We haven't yet learned how to stay human when assembled in masses. -Lewis Thomas, physician and author
From a review of Norberg's new book, Progress: The amount of oil spilled in the ocean between 2000 and 2014 was 257,000 tons. This sounds big—it is big—but that was the amount spilled annually in the 1970s. Air pollution is much lower than it used to be in richer countries. Norberg tells of the horrible smog in London in December 1952 that killed as many as 12,000 people. With less burning of coal for heating, that just doesn’t happen in London anymore. The improvement, moreover, is worldwide. Out of 178 countries whose environmental progress is measured in the Environmental Performance Index, 172 improved between 2004 and 2014. A big part of the reason is that environmental quality is what economists call a “normal good.” As real income per person rises, people want a better environment. And they achieve it partly with laws and regulations and partly with their own voluntary changes in behavior.
Renate Langer, a 61-year-old former German actress, has reported to the Swiss police that the film director Roman Polanski raped her at a house in Gstaad in February 1972, when she was 15.
Ms. Langer is the fourth woman to publicly accuse Mr. Polanski of sexual assaulting her when she was a teenager.
But he is an artist.
A recent curious Gospel where Christ talks to the priests and says a surprising thing: "Amen, I say to you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you.
When John came to you in the way of righteousness, you did not believe him; but tax collectors and prostitutes did. Yet even when you saw that, you did not later change your minds and believe him."
What are....Ghost Guns?
IBM employs 130,000 people in India-- about one-third of its total work force, and more than in any other country. Their work spans the entire gamut of IBM's businesses, from managing the computing needs of global giants like AT&T and Shell to performing cutting-edge research in fields like visual search, artificial intelligence and computer vision for self-driving cars. One team is even working with the producers of Sesame Street to teach vocabulary to kindergartners in Atlanta.
In 1938, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, French Premier Edouard Daladier, and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich Pact, which sealed the fate of Czechoslovakia, virtually handing it over to Germany in the name of peace. Upon return to Britain, Chamberlain would declare that the meeting had achieved “peace in our time.”
Although the agreement was to give into Hitler’s hands only the Sudentenland, that part of Czechoslovakia where 3 million ethnic Germans lived, it also handed over to the Nazi war machine 66 percent of Czechoslovakia’s coal, 70 percent of its iron and steel, and 70 percent of its electrical power. It also left the Czech nation open to complete domination by Germany. In short, the Munich Pact sacrificed the autonomy of Czechoslovakia on the altar of short-term peace-very short term. The terrorized Czech government was eventually forced to surrender the western provinces of Bohemia and Moravia (which became a protectorate of Germany) and finally Slovakia and the Carpathian Ukraine. In each of these partitioned regions, Germany set up puppet, pro-Nazi regimes that served the military and political ends of Adolf Hitler. By the time of the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the nation called “Czechoslovakia” no longer existed. (History)
A columnist wrote: Vast numbers of nonwhites are being raised to believe that America hates them. This should be considered a form of child abuse.
....by 1900 27 percent of black farmers in the entire South had become owners. Surely that rise constituted a spectacular achievement on their part. The figures become still more striking for those who adopt the hypothesis that the heritage of slavery inevitably destroyed the freedmen’s competence, or the hypothesis that the Ku Klux Klan represented a unified view of the white South.
Black ownership was the outcome of wide-ranging experience in private markets.--Liebergott
“Progressives” who appropriately emphasize the society-wide impact of a carbon tax too often mysteriously ignore the society-wide impact of income taxes--Bordeaux. So they abide by the laws of economics only when it suits them?
"Football is one of the most powerful institutions in American society. It is so powerful that it claimed an entire day of the week. It said, 'This day is ours. We own it.' Not only did football take a day of the week, but the previous owner was God."--quoted from somewhere by Charen
The tax cut debate will emerge now with the continuing disingenuous of most involved. The real question about taxes is its implication to the economy: Money in private hands is spent more wisely and to better effect in the system than taxed money is. So earned money, untaxed, multiplies in its effect in the economy whereas taxed money is expressed as only a fraction of the original amount. This is generally agreed by everyone. So the problem arises when you cut taxes, you have to decrease the amount paid by those who pay taxes; those that pay taxes are where the impact must be. One cannot cut the taxes of those who don't pay them. And the impact of tax cutting will be greater the more you cut. How this impact those who receive tax money in this peculiar moral laundering scheme is a completely different question.
