Author Archives: lawofmarkets

Fake news about fake bombs

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I realise that if you are on the left, every bad thing that happens is Donald Trump’s fault irrespective of whether there is any evidence pointing towards anything at all. This is from the now #NeverTrump Drudge:

Pipe bombs target Dems, CNN as political tensions mount...
Packed with shards of glass...
Featured parody ISIS flag...
ON AIR ALARM...
ZUCKER COMES OUT SWINGING AT PRESIDENT...
Trump says he's 'trying to be nice'...
Calls on media to end hostility...
Rally chants 'lock her up' after bomb threats made to Hillary...
NYC 'Shelter In Place' Text Alert Causes Panic... 
SOROS: The Hate That Is Consuming Us... 

Specially liked the bit from George Soros. The left has the most shrivelled sense of irony in the history of the world, although here I think Soros is laughing at his own side for being the way they are. He could not possibly be that stupid himself. And this is the alternative perspective from Ace of Spades: AP: CNN Pipe “Bomb” and Powder Within It Were Perfectly Harmless.

Will the always-in-error-but-never-in-doubt Not-Binary Ben care to revise and correct his prior remarks about people being “deranged”?

The pipe bomb and white powder that forced an evacuation at CNN headquarters in New York City Wednesday morning were harmless, a law enforcement source told the Associated Press.The purported explosive device was similar in construction to those sent Wednesday to former President Barack Obama, former attorney general Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton, Representative Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D., Fla.), and Representative Maxine Waters of California. A package containing white powder was delivered later in the day.

The NYPD said the explosive devices were live during a Wednesday afternoon press conference but subsequent reporting suggests they were not functional.

All of the devices carried a parody ISIS flag featuring comedian Larry the Cable Guy�s signature slogan, “git ‘er done,” NBC News reported late Wednesday.

And one more bit to break the tie from John Hinderaker at Powerline: ABOUT THOSE “APPARENT EXPLOSIVE DEVICES”:

As everyone now knows, someone sent or delivered packages containing explosive devices of some kind to a number of prominent Democrats, ranging from Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to Eric Holder and George Soros. Not much is known at this point about the devices, their origin, or the degree of threat they represented. Most importantly, we have no idea who sent them.

I assume the perpetrator will most likely be caught, although perhaps not until after the election. Until then, speculation will run rampant. But speculation, absent facts, is pointless. There is nothing intelligent one can say about this episode beyond condemning pipe bombs.

That hasn’t stopped some from behaving irresponsibly. Most notably, CNN’s President Jeff Zucker blamed President Trump:

“There is a total and complete lack of understanding at the White House about the seriousness of their continued attacks on the media. The President, and especially the White House Press Secretary, should understand their words matter. Thus far, they have shown no comprehension of that,” Zucker’s statement reads.

This is ridiculous. In the first place, we don’t know whether the devices were sent by a crazed right-winger, a Democrat trying to neutralize the GOP’s devastating #JobsNotMobs theme, or a nut of some other variety. The salient point is that President Trump has never done anything to suggest that bombing CNN’s headquarters (or anything else) would be appropriate.

This distinguishes him from President Obama, who said–in a moment of hyperbole, one charitably assumes–that Democrats should bring guns to fights with Republicans, and Maxine Waters and Nancy Pelosi, who have explicitly advocated mob action against Republicans. (“Collateral damage,” right, Nancy?) CNN apparently hasn’t gotten over the fact that if it lies about the president, the president has a right to respond. No wonder CNN now has fewer viewers than Nickelodeon.

Coincidentally, I suppose, the New York Times is now printing fantasies about the Secret Service collaborating with Russian agents to murder President Trump. Spoiler alert: they don’t decapitate him and carry around his head as if they were “comedians.”

So I look forward to the lectures on civility to which we will subjected for the next 13 days. Once the election is over, the Democrats will be back to severed heads. For now, they are trying to deflect #JobsNotMobs.

Why this would change a single vote in either direction is beyond me, but the Democrats must know their constituency, idiots without judgement about policy and with no comprehension how what happens in the present will affect what will happen in the not so distant future.

