lettuce have peas

offsetting costs

2009-11-20T10:44:00.004-05:00

A government budgets' numbers may say a lot but they certainly don't say everything. It would be disingenuous to flout a lower budget number when the costs were simply offset onto other parties.

For example, there is a guy in my nabe who was in the process of developing a six-story condo building as of right, in an area thats a mix of homes and apartment buildings. Some of the neighbors complained loudly to the local council member and had the area downzoned within a matter of months. In the interim the developer of course tried as best as he could to get his project vested to protect his interests, and so he engaged in illegal construction practices by racing the clock (working over hours) to beat the new zoning changes. In the end he was able to pour his foundation before the zoning change was made, but at the cost of quality and having to pay through the nose for the labor.

During those frantic months, the neighbors were constantly complaining to the DOB, having inspectors constantly visit and hassle the construction teams all in an effort to stop the project from getting vested. At the end when the developer thought he was vested, the neighborhood alliance complained to the DOB and he ended up having to go before the BSA which is the last authority on zoning and variance grants, and they ruled against the developer saying that his foundation wasn't to the original approved architectural/engineering specifications it was thus incomplete and any project would be subject to the new downzoning, basically making his project financially impossible to complete.

Now get this; he presumingly paid for the land based upon the allowable development rights, the city changes that while he is already underway with approved plans (which can take months to get from the city!), and he went through the trouble of obtaining financing, paying labor, architects, inspectors, permits, etc.

Now here is the best part-- it's been almost two years since the city stalled him by making it impossible for him to develop his project-- now the neighbors are bitching about the vacant construction site! So the city is now ordering this victimized developer to clean up his site, repair the construction fence that vandals have been breaking, and who do you think is being coerced to pick up the tag? The victim of course.

Government budgets never tell you the whole story. It's the same with recycling; make your victims pick up the cost of sorting trash so your budget can be that much lower.

the elephant in the room

2009-04-20T21:33:00.004-04:00

On the topic of the USAG's silent holocaust via the FDA (which I've covered before), Thomas L. Knapp explains in his latest missive over at C4SS.org:

"Americans die when they’re not allowed to use a drug they need because FDA says “no.” Americans die when they can’t afford a drug they need because it costs hundreds of millions of dollars to get FDA to say “yes,” and that cost is passed on to the consumer. Americans die when drugs which would save their lives never make it out of the lab because the figures say that the costs of securing FDA approval would make it unprofitable to bring to market.

The FDA’s delays in approving — or, to put it a different way, the FDA’s prohibition against prescribing until they had approved — a single drug, propranolol, were responsible for at least 30,000, and possibly as many as 100,000, avoidable deaths from heart attack and stroke."

It's truly sickening (pun *NOT* intended) that people cannot see the FDA for what it is-- a cold-blooded killer auctioneering quality of human life to a cartel of oligarchic-pharmaceutical bidders.

red books from red beards on red men

2009-02-25T09:34:00.011-05:00

Murray Rothbard (whose last name means "red beard") wrote about the role of the court intellectual ('red' or 'raed' is Old English for wise counsel).

"The ruling class — be it warlords, nobles, bureaucrats, feudal landlords, monopoly merchants, or a coalition of several of these groups — must employ intellectuals to convince the majority of the public that its rule is beneficent, inevitable, necessary, and even divine. The leading role of the intellectual throughout history is that of the court intellectual who, in return for a share of, a junior partnership in, the power and pelf offered by the rest of the ruling class, spins the apologias for state rule with which to convince a misguided public." --Conceived in Liberty, Vol. III, p.352

R' Samson Raphael Hirsch wrote about the people who played the role in ancient Egypt-

"In Tanach [the bible] we find, everywhere, Machshefim [illusionists/magicians] in the service of the rulers of old, just as today we find scientists in the service of the state. If today's scientists were to attempt to solve problems such as how one can indulge in every excess and debauchery without having to fear consequences detrimental to one's health - that would be attempting a misuse of man's mastery of nature, and would be in line with the basic outlook of Kishuf. [magic]" --Commentary to the book of Exodus, Chapter 7, Verse 11

This is how you can explain Keynesians who magically believe that you can consume your seed cord into prosperity or otherwise turn stones into bread! Pharoah's scientists had nothing on these goys!

