Cab Thoughts 8/24/16

Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value.--Albert Einstein


In the two centuries after 1800, the goods and services made and consumed by the average person in Sweden or Taiwan rose by a factor of 30 to 100—that is, a rise of 2,900 to 9,900 percent. The Great Enrichment of the past two centuries has dwarfed any of the previous and temporary enrichments. It was caused by massively better ideas in technology and institutions. And the betterments were released for the first time by a new liberty and dignity for commoners—expressed as the ideology of European liberalism. Not "liberalism" as it's come to be understood in the United States, as ever-increasing government, but its old and still European sense, what Adam Smith advocated in 1776: "allowing every man to pursue his own interest his own way, upon the liberal plan of equality, liberty and justice."  (from an article by McCloskey in Reason)

Interesting story. York is a small town in Pa. It is right on Interstate 83, a 40 minute straight shot into Baltimore. In 2007 Maryland famously imposed a “millionaire’s tax” of 6.25% on incomes of over $1 million a year. Funny thing is, when the tax was imposed, suddenly all the tax returns over $1 million disappeared. So either people found ways to shield income from taxation… or they moved to York. . Real estate values going up, people renovating the downtown row houses (where there was crime and even riots not too long ago), new high-end restaurants, charter schools—it is becoming a fancy, fancy place to live.

These people are so interesting. Years ago they decided to tax yachts. They wanted the money and they felt the rich would not care. The yacht market declined--the Americans dominated that market in the world--and virtually disappeared.

Who is...Norman Mailer?

 

Some conservatives and libertarians are coming up with proposals for more “efficient” versions of the welfare state — namely direct cash grants for life to virtually all adults, instead of the current hodgepodge of overlapping bureaucratic programs. Most recently Charles Murray proposed guaranteeing a national income. Does "unearned income have a downside."
Sowell has an interesting analogy to the plight of nations that have received wealth without earning it: Spain. "In 16th- and 17th-century Spain — its “golden age” — the windfall gain was gold and silver looted by the ton from Spanish colonies in the Western Hemisphere. This enabled Spain to survive without having to develop the skills, the sciences or the work ethic of other countries in Western Europe.....What this meant in practical terms was that other countries developed the skills, the knowledge, the self-discipline and other forms of human capital that Spain did not have to develop, since it could receive the tangible products of this human capital from other countries. But once the windfall gains from its colonies were gone, Spain became, and remained, one of the poorest countries in Western Europe. Worse, the disdainful attitudes toward productive work that developed during the centuries of Spain’s “golden age” became a negative legacy to future generations, in both Spain itself and in its overseas offshoot societies in Latin America." He argues that a similar situation has developed in Saudi Arabia with its windfall oil.

A pretty reasonable question to ask of the State Department re: Clinton's off-the-reservation server: How did people at State and across the entire administration know not to use a “state.gov” address when communicating with the secretary?

“It is affectation that makes so many of today’s writings, often even the best among them, unbearable to me. The author takes on a tone that is not natural to him.” Of course it is sometimes the work of a lifetime for an artist to discover who he is and it is true that a great deal of good art results from the trying on of masks, the affectation of a persona not one’s own. But it seems to me that most of my contemporaries, including Mailer, are – as Gide suggests – desperately trying to convince themselves and the audience that they are something other than they are. Vidal wrote this, quoting Gide, about Norman Mailer and his Advertisements for Myself, a curious collection of his early writings and later explanations. He continues, "However, it may be possible to get away with this sort of thing today, for we live in the age of the confession. What Mailer has done is not different in kind than what those deranged and fallen actresses have accomplished in ghost-written memoirs where, with a shrewd eye on the comeback trail, they pathetically confess their sins to Demos, receiving for their tears the absolution of a culture obscenely interested in gossip. I suspect Mailer may create more interest in himself by having made this “clean breast of it” than he would have got by publishing a really distinguished novel. The audience no longer consumes novels, but it does devour personalities."

One could wonder how this self-exposure translates in our modern age of exhibitionism.

The Arts have always hoped to capture the universal, the unseen common "phlogiston" among men. This vision of commonality, of unity, is difficult to square with popular "diversity," which is inherently exclusive and unique. This gets even more complicated when the historical way of evaluation quality in the Arts has been the breadth of its application.

The Institute for Economics and Peace reports that the number of terrorism deaths worldwide in 2015 was  32,685. They have a Terrorism Index! Over 80 per cent of the lives lost were in five countries: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria. Over the last 15 years there have been a number of large and devastating terrorist attacks in Western countries. This includes the September 11 attacks which killed 2,996 people, the Madrid train bombings which killed 191, the Norwegian massacre which killed 77 and the London bombings which killed 56. However, it is important to compare these significant events with the more persistent and severe impacts of terrorism occurring in the rest of the world. Attacks in Western countries accounted for a small percentage incidents, representing 4.4 per cent of terrorist incidents and 2.6 per cent of deaths over the last 15 years. The four large attacks listed above make up 91 percent of deaths from terrorism in the West during this period.

