Sir Thomas More

On this day in 1535, Sir Thomas More was beheaded, his punishment for refusing to swear an oath making Henry VIII head of the Church of England, and husband of as many as he pleased. For his learning, wit and good government, More has become the portrait of Humanism; the actual Holbein portrait of him, now part of the Frick Collection in New York, is one of the most famous images of the English Renaissance, as his Utopia is one of its essential texts. More's last days are known to many through Robert Bolt's 1960 play, A Man For All Seasons -- the title comes from a description of More by his friend, and another giant of the era, Erasmus.

More's last letter, written in charcoal from the Tower on the eve of his execution, is to his daughter Margaret Roper, and has little irony.

. . . I cumber you, good Margaret, much, but I would be sorry if it should be any longer than to-morrow, for it is St. Thomas's even, and the utas of St. Peter; and therefore, to-morrow long I to go to God. It were a day very meet and convenient for me.

I never liked your manner towards me better than when you kissed me last; for I love when daughterly love and dear charity hath no leisure to look to worldly courtesy. Farewell, my dear child, and pray for me, and I shall for you and all your friends, that we may merrily meet in heaven. I thank you for your great cost. . . .

The occasion "when you kissed me last" was four days previous, as More was being transported back to the Tower after his conviction and sentencing. Margaret had pushed through the onlookers and through the pikes and halberds of the encircling guards to hug him, and then after leaving had rushed back to kiss again, before being separated. Such defiance of authority and convention won the daughter the father's highest and last praise. Margaret got More's hair shirt with the letter; on her own she managed to retrieve his head from its pole on London Bridge.
(From Steve King)

Cab Thoughts 7/6/2016

"'Objectivity' is teaching without regard for the truth."--Wendell Berry

Scott Adams is the creator of "Dilbert." He has an article in the WashPo stating that Trump is such a master linguistic strategist that he could have turned the political chessboard around and still embarrassed the field. Adams does not claim to be a trained political analyst. His stated credentials in this arena, says Adams — who holds an MBA from UC Berkeley — largely involve being a certified hypnotist and, as a writer and business author, an eternal student in the techniques of persuasive rhetoric.
According to a Pew Research Center study, more and more young Americans do not believe in freedom of speech for what they deem hate speech. Forty percent of respondents ages 18 to 34 agreed that offensive statements should be outlawed.
According to a series of Harvard University polls, about 47% of Americans ages 18 to 29 believe that food, shelter and health care "are a right that government should provide to those unable to afford them." So almost half believe they have a legitimate claim on the labor and earnings of others for life's basic necessities.
More than half of 18- to 29-year-old Americans do not support capitalism, the source of their prosperity and the only economic system that has ever lifted mass numbers of people out of poverty.

 
"Warner Music Group has become the first major record company to report that streaming has become its largest source of revenue, surpassing sales of physical formats such as CDs and vinyl," reports Financial Times.

People of color now comprise more than 37 percent of the U.S. population, greater than triple the 12 percent in 1965. The two fastest-growing groups have been Latinos and Asian Americans. In 1965 there were fewer than 9 million Latinos in the United States; by 2013 that number had soared to 54 million. During that same forty­-eight-year span, the Asian American population has grown from 2 mil­lion to more than 18 million people. Progressive people of color now comprise 23 percent of all the eligible voters in America, and progressive Whites account for 28 percent of all eligible voters. Together, these constituencies make up 51 percent of the country's citizen voting age population, and that majority is getting bigger every single day. Each day, the size of the U.S. population increases by more than 8,000 people, and nearly 90 percent of that growth consists of people of color.  The total U.S. population was nearly 90 percent White as recently as 1950. As a result, the current over-65 population is 78 percent White. Using that figure to estimate the ra­cial breakdown of the country's deaths -- which occur at a rate of 6,646 per day (once every thirteen seconds) -- it's clear that while a majority of births are people of color, deaths are overwhelmingly White.

Who is...Andrew Johnson?

I found this just wandering around: Bishop Fox'sTastic RFID Thief, a long-range radio frequency identification (RFID) reader that saves your score on a microSD card as a text file so you can clone the badge later. It's completely portable and fits neatly into a messenger bag or a briefcase. From the company's site: The Tastic RFID Thief is a silent, long-range RFID reader that can steal the proximity badge information from an unsuspecting employee as they physically walk near this concealed device. That's a useful product.