the plague of [boiling] frogs

2009-02-25T09:17:00.004-05:00

R' Samson Raphael Hirsch's commentary to Exodus, Chapter 2, Verse 23--

As long as the initiators of an oppressive state project of such vast proportions as the enslavement of an entire free race are still alive, there is hope for an awakening of conscience and for the abolishment of the injustice. But once an institution - no matter how glaring the injustice that gave rise to it - has passed, along with the power of the state, into the hands of new authorities who are not aware of its origins and who accept it as traditional, legitimate prerogative of the state, the new governent will not consider itself authorized to tamper with time honored tradition. It will presume that all the institutions of the former regime have been sanctioned by the law of the land. The free people who have been enslaved by a Machiavellian tyrant will then be doomed to remain pariahs forever.

This is the curse of obsolescence inherent in time-honored state institutions. The past cultivated a field with blood and tears, and the present harvests - with a clean conscience - the fruit of the fait accompli, without considering that a curse hangs over every ear of corn that is brought home with joy.

The same applies to the New Deal, National Recovery Act, WWII and other shovel-ready infrastructure projects which 'brought us out of the last depresssion'.

vaterland

2009-02-11T10:24:00.009-05:00

"The degree of justice in a country is measured not by the rights accorded to the native-born, the rich, and the well-connected (whose connections stand by them and represent them in their time of need), but by the justice meted out to the unprotected stranger. Complete equality of the native-born and the stranger is a basic characteristic of Jewish law. In Jewish law, the homeland does not grant human rights; rather, human rights grant the homeland! Jewish law does not distinguish between human rights and citizen's rights. Whoever accepted upon himself the moral laws of humanity- the seven Noahide laws- could claim the right of domicile in Judea."

-- Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, commentary to the book of Exodus, Chapter 1, Verse 14 [Amazon link]

I'd love to try and squeeze his statement about morality granting property rights into an argumentation ethics framework to defend not the illegitimate, incoherent concept of "homeland", but rather one of property rights. It's clear that the good rabbi didn't hold that the land of Israel is the birthright, or that it belongs in come collective manner to the tribe of Israel, but to the contrary- it's a land that is open for acquisition to potentially anyone so long that they behave toward others in a moral fashion.

According to some libertarians, the concept of property is derived via argumentation ethics [link]. Roughly speaking, a presupposition to the concept of an argument requires individuals to recognize the property rights of others to their own bodies and the use and/or possession of scarce goods, or what is then called property.

conflicted emotions

2009-01-28T08:19:00.005-05:00

From Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch's commentary on the blessings of Yaakov (Jacob) to his sons Shimon (Simon) and Levi, Genesis Chapter 49, Verse 7--

"It is most significant that here, at the cornerstone of the Jewish people, a curse is imposed upon any violent outburst that counter to justice and morality, even if it is intended for the common good.

All other states and nations have adopted the principle that any action is legitimate as long as it serves the interest of the state. Acts of cunning and violence that would be punished by ostracism or execution if practiced by an individual for selfish gain are rewarded with laurels and civic honors if they are committed for what is alleged to be the welfare of the state. The laws of morality apply only in private life, wheras in politics and diplomancy the only recognized law is that of national self-interest.

Here, by contrast, the last will and testament on which the Jewish people was founded pronounces a curse on cunning and violence, even if they are used for the nation's most legitimate interests, and it sets down for all time the doctrine that even in public life and in the promotion if the common good, not only must the ends be pure, but so must be the means."

I truly wonder what he would say had he been around today to see the founding of the Israeli state and the various wars and conflicts since then.

a time travelers case for the 100% gold standard

2009-01-12T23:00:00.014-05:00

Because fiat money makes it too difficult to time travel.

This point was well illustrated in Back to the Future II, in the scene where, or should I say when, Marty and Doc are in the 50's, and Doc opens up an attache case containing various denominations spanning different time periods, so as to prevent an intertemporal incident in which the errant time traveler attempts to pay a present debt with future fiat money.

In contrast, Alex, the protagonist of Robert Heinlien's Job: A Comedy of Justice is wont to carry his lifes' savings on his person at all times in the form of gold coins. The reason for this odd behavior is in response to an especially cruel Supreme Being, who like a cat toying with a mouse, is continuously whisking Alex from one parallel universe to the next as soon as Alex is getting in the swing of things. (Apparently this malicious God is capable of remapping objects in the multiverse, but won't strip Alex of his vestments in the process.)

