Thursday, December 15, 2022

Race



Civil forfeiture is the power to seize property suspected of being produced by, or involved in, crime. The property owners must prove that they and their property are innocent of such involvement. Proving this can be, and government has a motive to make it be, a protracted, costly ordeal against a government that has unlimited resources. The government entity that seizes the property often is allowed to keep or sell it. Lucrative law enforcement involves blatant moral hazard — an incentive for perverse behavior.--will

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Inequality.
In three recent studies, existential significance, or the feeling that one’s life matters, was the facet of meaning that primarily explained the link between attractiveness and meaning in life. In addition, a person’s view of their own attractiveness is more indicative of their well-being than outsider ratings.

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Governments.
Papua New Guinea’s prime minister says he does not know the exact size of his country’s population after a report suggested that the number of people living in the Pacific nation could be almost twice the official figure.

A new study compiled by the UN Population Fund has implied that Papua New Guinea’s population may have ballooned to 17mn compared with the official figure of 9.4mn, according to a report in The Australian newspaper. James Marape, who was re-elected as Papua New Guinean prime minister in August, told the newspaper he believed that the population could be 11mn but admitted he might be wrong.

The lack of clarity around the size of the country’s population has serious implications for its economic status and raises doubts over its ability to provide services to its people.

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A study on the effect of direct cash subsidies to Chinese firms:

"Our results provide little evidence to support the view that government subsidies have been given to more productive firms or that they have enhanced the productivity of the Chinese listed firms."
Hayek lives.

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Race

Distortion results in distortion, often creating what it was created to prevent.

In his new book, Charles Murray discusses how he believes identity politics, with its manifold prejudices, squashes honest scientific and medical research, misleads our lawmakers, misdirects our policies, and creates division by separating people into groups rather than looking at them as individuals.

He then raises some valid questions about the future. What if, for example, working-class and middle-class whites adopt identity politics, as some will surely do? What if our universities, corporations, and governments continue to place more emphasis on racial preferences than on talent and skill? Fighting white privilege may appeal to some faculty members in an Ivy League university or to the Disney board of directors, but as Murray writes, most white citizens:
"believe that everyone has a God-given right to be treated equally. Now all of them are being told that they are privileged and racist, and they are asking on what grounds. They are living ordinary lives, with average incomes, working hard to make ends meet. They can’t see what ‘White privilege’ they have ever enjoyed."

Or does identity politics assume the good humor or kind passivity of the white community or sensible non-whites?

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