SOMEONE IN THE US MUST BE READING LAWOFMARKETS:

Satire at its sharpest

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The satire is so sharp you have to keep looking at the drawings to appreciate how exactly everything is said but how terrible the picture is. From 31 Brutally Honest Illustrations By Gerhard Haderer Show What’s Wrong With Today’s Society. This was my favourite:

And this came next.

But go through the lot since they are amazing.

The Opportunity Costs of Socialism

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The American Government (ahem, The Council of Economic Advisers) has just released a new paper – 72 pages in length – titled: The Opportunity Costs of Socialism. Here are the first paras from the Executive Summary to give you a sense of where it is going, but just download a copy yourself. Haven’t read it all but looks both comprehensive but also easy to understand, if you are of a mind to understand.

Coincident with the 200th anniversary of Karl Marx’s birth, socialism is making a comeback in American political discourse. Detailed policy proposals from self-declared socialists are gaining support in Congress and among much of the electorate.

It is unclear, of course, exactly what a typical voter has in mind when he or she thinks of “socialism.” But economists generally agree about how to define socialism, and they have devoted enormous time and resources to studying its costs and benefits. With an eye on this broad body of literature, this report discusses socialism’s historic visions and intents, its economic features, its impact on economic performance, and its relationship with recent policy proposals in the United States.

We find that historical proponents of socialist policies and those in the contemporary United States share some of their visions and intents. They both characterize the distribution of income in market economies as the unjust result of “exploitation,” which should be rectified by extensive state control. The proposed solutions include single-payer systems, high tax rates (“from each according to his ability”), and public policies that hand out much of the Nation’s goods and services “free” of charge (“to each according to his needs”). Where they differ is that contemporary democratic socialists denounce state brutality and would allow individuals to privately own the means of production in many industries.

In assessing the effects of socialist policies, it is important to recognize that they provide little material incentive for production and innovation and, by distributing goods and services for “free,” prevent prices from revealing economically important information about costs and consumer needs and wants. To this end, as the then–prime minister of the United Kingdom, Margaret Thatcher (1976), once argued, “Socialist governments . . . always run out of other people’s money,” and thus the way to prosperity is for the state to give “the people more choice to spend their own money in their own way.”

What went wrong in Venezuela is still my acid test. It’s a technical issue as much as moral, but this seems to cover both.

AND A BIT MORE ON THE SAME REPORT: Someone has looked further into the document and this is the analysis: White House Report Says Socialist Policies Could Cut GDP Nearly in Half.

“The definition of democratic socialism to me,” Ocasio-Cortez said, “is the fact that in a modern, moral and wealthy society, no American should be too poor to live.”

To capture this variation, the CEA economists looked at how socialist policies from different countries and times would affect America’s productive output. The results were uniformly less than stellar.

“An extensive economic growth literature … documents a relationship between real GDP and the degree of socialism, measured in a large sample of countries as the opposite of economic freedom,” the report notes. “The studies suggest that moving U.S. policies to highly socialist policies would reduce real GDP at least 40 percent in the long run.”

That highly socialist benchmark is based on analyzing what the United States would look like if it implemented policies similar to Venezuela, a highly industrialized country whose major industries—most notably petroleum production—are state-owned. Such policies have led to food rationing, hyperinflation, and a mass exodus of the population. Similar policies implemented in the United States would cut GDP per capita by some $24,000 per person, the CEA estimated.

And do note the words, “at least”. They don’t want to exaggerate so provide a best case scenario, as in GDP per head might fall by only $24,000, but could be more.

The move to replace ‘European-based knowledge’ as exclusionary, inadequate and subjective

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Janice Fiamengo on inclusive, decolonised, anti-rational academia:

This is probably now the top hot-button issue at Canadian universities – the move to replace ‘European-based knowledge’ as exclusionary, inadequate and subjective, and to replace it in some cases with “indigenous knowledge,” and even something called “indigenous science”… what some might say is superstition or magical beliefs… The idea that “indigenous knowledge” is not to be questioned, that it has value equal to supposedly ‘European’ science… is an incredibly worrisome and strange idea.

Do watch in full for the anecdotes about the realities of so-called “affirmative action,” and the faculty lounge response to hearing of the 9/11 atrocities.

The immovable object is about to meet the irresistible force!