Golden oldie:
http://steeleydock.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-ruby-parable.html
What our generation has forgotten is that the system of private property is the most important guaranty of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not. It is only because the control of the means of production is divided among many people acting independently that nobody has complete power over us, that we as individuals can decide what to do with ourselves.--Hayek
The Supreme Court hearing the "Gerrymander" case is filled with bad omens. One of them is the concept of "proportional representation," an imperfect reflection of federal democracy. The plaintiffs are attempting to restructure the national voting on the same basis as the Democratic Party's quota system.
Thomas More, was canonized in 1935 and was made patron saint of politicians(!) in 2000.
Morse and Satel have an interesting article in the WSJ about an upcoming court appeal on addiction. The case involves a Ms. Eldred who was convicted of theft to support her addiction. She argues that brain changes in the addict make addiction more severe and consequently her actions were not her responsibility. The authors write that people do escape addiction and thus addiction--and its subsequent acts--is behavioral (unlike, they argue, Alzheimer's.)
Gender bias is stalking this great land of ours. Of the 78,744 doctoral degrees awarded in 2016, women earned 40,407 of those degrees and 52.1% of the total, compared to 37,145 degrees awarded to men who earned 47.9% of the total. Women earning doctoral degrees in 2016 outnumbered men in 7 of the 11 graduate fields tracked by the Council of Graduate Schools. Women earned 57.4% of all master’s degrees in 2016.
I eagerly await the social movement to make this disparity right.
From a review of A Word of Three Zeroes by Muhammad Yunus: Mr. Yunus prefers to criticize the market system—and mainstream economics—for its celebration of selfish greed as the basis of everything. This is a common misunderstanding of Adam Smith’s invisible hand, which privileges individual choice, not individual selfishness. If consumers choose to buy products with social benefits, or refuse to buy those that inflict social harms, nothing about the capitalist system prevents them from doing so. If investors want to accept lower returns in exchange for investing in socially conscious businesses, they are free to do that too.
Catalonia is much bigger than Greece – it’s 20% of the Spanish economy and Spain’s strongest region. What is going on in Europe? And how crazy was the aggressive Spanish response?
The NFL is getting some pushback over its municipal bonds' subsidizing stadiums--because of the national anthem controversy. But there are some serious practical questions too. When the Rams moved to California, St. Louis taxpayers were left with $100 million in debt from the construction of the Rams’ former home, the Edward Jones Dome — and now that debt must be repaid without the revenue generated by the team it was built for in the first place.
The Left sees cutting taxes as only a break for the rich. (Although it is tough to cut taxes on those that don't pay taxes.) But they want to tax carbon because they think it will discourage production. Sooooo......
AAAAaaaannnnnddddd......a list of U.S. metropolitan areas and their comparable countries:
From a review of Norberg's new book, Progress: The amount of oil spilled in the ocean between 2000 and 2014 was 257,000 tons. This sounds big—it is big—but that was the amount spilled annually in the 1970s. Air pollution is much lower than it used to be in richer countries. Norberg tells of the horrible smog in London in December 1952 that killed as many as 12,000 people. With less burning of coal for heating, that just doesn’t happen in London anymore. The improvement, moreover, is worldwide. Out of 178 countries whose environmental progress is measured in the Environmental Performance Index, 172 improved between 2004 and 2014. A big part of the reason is that environmental quality is what economists call a “normal good.” As real income per person rises, people want a better environment. And they achieve it partly with laws and regulations and partly with their own voluntary changes in behavior.
Renate Langer, a 61-year-old former German actress, has reported to the Swiss police that the film director Roman Polanski raped her at a house in Gstaad in February 1972, when she was 15.
Ms. Langer is the fourth woman to publicly accuse Mr. Polanski of sexual assaulting her when she was a teenager.
But he is an artist.
A recent curious Gospel where Christ talks to the priests and says a surprising thing: "Amen, I say to you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you.
When John came to you in the way of righteousness, you did not believe him; but tax collectors and prostitutes did. Yet even when you saw that, you did not later change your minds and believe him."
The wisdom of the common man? So the common man is a leader here, more than the educated men? Is this a Galton confidence in the masses? Is this why there are no priests at the Nativity?