If there ever was a cause that fellow time-travelers and world-walkers could unite behind, this is it.

counter-historical fiction

2008-12-28T14:38:00.009-05:00

I have just finished reading the fourth and final book in the Time's Tapestry series by Stephen Baxter. Overall, I find that the series is unlike the typical scifi novels I have read in the past and come to love. I would not say that I found the books boring, but I wouldn't recommend these to any scifi-reading friends unless I knew they had an earnest appreciation for millennia-spanning history lectures squeezed into the novel format.

The first book of the series is titled Emperor and the setting spans the course of Pre-Roman through Post-Roman historical England with fictional protagonists cast among famous historical figures. The pace of the story is that which will suddenly jump a century or two forward between chapters, and likewise, the following two books, Conqueror and Navigator follow the same breakneck speed.

Conqueror, still set in the England, follows a new group of fictional characters and recounts the invasions of the Vikings, the Normans, and the Germanic Saxons, though not necessarily in that order.

Navigator takes the reader through the Crusades, the back-and-forth conquests of Moorish Spain and the Iberian Peninsula, and culminates with the famous sea expeditions of trying to navigate the Atlantic passage to India and the far east.

Weaver slows the pace down significantly to follow a single group of main characters, who more or less make it through the entire novel and is firmly entrenched in World War II England under Nazi occupation. In this novel, we finally meet the fellows who tamper with the history of the first three books, but I will have to say I was disillusioned with this climatic element; metaphorically speaking it was more akin a bottle rocket that fizzles in disappointment than the atomic explosion of brilliance I patiently awaited.

I might add that not having read any of Harry Turtledove's alternate history novels, I can't say how Baxter stacks against this narrow category's 800-pound gorilla. My recommendation for your typical scifi reader would be to skip this series completely. But if you're anything like me, a guy who would love to have some idea of world history but never takes the opportunity to get cracking into the dryness of textbooks, you will probably enjoy having a history lesson crammed into a novel format.

the non-Copenhagen interpretation

2008-11-30T13:15:00.011-05:00

I'm in middle of reading this intriguing book by (Rabbi) Akiva Tatz titled Letters to a Buddhist Jew, (website) which is a compilation of an exchange of letters between himself and a [now formerly] Buddhist Jew by the name of David Gottleib. Tatz artfully blends the Jewish tradition with a fresh mix of philosophy, kabbalism, and a fascinating exploration into the etymology of the Hebrew language to demonstrate to Mr. Gottleib, a seeker of spiritual fulfillment, a small taste of the richness that Judaism has to offer.

So without further ado, a favorite passage of mine.

As always, the words say it all: the Hebrew word for doubt is safek, and for certainty, vadai. Now these commonly used words are not to be found in Scripture. Nowhere does the Torah mention them; both are of Rabbinic origin. If the essence of an idea is contained in the Torah word for that idea, and we find that there is no word for a particular idea we encounter, it surely means that at the deepest level, that concept does not exist... If no word exists in the Torah corresponding to a thing we perceive in the world, that constitutes a strong suggestion that the thing we are perceiving is illusory. Someone has painted it up on the screen of reality, but it is not being projected from the source. And of course - the world as formed by its root in Torah contains no doubt: things either exist or they do not. There is nothing in the world that exists "doubtfully," tentatively; doubt is a problem of our perception, not an objective reality. (And if there is no doubt, there is no certainty either - certainty exists only where doubt is a possibility; if there can be no doubt there can be no certainty, a thing simply "is.")

The primal, pristine world is clear and open. We opacify and confuse it. The word for "doubt" is of human origin; it is a description of the damage we do to our own perception.

unorthodox commentary

2008-11-11T22:57:00.007-05:00

This [Jewish] calendar year, I began reading the commentary of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch to accompany the weekly Torah portion. While I have not able to finish even a quarter of the weekly commentary, I've learned some very fascinating insights, some of which I feel are apropos to this little blog of mine (I'm gonna let it shine!)

A few weeks ago we read Parashat Bereshit, otherwise known as Genesis. We read of the two brother Kayin (pronounced "Cain" in English) and Hevel (A.K.A. "Able"). In explaining the etymology of the name 'Kayin' which means to acquire (and so named by Eve), R' Hirsch notes that the concept of ownership derives from that of production. Thus we find from here a biblical support to the Lockean theory of original acquisition, the 'mixing of one's labor' with unowned matter to create "property".

