Bribes With Other People’s Money Aren’t Always That Attractive

We have our faults. We are tempted by power and money – that’s no less true of Americans than any other nation. But we aren’t fatalistic. We are pretty sure that God helps them that helps themselves. And we may covet but we don’t believe that is a sign of injustice but rather of sin. So, all in all, I’m feeling pretty good about us; Obama’s attempts at turning us on bankers or insurance companies or. . . Well, we haven’t been turning in anger or with our raised fists. The biggest movement of the last few months may be anti-tax, but it seems more an argument for standing on our own feet, for independence, for liberty. And if Ben Nelson can be bought, I can (with some pride) point out that Nebraskans can’t be. The poll isn’t some kind of middling, some kind of, well, we’re glad to get the money but it’s a nasty business. It’s I don’t want any of that tainted lucre.

It’s been a long time since I left, but one of my daughters is thinking of moving there. She’s the one with the “Sowell Bro'” t-shirt. I’m hoping she’ll be happy.

“Bastiat’s Iceberg” — an article by Sean Corrigan

“Bastiat’s Iceberg,” is a fascinating article on economic crisis, recommended by The Cobden Center (“for honest money and social progress”).

Toby Baxendale, at The Cobden Center, on 21 December 2009, writes: “Sean Corrigan of Diapason Commodities Management packs more sound applied economics into this report than ever.” It’s an interesting way to think about the economics of Hayek’s “extended order” and the dangers of commanding it to reorganize itself.

Download the report —this will trigger the download of a 1.6 MB pdf file.

Baxendale’s summary & commentary.

Corrigan, on planners (chateau generals) and entrepreneurs (frontline officers), from the article:

In their Olympian disdain for the little man whose very breath they nonetheless now yearn to regulate, they are congenitally oblivious to the truth that the World can thrive without them: that, absent their heavy-handed interference, its form is highly articulated, intrinsically adaptable and — yes — partly redundant, but therefore gratifyingly robust.
 
These Planners who so plague our modern lives are all, at root, chateau generals, arraying their coloured counters in textbook fashion in the sandbox; serenely isolated from the mud and gore at the front; disastrously behindhand in their decisions; hopelessly divorced from the harsh realities of the fray — all failings which, of course, do not discourage them in the least in their pretence at deciding the destinies of the many.
 
The shrewd commander of the storm-troop, by contrast, is ever alert to the fact that the ‘want of a nail’ is emblematic of military failure and so remains conscious of the importance of logistics — of the necessity for the smooth functioning of that extensive rear-area ‘Tail’ … to the delivery of combat power by the armed ‘Teeth’ in the battlezone. He also lives by the dictum contained in von Moltke”s lapidary phrase that ‘no plan survives first contact with the enemy’ and so knows that there is always a need for hands-on officership, for what we might usefully call an ‘entrepreneurship of war’.
 
If even the starchy Junkers of the Prussian army could learn to delegate as much responsibility as possible right down to men with their noses in the dirt — a doctrine known as ‘Auftragstaktik‘ — why is it that, in civilian life, a drearily intrusive economic prescriptivism has been able to live so far beyond its many failures in the crucible of history?

http://explorersfoundation.org/glyphery/492.html

December 25, 2009

A Short Rant……

“In the wake of the latest failed terrorist incident, the TSA announced a new round of security procedures designed to greatly inconvenience millions of air passengers without doing anything to increase their security…”

Here’s an idea. Let’s start using basic counterintelligence principles to screen prospective travelers to the United States and bar those young, unmarried, Muslim men having affiliations with radical mosques, madrassas, imams, extremist Islamist political groups or a history of mental illness and erratic behavior from receiving visas to enter the United States. This clown should never have been able to get a visa. His own father, a senior government official of a foreign nation, was trying to red-flag him as a potential al Qaida terrorist for us(!).

Would such a policy catch every prospective terrorist? No. Nothing will.

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News Flash: Water is Wet!!!

I have just read the most astonishing op-ed from the Miami Herald. What is so astonishing about it? Mainly how the author, Frida Ghitis, acts as if the perfectly obvious is suddenly revealed wisdom.

Ms. Ghitis solemnly informs her readers that various sections of the world still hate the United States, even though President Obama is in the White House. How can this possibly be? Because, she says, other countries may have goals that conflict with ours!

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