Technology decouples economies. AirBNB owns no rooms, but provides accommodations; Uber owns (essentially) no vehicles, but provides transport; Stripe is not a bank, but provides bank accounts; a vast panoply of corporate services run on Amazon-owned servers. Decoupling improves efficiency, aids focus, and spurs innovation.
But technology also decouples authority from responsibility. A company is just a matchmaker. Any problem you might have is with of the independent contractor providing the service; the company is only a middleman.
So there is only an abstract responsibility. Fits well with the culture.
The World Economic Forum looked at six developed countries (the US, UK, Netherlands, Japan, Australia, and Canada) and two emerging markets (China and India) and found that by 2050 these countries will face a total savings shortfall of $400 trillion. The WEF study shows that the United Kingdom currently has a $4 trillion retirement savings shortfall, which is projected to rise 4% a year and reach $33 trillion by 2050. This in a country whose total GDP is $3 trillion.
The Blood Libel was the medieval lie leveled at Jews in some European countries that accused the Jews of killing Christian children to use their blood to make Passover matzo.
But technology also decouples authority from responsibility. A company is just a matchmaker. Any problem you might have is with of the independent contractor providing the service; the company is only a middleman.
So there is only an abstract responsibility. Fits well with the culture.
What are....Ghost Guns?
IBM employs 130,000 people in India-- about one-third of its total work force, and more than in any other country. Their work spans the entire gamut of IBM's businesses, from managing the computing needs of global giants like AT&T and Shell to performing cutting-edge research in fields like visual search, artificial intelligence and computer vision for self-driving cars. One team is even working with the producers of Sesame Street to teach vocabulary to kindergartners in Atlanta.
In 1938, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, French Premier Edouard Daladier, and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich Pact, which sealed the fate of Czechoslovakia, virtually handing it over to Germany in the name of peace. Upon return to Britain, Chamberlain would declare that the meeting had achieved “peace in our time.”
Although the agreement was to give into Hitler’s hands only the Sudentenland, that part of Czechoslovakia where 3 million ethnic Germans lived, it also handed over to the Nazi war machine 66 percent of Czechoslovakia’s coal, 70 percent of its iron and steel, and 70 percent of its electrical power. It also left the Czech nation open to complete domination by Germany. In short, the Munich Pact sacrificed the autonomy of Czechoslovakia on the altar of short-term peace-very short term. The terrorized Czech government was eventually forced to surrender the western provinces of Bohemia and Moravia (which became a protectorate of Germany) and finally Slovakia and the Carpathian Ukraine. In each of these partitioned regions, Germany set up puppet, pro-Nazi regimes that served the military and political ends of Adolf Hitler. By the time of the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the nation called “Czechoslovakia” no longer existed. (History)
A columnist wrote: Vast numbers of nonwhites are being raised to believe that America hates them. This should be considered a form of child abuse.
....by 1900 27 percent of black farmers in the entire South had become owners. Surely that rise constituted a spectacular achievement on their part. The figures become still more striking for those who adopt the hypothesis that the heritage of slavery inevitably destroyed the freedmen’s competence, or the hypothesis that the Ku Klux Klan represented a unified view of the white South.
Black ownership was the outcome of wide-ranging experience in private markets.--Liebergott
“Progressives” who appropriately emphasize the society-wide impact of a carbon tax too often mysteriously ignore the society-wide impact of income taxes--Bordeaux. So they abide by the laws of economics only when it suits them?
"Football is one of the most powerful institutions in American society. It is so powerful that it claimed an entire day of the week. It said, 'This day is ours. We own it.' Not only did football take a day of the week, but the previous owner was God."--quoted from somewhere by Charen
The tax cut debate will emerge now with the continuing disingenuous of most involved. The real question about taxes is its implication to the economy: Money in private hands is spent more wisely and to better effect in the system than taxed money is. So earned money, untaxed, multiplies in its effect in the economy whereas taxed money is expressed as only a fraction of the original amount. This is generally agreed by everyone. So the problem arises when you cut taxes, you have to decrease the amount paid by those who pay taxes; those that pay taxes are where the impact must be. One cannot cut the taxes of those who don't pay them. And the impact of tax cutting will be greater the more you cut. How this impact those who receive tax money in this peculiar moral laundering scheme is a completely different question.
Golden oldie:
http://steeleydock.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-ruby-parable.html
steeleydock.blogspot.com
A young woman I knew years ago was suddenly orphaned by an auto accident that killed both her parents. Terrified and stricken by the loss a...