In the following weeks reading of Noah, the Torah states that what sealed the fate of the antediluvians was that they engaged in "Cha'mas" (read that with a gutteral "kh" sound, just like 'Chumas' the famous chickpea spread). Cha'mas is etymologically related to two other words, "Cha'metz", leavened products which are forbidden on Passover, and "Cho'metz" which is vinegar. The common meaning of these three words is that they denote a gradual ruination of a substance until it is unrecoverable, as opposed to a quick-paced ruination.

In this particular case, the wicked people in those times did not steal or rob from one another in a grand fashion. Instead, they each stole in very trivial amounts that were unrecoverable via the legal process. However this trivial amount was multiplied by the actions of many people until the victim was robbed to the point of destitution.

To me, this sounds a lot like the effects of monetary inflation, in that it transfers a couple of percentage points in buying power to the first-recipients of the new money at the expense of those last receivers of money, usually those people on living on pensions or fixed incomes. As far as I know, there is no legal remedy to help the victims of monetary inflation, and so this would probably qualify as Cha'mas, as opposed to Gezel, what we call theft, which if the perpetrator were to be apprehended, we would have the opportunity of legal recourse and some chance of restitution.

This last bit is from Perashat Lech-Lecha, in which R' Hirsch notes that, and I quote verbatim (from the English translation of his original German)--

"Honesty, humanity, and love are duties incumbent upon the individual, but are regarded as folly in relations between nations and are viewed as unimportant by statesmen and politicians. Individuals are imprisoned and hanged for the crimes of fraud and murder, but countries murder and defraud on a grand scale, and those who murder and defraud "in the interest of the state" are decorated and rewarded."

meaningless noises

2008-11-03T23:43:00.002-05:00

For those interested in Argumentation Ethics, you can find an echo of it in Steven Pinker's The Stuff of Thought in his analysis of the claims of linguisitical relativists- those who hold that there is no truth, "only competing metaphors, which are more or less apt for the purposes of the people who live by them."

"As such, Lakoff's version of relativism is vulnerable to the two standard rebuttals of relativism in general... The other rebuttal is that by their very effort to convince others of the truth of relativism, relativists are committed to the notion of objective truth. They attract supporters by persuasion — the marshaling of facts and logic — not by bribes or threats. They confront their critics using debate and reason, not by dueling with pistols or throwing chairs like the guests on a daytime talk show. And if asked whether their brand of relativism is a pack of lies, they would deny that it is, not waffle and say that the question is meaningless."

Why I'm not voting

2008-10-31T09:40:00.002-04:00

There are a few reasons why I will not be "expressing" myself at the ballot box come this next election.

Primarily so, because the very process disgusts my sensitivity to the ideals of individual liberty. What I mean is that the gross act in playing a very small part in selecting our next overlord should make every egalitarian cringe- if equal liberty is truly their goal, this could only be realized when there are no masters lording over us any longer.

Secondly, because voting is a farce if you are given extremely limited options and no option for exit. The very concept of choice requires the ability to reject and so long that one cannot "express" this choice at the ballot box the only way to do so is to abstain from beans.

Third, because I think it borders on immorality to play even a minor a role in the perpetuity of the institution of mass enslavement. I won't argue that voting in presidential elections is per se immoral (a violation of rights), after all one may feel inclined to vote for pragmatic and strategic purposes. What I do have is a very strong preference of being averse to any situation through which my participation can be viewed as my lending moral support to such a rights-violating institution.

Some people may question my hostility to democratic institutions- I will not deny this charge. I do not see the logic in being imposed upon and having my liberty infringed by the majoritarian opinion no matter the excuse. Whether or not it is better than the alternative (monarchy, oligarchy, communism) is to limit yourself to of a determination of rulership and to not admit the possibility of self-determination.

separated at birth?

2008-10-05T13:14:00.005-04:00

With profuse apologies in advance, I would like to make the case that our very own J. Tucker has an hyperinflationary alter-ego... You be the judge.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Video source:

risk and uncertainty

2008-07-30T06:26:00.008-04:00

As the local hobbyist economist, I find myself constantly plied with questions for which I don't have readily prepared answers. The inability to predict and recommend less risky, more sound and profitable ventures somehow impinges on that reputation, because someone who thinks himself informally educated on that subject should be overflowing with policy suggestions, right?

