James R. Rummel

One of my co-workers subscribes to the WSJ and he allows me to read it after he’s done with them. Saves me some money, although I doubt the WSJ business staff would approve of this example of fiscal responsibility.

There was an article on page A11 of the Thursday, July 22, 2004 edition of the paper. It was G. Thomas Sims, and it was entitled “Europe Sees Limits on Growth”. Nothing new here, just the same old same old that everyone’s been saying for the past few years. Everyone who’s not blinded by their own prejudices, that is.

Back in 2000 the European Union saw a growth rate of 3.5%, which means that it was possible that the EU was about to do as well as the US. Unfortunately, that seems to have been the high water mark. This year, even the European Central Bank is pegging growth at 2.0% to 2.5%, which is wildly optimistic. J.P. Morgan says it’s 1.5% to 2% at best, while Credit Suisse First Boston says that it’s gonna be 1.4%.

So how’s the US doing? Pretty good, I’d say. If I’m reading this chart right, we’re looking at about double the European rate. AND we’re doing it without fear of runaway inflation, which is what the Europeans might just have in store for them.

But it’s just not GDP growth and inflation. In the 1980’s, Europe’s annual productivity was growing at 1.9%. It’s since dropped to 0.9% in the period from 1996 to 2003. And how is the US doing? Although it can always be better, compared to the EU we’re kicking hinder and taking names.

Some of you are wondering why I’m comparing the EU and the US. Apples/oranges and all that. My reply is that the main motivating factor for forming the EU in the first place was to create an entity that could compete with the US. So far they aren’t doing all that great a job.

Mr. Sims states that there’s a variety of reasons why the EU is having trouble. Some, like low birth rates, just have to be lived with without any clear way to improve them. But there are also a slew of “structural problems” that are hampering the Europeans. Mr. Sims doesn’t go into too much detail here, but he mentions the amazingly short work week that European workers enjoy, as well as fat unemployment benefits that don’t do much to encourage people to find a job.

What’s my opinion? I’m just some guy who’s interested in history and certainly lacking in even the most basic skills to understand the economy, but even I can see that Europe has got to get it’s house in order. They rely on the US for their own defense, and they enjoy historically low military spending. Even so they’re having trouble? How come they’re not using the “Peace Dividend” provided by the US military to jump ahead?

Someone’s screwing up big time. But don’t ask me who, or what can be done to fix it.

This post by Michael Hiteshew details the reasons why he supports nuclear power. He says that it’s due to his commitment to environmental concerns that drives his interest.

That’s very much the same reason why I went nuclear myself. But this isn’t a new idea. I was first introduced to the concept that nuclear power was environmentally friendly way back in 1977 through a science fiction book. (I’m sure that Jay Manifold will approve.)

The book is entitled Lucifer’s Hammer, and it’s written by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. The story is about what happens when some pieces of a comet strike the Earth, essentially ending civilization.

The first half of the book is character intro and setup. Plenty of space is used for Larry to preach about how the environmental lobby is killing our future. The second half is concerned with the main character’s efforts to survive.

I have no idea if this work has been updated or not. The original has become seriously dated in the past 25 years. In the book, the Space Shuttle has yet to fly. Russia is still Soviet. Johnny Carson is on TV and calculators cost hundreds of dollars.

My advice is to pick up a copy and give it a read. Dated or not it still has something to offer.

They echo down through history, faint glimpses of people who passed long ago. Many times it’s the only complete thing we have left of a culture that once shook the world. There’s a few ruined cities, a few temples made up of tumbled stones in the sand. And then there’s the myths.

Why is this so? Why is it that a people’s laws, history and great works of literature will be forgotten while these fantasy stories are remembered? What filtering process leaves tales of fantastic, impossible crap behind while the truly noble achievements are ground into dust?

I think that it’s because the myths are teaching aids. They pass along the core values of a culture, the things that are so important that they’re distilled down into fun and easily remembered stories. Stories that are then told to children at bedtime so they’ll remember and tell their children in turn. Moral tales suitable for all ages.

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The rest of the world constantly accuses the United States of the worst kind of insensitivity. The consensus is that Americans are rude, insulting and lacking in the most basic of manners. It’s said that the most basic of cultural icons, mores that are vital to a people’s identity, are routinely trampled by the louts from the US.

This does happen sometimes, mainly because some people from the US are too quick to dismiss people from other cultures as naïve. But considering that American culture spans the world it’s to be expected that we can’t keep everything straight all of the time. All of those different ways of dealing with your fellow man, all of those social conventions that we come in contact with, and it’s rather surprising that we do such a good job. I’d like to offer this short post on my personal blog as an example of the conditions that many Americans are exposed to every single day. (Keep in mind that I live in a dull, ordinary Midwest city. It’s so boring here that we refer to it as “Cowtown”, yet I still hear all of these different languages swirling around me every day.)

But the reverse doesn’t seem to be true. Most of the other countries of the world have people who only experience American culture through our media. TV shows and movies, popular music and pr0n. At best this is a gross distortion of America, most often it’s an outright fabrication. Yet people from other cultures are all too ready to accept this packaged fantasy as reality even though it’s thunderously obvious to someone from the US that this is pure entertainment and nothing more.

Remember when I said that some Americans tend to think of people from other countries as being naïve?

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