Category Archives: political-economy

I keep hearing stories like this. Have any studies/mainstream journalism been done?

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I have been sending folks out of the country for medical help for some time now. (Thailand and India). You would not believe the royal level of service received or the price as opposed to here in the States.

In one instance the lady was dying and losing weight and the doctors could not stop it. In Thailand they put her through a myriad of tests including sending a camera through her system taking 29,000 pictures. Final analysis — the doctors here were killing her with the combination of meds. Just changed the meds and she immediately started gaining weight. Total cost to me was less than 15% what the same service would have cost Stateside including air fare and all living expenses.

Recently I loaned an employee $15,000 to go to Bagalore to have both knees replaced at once — included all air fare, operations, housing and rehab. He is in the final stages of rehab now due to come home next week. He is ecstatic with his results. And, he never waits in line and is escorted wherever he goes. The same service here would easily cost $120,000 and they would only do one knee at a time.

I could go on, but this should give you an idea. You think maybe something is wrong with our medical system? And, I’m sure you believe that more government is the answer. (Sarcasm off.)

via re: Obama-Pharma « LewRockwell.com Blog.

Confucian Economics

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These, then, are examples of outstanding and unusually wealthy men. None of them enjoyed any titles or fiefs, gifts, or salaries from the government, nor did they play tricks with the law or commit any crimes to acquire their fortunes. They simply guessed what course conditions were going to take and acted accordingly, kept a sharp eye out for the opportunities of the times, and so were able to capture a fat profit. … There was a special aptness in the way they adapted to the times …. All of these men got where they did because of their devotion and singleness of purpose. … [T]here is no fixed road to wealth, and money has no permanent master. It finds its way to the man of ability like the spokes of a wheel converging upon the hub, and from the hands of the worthless it falls like shattered tiles. … Rich men such as these deserve to be called the “untitled nobility” …

via Roderick Long On Confucian Libertarianism | LILA RAJIVA: The Mind-Body Politic.

Pushing on thread

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Why are job losses so much worse than first thought? It’s due to the savage nature of a recession that has shredded jobs in California.

via California job losses grow – ContraCostaTimes.com.

I love that quotation because it demonstrates so perfectly the delusions that are taken for granted.

Recessions are never “savage” or “mild.”  Such explanations are meaningless.  What was savage was the government’s (Federal Reserve policy) cut in interest rates earlier in the decade.  This provided “free money” for investors who had every incentive to speculate and no incentive for anyone to save.

We had a savage bubble.  The bust is just the vacuum left when it pops.

Ron Paul won the CPAC vote?!

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So then, Ron Paul was the surprise winner of the CPAC presidential straw poll, and herein lies a lesson . . . for somebody. He came in first by a long shot, Romney second, and Palin third. It may soon start to sink in on establishment republicants, who want to “harness” all that tea party energy lying around, in order to get us a return to something like the Bush years, that this might be harder than it looks. The electorate is starting to act like a bear with a sore head. The immediate focus of this anger is Obama and his trillion-wielding minions, but a large number of Republicans wouldn't have to work too hard to get the treatment either.

There are deficiencies in Paul's approach to the world, but hardly any deficiencies in his approach to things like the deficit. And it is the deficit, and Republican earmarks, and Democratic earmarks, and the way things are usually done in Washington, that are the immediate and pressing danger to national security, and a bunch of people are starting to realize it. My children and grandchildren are far more likely to have their lives ruined by the big spenders than they are by the Taliban — determined by common sense and ordinary math.

Read the rest at Like a Bear With a Sore Head.

Misreading Luther’s 2 Kingdoms

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From Steve Wedgeworth:

Wright states:

The natural world, in this case, would be autonomous or free of God’s law, so that people could make their own rules as they go about their lives and work.  Moreover, this talk of spiritual life and Luthardt’s general emphasis on morality seem to demonstrate charges that Luthardt reduced Christianity to a matter of mentality or Gesinnung, to the interior of the Christian.  This would clearly be contrary to Luther’s teaching.

(21)

Wright then goes on to show that this is actually an inaccurate reading of Luthardt.  Due to the recent misuse of traditional terms like “natural law” and “reason,” readers are easily confused when they read Luthardt.  According to Wright, “Luthardt declared that even though these institutions were under reason, they ‘are not really profane, but God’s endowment, order, and will, and God is present in the same’” (22).  Wright adds, “The natural law, which humankind knows through reason, was God-ordained too.”

So while many modern readers might be tempted to lay the blame of the modern “two-kingdoms” view on Luthardt, this is actually not the case.  Of course, this is not to say that Luthardt plays no role in the development of the modern doctrine.  In fact, Wright goes on to show that Luthardt was influential on the next major thinker in this line of thought, Ernst Troeltsch.

Wright identifies Troeltsch as the primary culprit for the wide-spread misreading of Luther’s position on the two kingdoms.  Wright states:

In his Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, Troeltsch argued that, with his teaching about the two kingdoms, Luther had promoted a dual morality for Christians; that is, one Christian moral law over against a worldly moral code under autonomous reason.  According to Troeltsch, in Luther’s teaching, the Decalogue and the natural law were opposed to one other.