 

According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), out of the 38 million young men in the U.S. in 2014, 16 percent were jobless (5 million or 13 percent) or incarcerated (1 million or 3 percent). The share of young men without a job or in prison has increased substantially since 1980, when just 11 percent of young men fit into either category.
CBO highlights that the level of joblessness and incarceration varies based on young men’s educational attainment. The less they have, the more likely they are to be jobless or incarcerated. The rates also varied among racial and ethnic groups. In 2014 young black men were about twice as likely to be jobless or incarcerated than white or Hispanic young men were. The disparity was largely due, however, to higher rates of incarceration among young black men.
1 in 6 of young men are completely unconnected to the working world.
In 2014, 400 players on NFL rosters were undrafted free agents.

 

Internal differences are killing OPEC and its ability to influence the markets has all but evaporated, top Russian oil executive Igor Sechin told Reuters in some of his harshest remarks ever about the oil cartel.

Russia, which has been hit hard by the oil price collapse, was flirting with the idea of cooperating with OPEC in recent months until tensions between OPEC members Saudi Arabia and Iran ruined a global deal to freeze output.

Sechin - one of the closest allies of President Vladimir Putin - was the only Russian official to consistently oppose the deal with OPEC even after the Kremlin effectively endorsed the plan.

 

Three fifths of octopuses' neurons are not in the brain but in the arms. If an arm is severed from an octopus's body, the arm will often carry on as if nothing has happened for several hours.

 

Andrew Johnson is known for a lot of things. As a Tennessee legislator, future United States president Andrew Johnson opposed the extension of railroads into his state because it would put inns and wagon haulers out of business. After he succeeded Lincoln, he was impeached. He was something of a public failure at a crucial time in the nation's history. He was also drunk at Lincoln's second inauguration. Staggering drunk.  Lincoln told Hugh McCulloch, the secretary of the treasury, who confessed to Lincoln that the president's life was even more precious to the country now that he had had the chance to see Johnson in action, 'I have known Andy Johnson for many years; he made a bad slip the other day, but you need not be scared; Andy ain't a drunkard.'

Reassuring.

A study from Australia affirms that cellphones are reasonably safe and do not cause brain cancer. What makes the study in Australia so authentic compared to other studies conducted in other countries is the fact that all diagnosed cases of cancer have to be registered by law.

 

Most economists, Trump excluded, believe in the value of free trade. But several countries solidified their economies with tariffs that allowed for exploitive growth and monopolies. During the late 1800s, America was perhaps the most protectionist nation on earth. Robber barons were not interested in free trade. In fact, during the period from 1860 to 1914, in which U.S. tariffs on foreign goods were often as high as 40 or 50 percent, America went from being an emerging economic power to an economic colossus whose GDP was as great as the GDPs of England, France and Germany combined:
 

Microsoft says that over 10 million login attempts per day are cyber-attacks, which the company is able to detect. 

The U.S. is experiencing a baby lull that looks set to last for years, a shift demographers say will likely ripple through the U.S. economy and have an impact on everything from maternity wards to federal social programs.

 

The Civil War almost destroyed the horse breeding industry in the South. At first, the war was a boon for Kentucky breeders. Situated geographically between North and South, the border state supplied both warring armies with vast numbers of horses. The boon soon turned into a nightmare of horse attrition. At first, the armies bought horses. Then they requisitioned them, often not paying up. Finally, both armies simply stole all they could find, including old stallions, broodmares, and immature yearlings. Many are the tales of horse owners hiding their best stock from the armies. Some had secret rooms where valuable horses were hidden.

An interesting question: Does the Keynesian Model where the government raises taxes during booms and lowers them during busts, or decreases government spending during booms and reduces government spending during busts, necessarily imply big government? If not, why are its adherents always big government guys?

Golden oldie:

http://steeleydock.blogspot.com/2012/08/ev-and-anti-evolution.html

One of the problems in government is the area of diminishing returns. How much safety legislation is sufficient? Where should OSHA 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. 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.

 

Doughty: adjective: Brave; courageous; determined. ETY; From Old English dohtig (worthy). Earliest documented use: 1030. USAGE: “Alex Gordon was also a doughty fighter for the underdog.” The Herald (Glasgow, UK); Mar 12, 2016. Not to be confused  with "dowdy", which means old-fashioned, or lacking stylishness.