Yes, I can easily parrot what other notables have advised, such as Jim Rogers or Peter Schiff, but I've found that taking the role of an economic Cassandra quickly turns off people who want to hear that everything is fine and dandy in our mixed-economy.

Personally, I've been looking for "the answer" too; I'm been considering transferring my little nest egg into various non-dollar assets, be that less-volatile foreign currencies, but especially into ventures such as GoldMoney.com.

My take on the U.S. 'security' markets is exactly that; a bitter joke since I've yet to profit from any of the shares I've held in mutual funds. The minor amount of amateur stock trading I've tried hasn't been encouraging and the strategy of buying "solid companies" hasn't paid off for me as there has been no appreciation on those fronts.

The only success I've had came from investing in technology companies for which I've had early knowledge of upcoming growth. For example, prior to the introduction of the XBOX 360, there were rumors circulating in the tech circles that Microsoft was talking with ATI to handle the graphics and was going to shun Nvidia which powered the first XBOX. Seeing that there was no public announcement of this, it did me well to purchase ATI shares which greatly appreciated when the announcement came some time thereafter. I've also had success in buying shares in Apple when it was at its $19 low in early 2003 sometime before the 3G iPod was released. I was positive that this was going to be a turning point for Apple to once-again become a household name. No more than six months later Steve Jobs was profiled on the cover of Time Magazine holding the 3G iPod.

But even with those success stories, it is certainly nothing I could duplicate on a daily basis; they were one-off type of bets. The only way to reliably make money in the security markets is to collect commissions from gullible folks who think that their broker knows his stuff. A big thank you for that goes to the S.E.C. for its role in keeping the people stupidly complacent in this regard; after all if they are 'regulating' the markets, people can automatically trust anyone to look out for their best interests, right?

As for real estate ventures, I made a decision back in late 2006 to exit the field for the meanwhile, and luckily so. I still follow developments in this field, but for the most part I am disgusted with how the U.S. Imperial Government is assuming new powers to further distort the market and stem ultimate recovery.

This is the point where I hold out my hat to solicit some spare financial advice from my imaginary readership, e.g., how they've diversified their wealth. What I'm really looking for is a liquid type vehicle, something from which I would be able to regularly withdraw funds to pay for living expenses; something I'm not sure easily accomplished, say if I want pay an American Express bill with GoldMoney.com savings.

aqua regia

2008-06-23T23:29:00.001-04:00

(Shamelessly pilfered from wikipedia.org)

Aqua regia (Latin for royal water) is a highly corrosive, fuming yellow or red solution...It is one of the few reagents that dissolves gold and platinum. It was so named because it can dissolve the so-called royal, or noble metals...

"When Germany invaded Denmark in World War II, the Hungarian chemist George de Hevesy dissolved the gold Nobel Prizes of Max von Laue and James Franck into aqua regia to prevent the Nazis from stealing them. He placed the resulting solution on a shelf in his laboratory at the Niels Bohr Institute. It was subsequently ignored by the Nazis who thought the jar—one of perhaps hundreds on the shelving—contained common chemicals. After the war, de Hevesy returned to find the solution undisturbed and precipitated the gold out of the acid. The gold was returned to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Nobel Foundation presented new medals to Laue and Franck."

bookmarking bastiat #2

2008-06-19T15:12:00.000-04:00

It has been a while since I finished reading the Bastiat Collection put out by the Mises Institute, so before I completely forget some of the best material I've found in there I'll whip it up into this blogpost, which I realize should get quite lengthy as I quote stuff.

In ridicule of the "balance of trade" protectionist theories, Bastiat writes;

"There is still another inference to be deduced from this, which is that according to the theory of the balance of trade, France has a very simple means of doubling her capital at any moment. It is enough to pass them through the Customhouse, and then pitch them into the sea. In this case the exports will represent the amount of her capital, the imports will be nil, and impossible as well, and we shall gain all that the sea swallows up." --Economic Sophisms— Social Fallacies Chapter Six, Pages 224-225

On the folly of central planning and practicality of spontaneous order;

