians, lawyers, and (in some states) cosmetologists and florists? Why must ‘we’ choose collectively the terms on which money is funneled to producers of electric cars, to manufacturers of commercial aircraft, and to growers of corn?The vast majority of decisions made today by majoritarian representative government are decisions that not only can be, but would be, made far better by each of us individually. Individual decision-making by people each of whom spends his or her own money and each of whom enjoys (and suffers) the consequences of his or her choices is the best option."
Golden oldie:
Golden oldie:
http://steeleydock.blogspot.com/2009/04/mendacity.html
One of mankind's interesting tendencies is to apply single factor explanations to entities with multi-factorial causes. One wonders if that is not a part of our ancient religions; an almighty power smooths over the complexities of life. From the Hammer of Thor to Oedipal Complex to miasma, we have always been able to explain the remarkable world with single causes. Perhaps we have a reverse Needham Question: Is the West burdened with a vision of singularity, of essence, of unity?
One of mankind's interesting tendencies is to apply single factor explanations to entities with multi-factorial causes. One wonders if that is not a part of our ancient religions; an almighty power smooths over the complexities of life. From the Hammer of Thor to Oedipal Complex to miasma, we have always been able to explain the remarkable world with single causes. Perhaps we have a reverse Needham Question: Is the West burdened with a vision of singularity, of essence, of unity?
George Akerlof's and Robert Shiller's 2015 book, Phishing for Phools objects to calls for deregulation "just because regulation has problems." If it is true that the imperfection of regulation by government is insufficient reason to reject regulation by government, then it is also true that imperfection of markets is insufficient reason to reject regulation by markets.
Let's try to leave logic out of this.
Let's try to leave logic out of this.
What is...The Needham Question?
Based on Department of Education estimates, women will earn a disproportionate share of college degrees at every level of higher education in 2016 for the eleventh straight year. Overall, women in the Class of 2016 will earn 139 college degrees at all levels for every 100 men, and there will be a 610,000 college degree gap in favor of women for this year’s college graduates (2.195 million total degrees for women vs. 1.585 million total degrees for men). By level of degree, women will earn: a) 154 associate’s degrees for every 100 men (female majority in every year since 1978), b) 135 bachelor’s degrees for every 100 men (female majority since 1982), 139 master’s degrees for every 100 men (female majority since 1987) and 106 doctoral degrees for every 100 men (female majority since 2006). . . .
The world's 62 richest people own more than the world's 3.5 billion poorest people combined. There are countless ways of processing that. One is to argue that the wealth of the rich is unjust, that there is an unwritten law somewhere that declares disparity of money as evil. Or unfair. Calling upon unwritten laws is always a bit dicey, of course. You are always at risk of someone making up or discovering a really ugly one like, for example, a law declaring the superiority of a race that they use to justify all sorts of horrors. Strangely, there is an obvious translation of the disparity of wealth that people rarely use: the evil of poverty. That, however, would make some demands upon people. We would have to come to some consensus as to how to encourage wealth creation. And effort might be involved. It's a lot easier just to go and burn some other neighborhood.
The “Needham Question” or “Needham Problem,” also misleadingly called “the Needham Paradox,” refers to the guiding question behind Joseph Needham’s (b. 1900–d. 1995) massive Science and Civilisation in China, as well as his many other publications. As he phrased it, “the essential problem [is] why modern science had not developed in Chinese civilization (or Indian) but only in Europe.” He went on to consider another quite different question, equally important, and centered his historical research on it: “why, between the first century BC and the fifteenth century AD, Chinese civilization was much more efficient than occidental in applying human natural knowledge to practical human needs.” So, he asked, were there social or technological factors that allowed China to advance so rapidly in the first 15 centuries since Christ and then caused it to stagnate?
The Central States Pension Fund, which handles retirement benefits for current and former Teamster union truck drivers across various states including Texas, Michigan, Wisconsin, Missouri, New York, and Minnesota, and is one of the largest pension funds in the nation, has filed an application to cut benefits, which would be effective July 1 2016, as it "projects" it will become officially insolvent by 2025. (WashPo)
On May 3rd, 1810, Lord Byron swam the Hellespont, in emulation of Leander's legendary swims to visit his beloved Hero. Byron was twenty-two. The swim took Byron two tries, but he bested the one mile, the cold waters and the strong current -- he reckoned that he traveled over three miles downstream during the crossing -- in an hour and ten minutes. "Did it with little difficulty," he said in his journal entry; "I plume myself on this achievement more than I could possibly do on any kind of glory, political, poetical, or rhetorical," he wrote in one letter home. He
had just ended, while in Malta, his first serious affair. This was with Constance Spencer Smith, a twenty-six-year-old married woman who had dazzled Byron with her beauty, mystery and unattainability. She had once been arrested on orders of Napoleon (for unclear reasons), and had escaped from prison by way of another enflamed twenty-two-year-old nobleman (plus a rope ladder, a boy's costume, a carriage and a boat). Byron at one point attempted to defend her honor in a sunrise duel.
From birth, Byron suffered from a deformity of his right foot. Although it has generally been referred to as a "club foot", some modern medical authors maintain that it was a consequence of infantile paralysis (poliomyelitis), and others that it was a dysplasia, a failure of the bones to form properly. Whatever the cause, he was afflicted with a limp that caused him lifelong psychological and physical misery, aggravated by painful and pointless "medical treatment" in his childhood and the nagging suspicion that with proper care it might have been cured.
He was extremely self-conscious about this from a young age, nicknaming himself le diable boiteux (French for "the limping devil")
AAAAaaaaaannnnndddddd....some pictures of Byron:
He was extremely self-conscious about this from a young age, nicknaming himself le diable boiteux (French for "the limping devil")
AAAAaaaaaannnnndddddd....some pictures of Byron:
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