Year-over-year the 3D printing industry has grown by as much as 30%. Now, it's set to triple in revenue over the next four years, according to a new report. For comparison, this year the industry will reach nearly $7.3 billion, and by 2020, it is expected to reach nearly $21 billion. Published by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) and the United Parcel Service (UPS), the study, called "3D Printing: The Next Revolution in Industrial Manufacturing," revealed that the two biggest industries representing a combined 40% of the growth are consumer electronics and automotive. Medical devices will represent about 15% of the growth. North America and Europe will account for more than 68% of the 3D printing market revenue, while the Asia Pacific market will account for about 27% of sales. Here's an impressive stat: 3D printing represents only 0.04% of the global manufacturing market right now. However, if 3D printing captures 5% of global manufacturing capacity, which researcher firm Wohlers Associates believes it will, the industry would be worth a staggering $640 billion. "This is a market ripe for disruption," the report said.

 

The psychic business is a $2 billion industry in the U.S. alone.

For much of US history, Americans were the tallest people in the world by a large margin. When the thirteen colonies that occupied the Atlantic seaboard broke from the British Empire, adult American men were on average three inches taller than their counterparts in England, and they were almost that much taller than men in the Netherlands, the great economic power before Britain.
Height is a strong predictor of individual achievement (test scores, occupational prestige, pay); it is also a reveal­ing marker of population health. Height has a lot to do with genes, but height differences across nations seem to be caused mostly by social con­ditions, such as income, nutrition, health coverage, and social cohesion. Indeed, one reason for the correlation between height and achievement is that kids whose mothers are healthy during pregnancy and who grow up with sufficient food, medical care, and family support tend to be taller adults. An average US white girl born in the early 1910s could expect to reach around five foot three; an average US white girl born in the late 1950s could expect to exceed five foot five. Evolution just doesn't hap­pen that fast. So it's striking that Americans are no longer the tallest people in the world. Not even close: Once three inches taller than residents of the Old World, on average, Americans are now about three inches shorter. The average Dutch height for men is six foot one, and for women, five foot eight -- versus five foot nine for American men and five foot five for American women. The gap is not, as might be supposed, a result of immigration: White, native-born Americans who speak English at home are significantly smaller, too, and immigration isn't substantial enough to explain the discrepancy in any case.

 AAAAAaaaaaannnnndddddd.....a graph:

1612 Map of Virginia by Captain John Smith‏

Freeman's, established in 1805, bills itself as America's oldest auction house. This map by John Smith and an assortment of Indians is being offered for sale. Here is a picture of the map and a bit of its story, as provided by Freeman's.

The 1607 establishment of Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America, was a central event the adventurous life led by Captain John Smith (1580-1631). Thrust unexpectedly into a position of leadership in the new Virginia Colony, and thereby responsible for the procurement of desperately needed food and supplies, Smith undertook a series of now-legendary expeditions into the uncharted American interior. Freeman's is thrilled to bring part of this exciting chapter of American history to auction with a rare 1612 map of Virginia by Captain John Smith as part of our October 22 auction of Books, Maps & Manuscripts.
Between September 1608 and August 1609, such explorations led Smith up the coastal rivers of Virginia and deep into the Chesapeake Bay. As the first English explorer to survey these waterways, he appropriately published the first map of Virginia in 1612, capturing thereby a precarious moment at the dawn of English settlement in the New World.
Smith was aided in his surveys by Native Americans, who were able to supply information regarding remote or hostile districts which he was himself unable to visit.  Thus, in addition to local topography, his map records in detail the location of 166 Native American villages in the region. It provides other ethnographic details, as well: a vignette, upper left, illustrates the paramount Powhatan chief, perhaps even the father of Pocahontas, presiding over an assembly in his community’s longhouse. A personification of the now-extinct Susquehanah tribe, armed with requisite war club, bow, and arrows, is also depicted upper right.
Contemporary archaeologists continue to consult Smith’s work in order to locate the village sites of vanished Native American tribes, and historians and cartographers similarly agree that it ranks among the most important and influential maps of America. In its own time, the map inspired much interest in the fledgling Virginia Colony, and it served as the prototype for subsequent maps of the area.
Many mapmakers, principally in the Netherlands, but also on the Continent, produced facsimiles of Smith’s map during the 17^th and early 18^th centuries. Examples of the original issues, which were printed in England by William Hole beginning in 1612, are extremely rare. Freeman's is pleased to offer this hand-colored and engraved map, "Virginia, Discovered and Discribed by Captayn John Smith, Graven by William Hole," London, 1612, (Estimate $10,000-15,000) which bears all of the attributes of Hole’s second state of 1612 [Burden 164],  as part of our October 22 auction of Books, Maps, and Manuscripts.