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One of the greatest paradoxes in the history of philosophy may about to be resolved: Intensifying Hurricane Willa Headed Directly Toward 10,000 Migrant Caravan Path.

It appears that the migrant caravan, which has been reported to upward of 10,000 strong, might run into some extra trouble on their march to seek American asylum. A massive hurricane (named Willa) is set to cross the path that the migrants will eventually cross.

And then after that, there’s this:

There’s also a slightly smaller disturbance named Vincente to the south of Willa that meteorologists say will be consumed by the massively growing Willa, but will still pose a threat for dangerous conditions for the caravan, which has already seen its fair share of struggles with food, sanitation and organization.

We have already discussed The Irresistible Force. Now we shall see what happens when it meets The Immovable Object.

“Everything you touch turns to gold”

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PDT comes in at around the 13-minute mark, but goes for the next hour. In contrast, Mr Nobody: Barack Obama Is Back On The Campaign Trail And Back In A Box. A handful of people to listen to him drone on about his inconsequential legacy, aside from his most important legacy of all, the election of Donald Trump as President. Here is the report. No video, not that it would interest anyone to watch it. “The current Senator” is the incumbent Republican Senator from Nevada who began as a #NeverTrumper and ended with this, “Everything you touch turns to gold,” Heller told Trump the other day. Meanwhile, Mr Nobody spoke to a largely empty hall.

“The current senator — he doesn’t seem to be willing to stand up to this,” Obama told an audience of 2,000 in a gymnasium, avoiding mentioning the senator by name, and adopting a tone of amused disappointment. “He just goes along — even when you get a sense that he knows it’s not right.”

Obama spent much of his speech on a long defense of his own presidency, and condemnation of Republican governance.

“When you hear all this talk about ‘economic miracles’ right now, remember who started it,” Obama said. He denounced Trump’s attempts to pressure the FBI and Department of Justice to target political foes.

“That is not how America works. That is how some tin-pot dictatorship works,” he said.

But Obama didn’t come to Nevada to make news, and he mostly didn’t. This is the box he’s in now. Even as he’s edged away from the tradition of post-presidential silence, there’s a more practical reason for his muted campaigning: He’s said to be afraid his presence would backfire, give Trump a foil, and energize the Republicans who Democrats hope will stay home in November.

Jordan Peterson talks with Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff

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The most interesting fact I learned from the video is that Peterson is writing the introduction to 50th anniversary edition of Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago. Perfect person to introduce this masterpiece on tyranny and resistance to actual oppression – not the fake oppression of “the patriarchy” – to a new generation.

As for the discussion overall, JP shows a depth the other two cannot match. He thinks the left is driven by resentment, but he lets them talk their own points although has plenty to say himself. And as he says at the start about our snowflake generation, with their trigger warnings and enforced psychological protections: “You could not invent a more counterproductive mental-health movement if you set out to design it.” Confronting what you fear takes practice and with practice comes bravery. Sounds right to me. The rest is from JP’s notes. Trying to work out how this overprotectiveness has arisen. Maybe siblings make people resilient. And the fact of older parents may make a difference.

Published on 19 Sep 2018

The Coddling of the American Mind on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2QJ20MQ
Consider this book as a gift for your local school board member, teacher or principal. The more educational professionals become aware of the issues it presents, and the dangers of our current hyper-protective preoccupations, the better the chances we’ll change course. I spoke with Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt September 18, 2018 about their new book, The Coddling of the American Mind — a treatise on the counterproductive but increasingly predominant “safety culture” of trigger warnings, safe spaces and microaggression sensitivity. We discussed the psychological and sociological factors that underlie this philosophy of fragility, over-protection and offense, considering the contribution of older parents, fewer siblings, the strange interaction of postmodern philosophy and Marxism on campuses, and the widespread use of social media by young people. We focused on the increasing proclivity of those teaching in the social sciences and humanities to characterize Western culture as patriarchal and oppressive; producing, as a secondary consequence, a pervasive and all-encompassing victim/victimizer narrative (and producing that partly for the purposes of justifying that characterization). We considered what steps might be taken, personally and socially, to produce an alternate culture of resilience, responsibility, strength and courage.