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What our generation has forgotten is that the system of private property is the most important guaranty of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not. It is only because the control of the means of production is divided among many people acting independently that nobody has complete power over us, that we as individuals can decide what to do with ourselves.--Hayek
The Supreme Court hearing the "Gerrymander" case is filled with bad omens. One of them is the concept of "proportional representation," an imperfect reflection of federal democracy. The plaintiffs are attempting to restructure the national voting on the same basis as the Democratic Party's quota system.
"Ghost Guns:" Back in 2013, a guy named Cody Wilson got international attention when his company, Defense Distributed, published the world’s first fully 3D-printed gun called the Liberator. Almost immediately, the State Department under the Obama administration demanded Mr. Wilson take down the 3D-printable gun files for possible export control violations. In the first two days, downloads for the 3D-printable gun exceeded 100,000.
In 2014, Mr. Wilson received the title as ‘Ghost Gunner’ and was described as a gun manufacture by some for creating AR-15 frames without serial numbers. Defense Distributed offered the internet a package including a CNC milling machine that can turn an aluminum block into an AR-15 lower receiver, the components regulated by state and federal authorities. The machine called ‘Ghost Gunner 2’ (3D-printer) and 80% AR-15 lower receivers are still being sold on Defense Distributed’s website.
On Sunday, Wilson’s group announced a new software for his computer-controlled milling machine to carve out the aluminum frame of an M1911 handgun. According to WIRED, “the latest model of the milling machine can finish a handgun’s frame in about an hour, with minimal human interaction”.
The end is nigh.
In 2014, Mr. Wilson received the title as ‘Ghost Gunner’ and was described as a gun manufacture by some for creating AR-15 frames without serial numbers. Defense Distributed offered the internet a package including a CNC milling machine that can turn an aluminum block into an AR-15 lower receiver, the components regulated by state and federal authorities. The machine called ‘Ghost Gunner 2’ (3D-printer) and 80% AR-15 lower receivers are still being sold on Defense Distributed’s website.
On Sunday, Wilson’s group announced a new software for his computer-controlled milling machine to carve out the aluminum frame of an M1911 handgun. According to WIRED, “the latest model of the milling machine can finish a handgun’s frame in about an hour, with minimal human interaction”.
The end is nigh.
Morse and Satel have an interesting article in the WSJ about an upcoming court appeal on addiction. The case involves a Ms. Eldred who was convicted of theft to support her addiction. She argues that brain changes in the addict make addiction more severe and consequently her actions were not her responsibility. The authors write that people do escape addiction and thus addiction--and its subsequent acts--is behavioral (unlike, they argue, Alzheimer's.)
Gender bias is stalking this great land of ours. Of the 78,744 doctoral degrees awarded in 2016, women earned 40,407 of those degrees and 52.1% of the total, compared to 37,145 degrees awarded to men who earned 47.9% of the total. Women earning doctoral degrees in 2016 outnumbered men in 7 of the 11 graduate fields tracked by the Council of Graduate Schools. Women earned 57.4% of all master’s degrees in 2016.
I eagerly await the social movement to make this disparity right.
From a review of A Word of Three Zeroes by Muhammad Yunus: Mr. Yunus prefers to criticize the market system—and mainstream economics—for its celebration of selfish greed as the basis of everything. This is a common misunderstanding of Adam Smith’s invisible hand, which privileges individual choice, not individual selfishness. If consumers choose to buy products with social benefits, or refuse to buy those that inflict social harms, nothing about the capitalist system prevents them from doing so. If investors want to accept lower returns in exchange for investing in socially conscious businesses, they are free to do that too.
Catalonia is much bigger than Greece – it’s 20% of the Spanish economy and Spain’s strongest region. What is going on in Europe? And how crazy was the aggressive Spanish response?
The NFL is getting some pushback over its municipal bonds' subsidizing stadiums--because of the national anthem controversy. But there are some serious practical questions too. When the Rams moved to California, St. Louis taxpayers were left with $100 million in debt from the construction of the Rams’ former home, the Edward Jones Dome — and now that debt must be repaid without the revenue generated by the team it was built for in the first place.
The Left sees cutting taxes as only a break for the rich. (Although it is tough to cut taxes on those that don't pay taxes.) But they want to tax carbon because they think it will discourage production. Sooooo......
AAAAaaaannnnnddddd......a list of U.S. metropolitan areas and their comparable countries:
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