This has been put forward to disclaim the urgency of terrorism in the U.S.. But, to me, it just shows the potential these lunatics have to do damage.

The attacks on Trump's followers will be shown over and over. Trump's people will look mature, upstanding and abused by morons. If the Democrats want to edit tapes, they should edit that one. But Trump's behavior is wearing thin, on me at least.

Venial: adj.  1. able to be forgiven or pardoned; not seriously wrong, as a sin (opposed to mortal).
2. excusable; trifling; minor: a venial error; a venial offense. usage: Now a venial sin being the slightest and least of all sins--being halved--or, by taking either only the half of it, and leaving the rest--or, by taking it all, and amicably halving it betwixt yourself and another person--in course becomes diluted into no sin at all.-- Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Volume 4, 1761. ety: Venial can be traced to the Latin term venia meaning "grace, favor, indulgence." It entered English in the mid-1200s.

“More than 40 Americans die each and every day from prescription opioid overdoses,” CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden said in March. “Increased prescribing of opioids — which has quadrupled since 1999 — is fueling an epidemic that is blurring the lines between prescription opioids and illicit opioids.”

The SS Baychimo was a steel-hulled 1,322 ton cargo steamer built in 1914 in Sweden and owned by the Hudson's Bay Company, used to trade provisions for pelts in Inuit settlements along the Victoria Island coast of the Northwest Territories of Canada. The "Baychimo" became a notable ghost ship along the Alaska coast, being abandoned in 1931 and seen numerous times since then until her last sighting by a group of Inuit in 1969, 38 years after she was abandoned.

Remarkably little is known about the motives of most individuals who adopt a gluten-free lifestyle. According to a 2015 survey of more than 1500 American adults, “no reason” (35%) was the most common explanation for selecting gluten-free foods, followed by “healthier option” (26%), and “digestive health” (19%).³ “Someone in my family has a gluten sensitivity” (10%) was more common than those reporting, “I have a gluten sensitivity,” which was the least common rationale cited (8%)

We have a weakness for what is measurable. But things are usually harder than that. Bourdeaux wrote recently that the conditions of a successful economy are not in themselves enough to stimulate a successful economy. Those additional important qualities may not be easily quantified. The success of even the freest market requires that people respect each other's property rights, that people keep their promises and that people behave responsibly toward their family, friends and own future selves. "Markets that are at least reasonably free are a necessary condition for prosperity. But free markets are not a sufficient condition. This fact is why deregulation alone or free trade alone or tax-cutting alone should not be expected to spark and sustain widespread economic growth.  The case for free markets presumes the existence of a culture that encourages people to care about their families and their futures and that discourages people from looking with scorn upon entrepreneurs and merchants. Under these cultural pre-conditions, prosperity will indeed occur if markets are free." 

Time horizons, too.

  

Golden oldie:

http://steeleydock.blogspot.com/2012/04/what-are-people-for-wendell-berry-book.html

Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.--The New York Times in 1921 on Robert Goddard's dreams of rockets in space

An answer on Quora to the question, what were the biggest mistakes  U.S. history? The Carter Doctrine was a policy enacted by President Carter on January 23rd, 1980 when President Carter specifically stated in the State of the Union that the US would use military force in anyway in the Middle East to protect American interests. Specifically:

Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.

The doctrine was enacted in response to several developing situations in the Middle East that seemed poised to upset the hegemony of the US over the region, the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan as well as the Iran Hostage Crisis significitanly influenced the creation of this doctrine. It was meant to mirror the previously established Truman Doctrine that President Truman had enacted to stem the flow of Communism throughout the world and solidify the US and its existing hegemony at the time. Many also drew parallels to the Lansdowne Declaration of 1903 where the British similarly stated that it would defend the Persian Gulf from encroaching powers that threatened its interests.

No doctrine since the Truman Doctrine has been this expansive in its protections and declarations while also failing to actually carry out its stated goals. Even today, the effects of the Carter Doctrine are felt and widespread and have resulted in the damaging of the US's image abroad in several ways. It was a truly terrible mistake made by an average and militarily naive president.

In his autobiography, Barney Frank admits that he [Frank]“had not thought a great deal” about financial markets prior to taking this leadership position [on the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee]. These guys are shameless.


AAAAaaaaaaannnnnddddddd........2 graphs on the value of position vs draft number, the first is offense, the second defense from cmusportsanalytics: