Author Archives: lawofmarkets

Cultural inappropriation

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Maine Coon - Cat Lovers Show Melbourne

Must say, when I arrived here from Canada back in 1975 I was quite astonished then to find Coon Cheese on sale. A North American impossibility both then and now but an absolutely nothing-at-all here in Australia. It is just the name of a cheese, named after the man who invented the blend, and a cheese that I happen to like very much. Different words in different cultures. You just get used to boots and bonnets. It’s the Australian way, which means it is our way. I could add that the main clothing brand in Canada is Roots, which definitely would not work out in Australia.

Let me go even further. When our latest pussycat joined our household – eight years ago – turned out she is a “Maine Coon” which is a breed of cat whose name no one seems to bat an eye at, neither here nor in North America. She is, after all, a Maine coon. Let me continue with three letters to the editor at The Oz the other day.

I fail to understand why Dr Stephen Hagan would spend so much time and effort on an issue such as Coon cheese (“Era ends as Coon cheese name cut”, 25-26/7). As a person who has worked in outback NSW and Queensland as well as living and working out of Port Augusta in South Australia and travelling to site work in the Northern Territory and Western Australia, I have seen the plight of remote Aborigines first hand. There will be no Aborigines in Port Augusta doing high-fives or cartwheels over the renaming of Coon cheese.

Hagan spent the first seven years of his life in a camp outside Cunnamulla in southwest Queensland before moving to a new house in town. Being a high achiever, he attended boarding school in Brisbane and, among other things, went on to become one of Australia’s first indigenous diplomats. He then became a lecturer at the University of Southern Queensland — good on him, a great career. It would seem, though, that Hagan’s circle of fellow activists and like-minded colleagues are not in sync with the real needs of Aboriginal people in the areas I have mentioned.

Shane Porter, Elanora, Qld

Ignoring the merits of the decision by a Canadian company to change the name of a well-known Australian product, it is worth noting Aboriginal activist Stephen Hagan’s ironic call not to let “conservative social commentators dictate their narrative on what is right and wrong”. Arguably, this name change is an example of another, and ascendant, brand of activists dictating their narrative on what is right and wrong.

David Finch, Forestville, SA

According to the genealogy website Ancestry, there are several origins of the name “Coon”. Anglicised Gaelic — “O’Cuana; Anglicised German – “Kuhn”; Anglicised Dutch — “Coen” or “Koen”. A whole lot of people to chase down because of perceived racist names. Then, of course, we have the 35 people listed in the Australian White Pages with the name “Coon”, plus their families.

Racism is a sad blight on civilisation and should not be accepted in any form. Sadly, I think pursuing dreamed up racism is counterproductive and aligned with the conjured up targeting of statues and monuments because someone thinks that these commemorate things that today we regret.

Peter Strauss, Mt Eliza, Vic

It is why I think Australia is the last sane place left in the Western world. As a dinky-di Aussie-Canadian, let me just suggest the name should be left as it was.

Is owning a Maine Coon pussycat racist?

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Maine Coon - Cat Lovers Show Melbourne

Must say, when I arrived here as far back as 1975 I was astonished to find Coon Cheese on sale. A North American impossibility both then and now. But then our latest pussycat turned up and it turns out that she is a Maine Coon which is a name no one seems to bat an eye at. From the letters to the editor at The Oz today.

I fail to understand why Dr Stephen Hagan would spend so much time and effort on an issue such as Coon cheese (“Era ends as Coon cheese name cut”, 25-26/7). As a person who has worked in outback NSW and Queensland as well as living and working out of Port Augusta in South Australia and travelling to site work in the Northern Territory and Western Australia, I have seen the plight of remote Aborigines first hand. There will be no Aborigines in Port Augusta doing high-fives or cartwheels over the renaming of Coon cheese.

Hagan spent the first seven years of his life in a camp outside Cunnamulla in southwest Queensland before moving to a new house in town. Being a high achiever, he attended boarding school in Brisbane and, among other things, went on to become one of Australia’s first indigenous diplomats. He then became a lecturer at the University of Southern Queensland — good on him, a great career. It would seem, though, that Hagan’s circle of fellow activists and like-minded colleagues are not in sync with the real needs of Aboriginal people in the areas I have mentioned.

Shane Porter, Elanora, Qld

Ignoring the merits of the decision by a Canadian company to change the name of a well-known Australian product, it is worth noting Aboriginal activist Stephen Hagan’s ironic call not to let “conservative social commentators dictate their narrative on what is right and wrong”. Arguably, this name change is an example of another, and ascendant, brand of activists dictating their narrative on what is right and wrong.

David Finch, Forestville, SA

According to the genealogy website Ancestry, there are several origins of the name “Coon”. Anglicised Gaelic — “O’Cuana; Anglicised German – “Kuhn”; Anglicised Dutch — “Coen” or “Koen”. A whole lot of people to chase down because of perceived racist names. Then, of course, we have the 35 people listed in the Australian White Pages with the name “Coon”, plus their families.

Racism is a sad blight on civilisation and should not be accepted in any form. Sadly, I think pursuing dreamed up racism is counterproductive and aligned with the conjured up targeting of statues and monuments because someone thinks that these commemorate things that today we regret.

Peter Strauss, Mt Eliza, Vic

It’s why I think Australia is the last sane place left in the Western world. Might also mention that she is the sweetest cat I have ever lived with.

This is pure evil

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Let me give the final para The Key to Defeating COVID-19 Already Exists:

In the future, I believe this misbegotten episode regarding hydroxychloroquine will be studied by sociologists of medicine as a classic example of how extra-scientific factors overrode clear-cut medical evidence. But for now, reality demands a clear, scientific eye on the evidence and where it points. For the sake of high-risk patients, for the sake of our parents and grandparents, for the sake of the unemployed, for our economy and for our polity, especially those disproportionally affected, we must start treating immediately.

What do we have to lose, isn’t that right, Daniel? Sociologists are themselves overwhelmingly part of the problem so won’t study any of it. Nor will they study this:

There is nothing but hatred and evil in their hearts.

The left is the party of hate and malice

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This is the start of an article by Roger Kimball.

Denis Diderot, model of the French Enlightenment that he was, gave memorable expression to that movement’s inveterate anti-clericalism. “Man will never be free,” said the energetic Encyclopédiste, “until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.”

They don’t talk much about kings and priests, but the civilization-hating anarchists of the Black Lives Matter movement would applaud Diderot’s sentiments. Although they sometimes wrap their destructive actions in fine-sounding rhetoric about justice and anti-racism, what they are really about is hate.

Recapping Thursday’s madness, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany noted that “A federal agent’s hand was impaled by planted nails, another federal agent was shot with a pellet gun, leaving a wound deep to the bone, and tragically, three federal officers were likely left permanently blinded by the rioters using lasers pointed directly into their eyes.”

No wonder Brooks Brothers, Nike, Uber, and practically every other wretched business you have ever dealt with are falling all over themselves to proclaim their solidarity with Black Lives Matter and committing to end “systemic racism” in the United States.

How to explain the mind-boggling disjunction between the violent savagery of the BLM crusaders, on the one hand, and the nauseating spectacles of frightened though congratulatory self-abasement by the white elite, on the other? Are the latter pleased by the news emanating from Portland and similar enclaves of vicious woke sentimentality?

Please don’t talk to me about the violent career criminal George Floyd. As I have noted repeatedly, the violence engulfing various Democratic-controlled cities has nothing to do with Floyd’s demise. “The death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25,” I wrote in early June “is merely the pretext for the violence. The cause is hatred.”

Let me end with the penultimate para which sums it up.

You might think that thugs rampaging through the streets of our cities are imperfect representatives of any “enlightened age.” In fact, ignorant though they are, they are proud and legitimate progeny of that echt Enlightenment figure Karl Marx, whose abiding passion was hatred of the civilization that created him and whose legacy was tyranny, immiseration, and death—wrapped up, naturally, in sweet-sound bulletins about the brotherhood of man and the ultimate emancipation of human aspiration.

Malice and hatred is what brings the masses to the streets, and all the better since they can pretend to do what they do for only the most noble reasons they can conjure. Reptilian and repulsive, but what is there to defend ourselves with?

The corruption is obvious to anyone who is willing to notice what is going on

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From Instapundit:

JULIE KELLY: Brookings Institution: A Key Collusion Collaborator: The liberal think tank helped perpetrate one of the biggest frauds in political history on the American people.

These are from the comments:

Who in the Democratic Party wasn’t part of the conspiracy to overthrow a lawfully elected president? Anyone?

When a businessman buys a company, they generally want to keep the staff around because they’re the ones with the experience, institutional knowledge, and social connections to get the job done. The expectation is that the staff will be reasonably loyal to the guy who signs the paycheck. That does not apply in politics, quite the opposite. I daresay Trump knows better now, but the damage is done.

Also, as a complete outsider to politics inside the Beltway, Trump did not have his own binders full of names as replacements for many of the positions he was entitled to fill. He also didn’t have people who owed him favors. In the end, he had little choice but to go forward with many holdovers from the Obama administration and plans to gradually replace them as time and opportunity permitted. Unfortunately, he got sidetracked by the Russia Russia hoax and never had the luxury of building an administration in his own image the way his predecessors did. We voters who picked Trump BECAUSE he was an outsider could not have anticipated how difficult it would be. Who among us on January 21, 2017, expected a Special Counsel investigation that would run 3 years and was designed to hobble his presidency or an impeachment?

For the first two years of Trump’s presidency the Republicans controlled the House and Senate. They could have shut down Mueller anytime they wanted, and investigated what was already known about the spying by the Obama administration (and we know so much more now). They could have done that but they did not. Mitch McConnell has prevented Trump from appointing anyone who might actually look into what has been going on, and Ol’ Mitch can only do that with the support of the Republican Senators. They are in this up to their necks too, that’s why nothing has happened. If Trump does nothing else, he has revealed how complicit the Republicans have been in this whole squalid mess.

The irony is all Democrats had to do was wait Trump out, then they could return to ending the Constitution with no one willing to stop them. But they just couldn’t wait and decided to start burning down the country instead.

Do you suppose Trump picked Barr? Do you know how it works? The AG has to be approved by the Senate. That means Ol’ Mitch McConnell decides who gets in. Why do you think Ol’ Mitch hasn’t put the Senate into recess during Trump’s presidency? The absolute last thing Ol’ Mitch is going to allow is for Trump to appoint someone who will actually start investigating what they have all been up to.

I think the American people have had a very great many frauds laid upon them. They ain’t seen nothing yet.

Ideas cannot win on their own. They need a voice

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From Bari Weiss Knows What ID Scientists Already Knew.

New York Times opinion journalist Bari Weiss submitted her very public resignation today. It’s a must read, and it will remind you at once of the world scientists in the intelligent design community have long occupied.

“Forays into Wrongthink”

Some excerpts:

[A] new consensus has emerged in the press, but perhaps especially at this paper: that truth isn’t a process of collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else….

I was always taught that journalists were charged with writing the first rough draft of history. Now, history itself is one more ephemeral thing molded to fit the needs of a predetermined narrative.

My own forays into Wrongthink have made me the subject of constant bullying by colleagues who disagree with my views. They have called me a Nazi and a racist….

New York Times employees publicly smear me as a liar and a bigot on Twitter with no fear that harassing me will be met with appropriate action….

There are terms for all of this: unlawful discrimination, hostile work environment, and constructive discharge. I’m no legal expert. But I know that this is wrong….

Part of me wishes I could say that my experience was unique. But the truth is that intellectual curiosity — let alone risk-taking — is now a liability at The Times…. [S]elf-censorship has become the norm.

… If a person’s ideology is in keeping with the new orthodoxy, they and their work remain unscrutinized. Everyone else lives in fear of the digital thunderdome. Online venom is excused so long as it is directed at the proper targets.

Op-eds that would have easily been published just two years ago would now get an editor or a writer in serious trouble, if not fired….

All this bodes ill, especially for independent-minded young writers and editors paying close attention to what they’ll have to do to advance in their careers. Rule One: Speak your mind at your own peril….

I’ve always comforted myself with the notion that the best ideas win out. But ideas cannot win on their own. They need a voice. They need a hearing.

Why did Marx single out Mill for criticism but never answer him?

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A Question asked on Marx and Mill.

What were the theoretical issues when Marx and Marxian economists criticized John Stuart Mill as vulgarizer of classical system?

What is the real content of vulgarization, when they claim that J.S. Mill vulgarized Ricardo’s teachings? In what sense is he blamed to have opened the way to neoclassical economics?
Béla Balassa once wrote in his paper “Karl Marx and John Stuart Mill” (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, Bd. 83, (1959), pp. 147-165):
  •  Marx’s treatment of John Stuart Mill is one of the great puzzles of history of economic thought. Reading Marx (and his followers) one gets the impression that Mill was an insignificant figure whose writings exemplify the “decline” of Ricardian economics. Whenever Marx mentions Mill’s name (which does not happen very frequently) he v\never forgets to add some derogatory comment. (p.147)
In another paper (John Stuart Mill and the Law of Markets, The Quarterly Journal of Economics Vol. 73, No. 2 (May, 1959), pp. 263-274) he wrote:
  • For present-day economists [Mill] represents a “half-way house” between Ricardo and Marshall; for Marxists he is the apologist personified, sharing the responsibility with many others for the “decline” of Ricardian economics.(p.263)
I wonder why John Stuart Mill was so unduly ill-treated by Marx and Marxian economists.

Then answer is, of course, that Marx had no answers to what Mill wrote, neither economically nor ethically. But is Marx’s animosity to Mill the reason virtually no economist will read Mill today?

Ba mir bistu sheyn

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A wonderful song but now with its history which is just as wonderful. But also with this as an economic lesson. The narrator tells how the song is eventually sold by its writers for thirty 1937 US dollars as if they had been shortchanged in some way. But as you follow the story along with the various bends in the road you see that there is more luck than genius as in many (most?) such stories. And for myself, I would rather be remembered as the person who wrote the song than as someone who had been paid a lot of money for something I once did but had no such success as part of my life story.