The Fourth of July

Jay Leno had a recurring skit where he asked questions to passers-by on the street--questions most people think are rather simple and obvious. He asked several people what the Fourth of July celebrated, when independence was declared and who the country separated from. Of course the results were embarrassing to most of those interviewed. One was particularly interesting. A college instructor knew nothing about the Revolution at all, thought it occurred in the 1920's and thought China might have been involved.

A survey published recently said that 27% of people questioned did not know the American Revolution was waged against the British.

When I was a child in the 50's, the Fourth of July was a great event. The kids decorated their bikes, small local parades were held--every community had some commemoration and the larger communities had fireworks. It was unlike other secular events like Thanksgiving which were delightfully family oriented; this was a commonly held social event. It was a birthday party. And it was heartfelt. Everyone felt that years ago something of value had been accomplished, something special in the world created. There was a glow.

When Obama was first campaigning he was asked about American Exceptionalism. (The phrase was de Tocqueville's, from Democracy in America, 1835: "The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one. Their strictly Puritanical origin, their exclusively commercial habits, even the country they inhabit, which seems to divert their minds from the pursuit of science, literature, and the arts, the proximity of Europe, which allows them to neglect these pursuits without relapsing into barbarism, a thousand special causes, of which I have only been able to point out the most important, have singularly concurred to fix the mind of the American upon purely practical objects. His passions, his wants, his education, and everything about him seem to unite in drawing the native of the United States earthward; his religion alone bids him turn, from time to time, a transient and distracted glance to heaven. Let us cease, then, to view all democratic nations under the example of the American people.")

The phrase has been used since by those who saw America as a point of reference in man's search for freedom and liberty. (It was also used by Stalin as a slur, decrying America's self-held belief that it was somehow excluded from the Marxian class warfare generality.) Obama saw a trap--it would not do to talk of "exceptionalism" when we want all people to be the same, all nations indistinguishable. So he hedged and said, "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism." He, unlike those Americans of just a generation or two ago, does not think that America is unique.

Unique. If that element is lost in this country a lot has been lost. So, buy a small flag. Decorate your bike.

Sunday 7/3/16

Suppose you that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division:
--Luke 12:51
The whole world is festering
With unhappy souls
The French hate the Germans,
The Germans hate the Poles

Italians hate Yugoslavs
South Africans hate the Dutch
And I don't like anybody very much
--Sung by The Kingston Trio

Ours is a time of conflict. We are seeing ethnicity, race, religion, clan, cult, history all as divisions among man. And one man's loyalty is another man's xenophobia. For the first time in history the recognition of yourself in another is seen as a defect in character. But this has been spoken of before. "Suppose you that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division." Is this what Christ was talking about? Actually He was talking about the obverse.

'When the days for Jesus' being taken up were fulfilled,
he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem,
and he sent messengers ahead of him.
On the way they entered a Samaritan village
to prepare for his reception there,
but they would not welcome him
because the destination of his journey was Jerusalem.
When the disciples James and John saw this they asked,
"Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven
to consume them?"
Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they journeyed to another village.

As they were proceeding on their journey someone said to him,
"I will follow you wherever you go."
Jesus answered him,
"Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests,
but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head."

And to another he said, "Follow me."
But he replied, "Lord, let me go first and bury my father."
But he answered him, "Let the dead bury their dead.
But you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God."
And another said, "I will follow you, Lord,
but first let me say farewell to my family at home."
To him Jesus said, "No one who sets a hand to the plow
and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God."'