(26)

Wright goes on to say:

Troeltsch spoke of the “autonomy of the various zones of value” (Wertgebiete).  Hence, many scholars believe that he was responsible for promoting the idea that ethical values develop out of unique historical experiences; that is, the are autonomously determined in their own spheres (the economic sphere, for example).  Of course, this was most certainly not a view presented by Luther in the sixteenth-century.

(26)

Wright finds that Troeltsch promotes a Machiavellian Luther.  He does not go so far as to sanction an immoral state, and Troeltsch also noted that “reason” and “natural law” are divine institutions.  Nevertheless, Wright believes that Troeltsch “had opened a door that would be difficult to close” (28).  Wright sees the misreadings of Luther that will appear in the works of Weber and Niebuhr both directly stemming from Troeltsch.  Indeed, it would be Niebuhr’s famous Christ and Culture that most widely promoted this new misreading of Luther’s view.

Read the whole thing at Steve Wedgeworth’s blog entry.

The intellectuals’ conceit

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The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. —The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

If by “practical men,” Keynes means men with power over others, then he is flattering himself and all other economists–including those who opposed his views.  Just as George Bush went out and found a someone who claimed he didn’t believe there was a housing bubble to be his Federal Reserve Chairmen, those in power choose apologists not influences.

The reason why economists become defunct is because they don’t provide justifications for people with power to do what they already want to do.

Is it only that simple?  No. Any person, powerful or not, can come under all sorts of influences for good or ill.  We can try to influence people, as long as we don’t get frustrated by unrealistic expectations.  But the fact is that “the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are weaker than is commonly understood” and the economists who are less likely to offer justifications for power are both more likely to be right and less likely to rule the world.  And the powerful can as easily be influenced by superstitions like Ouija boards or astrology as by economists or philosophers.

The Ministry of Magic is in charge of Hogwarz

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Students were evacuated from Millennial Tech Magnet Middle School in the Chollas View neighborhood Friday afternoon after an 11-year-old student brought a personal science project that he had been making at home to school, authorities said.

Maurice Luque, spokesman for the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department, said the student had been making the device in his home garage. A vice principal saw the student showing it to other students at school about 11:40 a.m. Friday and was concerned that it might be harmful, and San Diego police were notified.

The school, which has about 440 students in grades 6 to 8 and emphasizes technology skills, was initially put on lockdown while authorities responded.

Luque said the project was made of an empty half-liter Gatorade bottle with some wires and other electrical components attached. There was no substance inside.

When police and the Metro Arson Strike Team responded, they also found electrical components in the student’s backpack, Luque said. After talking to the student, it was decided about 1 p.m. to evacuate the school as a precaution while the item was examined. Students were escorted to a nearby playing field, and parents were called and told they could come pick up their children.

A MAST robot took pictures of the device and X-rays were evaluated. About 3 p.m., the device was determined to be harmless, Luque said.

Luque said the project was intended to be a type of motion-detector device.

Both the student and his parents were “very cooperative” with authorities, Luque said. He said fire officials also went to the student’s home and checked the garage to make sure items there were neither harmful nor explosive.

“There was nothing hazardous at the house,” Luque said.

The student will not be prosecuted, but authorities were recommending that he and his parents get counseling, the spokesman said. The student violated school policies, but there was no criminal intent, Luque said.

“There will be no (criminal) charges whatsoever,” Luque said.

Police and fire officials also will not seek to recover costs associated with responding to the incident, the spokesman said.

Luque said both the student and his parents were extremely upset.

“He was very shaken by the whole situation, as were his parents,” Luque said.

The school is located on Carolina Lane near Hilltop Drive.

Adjacent Gompers Charter Middle School was not affected during the incident, police Sgt. Ray Battrick said.

Millennial Middle School opened in fall 2008. It is part of the San Diego Unified School District.

via Science project prompts SD school evacuation – SignOnSanDiego.com. Hat Tip: Boing Boing

Comments:

  • Thomas Edison would have been jailed long before he invented anything. As a creative force in the world, American culture is dead. Genius will only be defined as deviancy outside the darlings of Liberalism. Fear is being nurtured and promoted and it will choke out creativity.
  • The fact this happened in a magnet school with “Tech” in its name is another fulfilled Orwell prophecy: the name denotes the opposite of what it will actually promote.
  • Notice how every civil tax-feeder took this bizarre suspicion with grave seriousness; you can’t blame this on one idiotic decision-maker.  How can anyone think that an empty container can explode?
  • Note that the story reports on the decision not to file false charges against the victims of harassment, and to not charge them for their ill-treatment, without any sign of how ludicrous it would be to do so.  We live at the mercy of our bureaucratic masters and any time they don’t destroy us, we must see them as magnanimous.
  • There is no fix for the United States.  If people are such idiotic cowards on such a wide scale, there is no way to craft a regulation that will dictate sanity.  The only thing one can do is “be the change one wants to see in the world” and try to teach people disciplines of rationality when they are open to our influence.  I don’t see any quick exit from the coming night.