This is a very uncomfortable part of Christ's message, a part which is a significant break with the Old Testament. The Old Testament was a writing of a people, a land, an ethnic group which would be selected out and saved. Christ says just the opposite. He says that man is united through each man's relationship with the divine; that relationship is held in common among all. The family, the tribe, the people might be important in the world but all of those elements are subservient to man's common bond mediated by the relationship with the divine. Those too human un-divine attachments must be divided.
It is an end of the noble Hatfields, the redoubtable McCoys.

Cab Thoughts 7/2/16

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."

 

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?"

 

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.

 

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:

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?

 

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.

 

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:

Revolution

The Declaration of Independence came 442 days after the first volleys of the American Revolution were fired at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts. It was a long time coming.

The first major colonial opposition to British policy came in 1765 after Parliament passed the Stamp Act, a measure to raise revenues for a standing British army in America. Under the banner of “no taxation without representation,” colonists convened the Stamp Act Congress in October 1765 to vocalize their opposition to the tax. With its enactment in November, most colonists called for a boycott of British goods, and some organized attacks on the customhouses and homes of tax collectors. After months of protest in the colonies, Parliament voted to repeal the Stamp Act in March 1766.

It was a while before the next problem, the result of the British effort to aid the faltering East India Company.  Parliament enacted the Tea Act in 1773 which greatly lowered its tea tax and granting the Company a monopoly on the American tea trade. Many colonists viewed the act as another example of taxation tyranny. In response, militant Patriots in Massachusetts organized the “Boston Tea Party,” which saw British tea valued at some 18,000 pounds dumped into Boston Harbor.

Parliament, outraged by the Boston Tea Party and other blatant acts of destruction of British property, enacted the Coercive Acts, also known as the Intolerable Acts, in 1774. The Coercive Acts closed Boston to merchant shipping, established formal British military rule in Massachusetts, made British officials immune to criminal prosecution in America, and required colonists to quarter British troops in their homes. The colonists subsequently called the first Continental Congress to consider a united American resistance to the British.

In April 1775, Thomas Gage, the British governor of Massachusetts, ordered British troops to march to Concord, Massachusetts, where a Patriot arsenal was known to be located. On April 19, 1775, the British regulars encountered a group of American militiamen at Lexington, and the first shots of the American Revolution were fired.

June 17, 1775 Major General William Howe defeated the Americans at Bunker Hill, the first time the Americans stood and fought. It was a Pyrrhic victory. 140 colonists were killed and 271 wounded. 226 British were dead and 828 wounded. The vast majority of Rebel deaths came from bayoneting the wounded in the field by British soldiers, furious at their losses. The behavior of the British soldiers enraged the colonists and tipped most away from reconciliation with the crown and into separation. Historian Richard Ellis says that the Battle at Bunker Hill scarred Gen. Howe, one of the crown's elite generals. Never again would he be comfortable with assaulting rebel fixed positions and he yearned for reconciliation--a feeling many believe hampered his generalship, especially in the siege of New York.

In January 1776, Thomas Paine published Common Sense, an influential political pamphlet that convincingly argued for American independence and sold more than 500,000 copies in a few months. In the spring of 1776, support for independence swept the colonies, the Continental Congress called for states to form their own governments, and a five-man committee was assigned to draft a declaration.

On July 2, 1776, the Continental Congress voted to approve a Virginia motion calling for separation from Britain. The dramatic words of this resolution were added to the closing of the Declaration of Independence. Two days later, on July 4, the declaration was formally adopted by 12 colonies after minor revision. New York approved it on July 19. On August 2, the declaration was signed.

The American War for Independence would last for five more years. Yet to come were the Patriot triumphs at Saratoga, the bitter winter at Valley Forge, the intervention of the French, and the final victory at Yorktown in 1781. In 1783, with the signing of the Treaty of Paris with Britain, the United States formally became a free and independent nation.

Under America’s first governing document, the Articles of Confederation, the national government was weak and states operated like independent countries. The debate over the power of a unifying federal government went on until 1787 when a convention was held in Philadelphia presided over by George Washington. There delegates devised a plan for a stronger federal government with three branches–executive, legislative and judicial–along with a system of checks and balances to ensure no single branch would have too much power. It was signed on September 17, 1787. The Bill of Rights–10 amendments guaranteeing basic individual protections such as freedom of speech and religion–became part of the Constitution in 1791.

The first presidential election electing Washington was held from Monday, December 15, 1788 to Saturday, January 10, 1789, five years after the Treaty of Paris.