"On entering Paris, which I had come to visit, I said to myself— here are a million human beings who would all die in a short time if provisions of every kind ceased to flow toward this great metropolis. Imagination is baffled when it tries to appreciate the vast multiplicity of commodities that must enter tomorrow through the barriers in order to preserve the inhabitants from falling a prey to the convulsions of famine, rebellion and pillage. And yet all sleep at this moment, and their peaceful slumbers are not disturbed for a single instant by the prospect of such a frightful catastrophe. On the other hand, eighty departments have been laboring today, without concert, without any mutual understanding, for the provisioning of Paris. How does each succeeding day bring what is wanted, nothing more, nothing less, to so gigantic a market? What, then, is the ingenious and secret power that governs the astonishing regularity of movements so complicated, a regularity in which everybody has implicit faith, although happiness and life itself are at stake? That power is an absolute principle, the principle of freedom in transactions. We have faith in that inward light that Providence has placed in the heart of all men, and to which He has confided the preservation and indefinite amelioration of our species, namely, a regard to personal interest— since we must give it its right name— a principle so active, so vigilant, so foreseeing, when it is free in its action. In what situation, I would ask, would the inhabitants of Paris be if a minister should take it into his head to substitute for this power the combinations of his own genius, however superior we might suppose them to be—if he thought to subject to his supreme direction this prodigious mechanism, to hold the springs of it in his hands, to decide by whom, or in what manner, or on what conditions, everything needed should be produced, transported, exchanged and consumed?" --Economic Sophisms, Social Fallacies Chapter Eighteen, Pages 272-273

Bastiat was in favor of practicing wertfrei economics, to not let personal preferences cloud judgment of economic fact;

"In political economy there are no absolute principles.
In plain language, this means:
“I know not whether it be true or false; I am ignorant of what constitutes general good or evil. I give myself no trouble about that. The immediate effect of each measure upon my own personal interest is the only law which I can consent to recognize.” --Economic Sophisms, Social Fallacies Chapter Twenty, Page 281

On the dangers of mixing your metaphors;

"The word invasion itself is a good illustration of this. A French ironmaster exclaims: Preserve us from the invasion of English iron. An English landowner exclaims in return: Preserve us from the invasion of French wheat. And then they proceed to interpose barriers between the two countries. These barriers create isolation, isolation gives rise to hatred, hatred to war, war to invasion. What does it signify? cry the two sophists; is it not better to expose ourselves to a possible invasion than accept an invasion that is certain? And the people believe them, and the barriers are kept up.

And yet what analogy is there between an exchange and an invasion? What possible similarity can be imagined between a ship of war that comes to vomit fire and devastation on our towns, and a merchant ship that comes to offer a free voluntary exchange of commodities for commodities?" --Economic Sophisms, Social Fallacies Chapter Twenty-two, Page 296

On being sold counterfeit goods;

But among civilized nations surely the producers of riches are now become sufficiently numerous and strong to defend themselves.
Does this mean that they are no longer robbed? They are as much so as ever, and moreover they rob one another.
The only difference is that Spoliation has changed her agent She acts no longer by Force, but by Cunning.
To rob the public, it is necessary to deceive them. To deceive them, it is necessary to persuade them that they are robbed for their own advantage, and to induce them to accept in exchange for their property, imaginary services, and often worse." --Economic Sophisms, Social Fallacies Chapter Twenty-three, Page 304

Looking now at my reference list I realize I have 29 bookmarks more to go, all from the second volume. Should I spare you the agony/joy for until the next time? I warn you though, I may be absent for a while.

paramnesiastic

2008-05-15T19:53:00.008-04:00

That is how a verbaholic such as myself would describe the sensation commonly referred to déjà vu.

For a while I was secretly embarrassed to think that although I've read most of Neal Stephenson's books, notably the Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon, and the enormous Baroque Cycle trilogy, I never got around to reading his first major, coming-of-age novel Snow Crash. Or so, that is what I thought to be the case.

You see, I remember reading the Diamond Age when it came out back in 90's when I was still in grade school; to be technical, while I summered at a sleepaway camp. To this day I cherish the memories of reading it, vaguely recalling the basic storyline and some of the more remarkable elements which still reside deep in my neurostructure.

But I had no recollection whatsoever of ever reading Snow Crash until I bought a fresh copy a few weeks ago and finally read the damn thing.

And boom!, just like that, memories came flooding back-- the metaverse, the dentata, the rat thing. Even the parts about glossolalia.

I think I was 11 or 12 when I first read it. Hands down I think I've enjoyed it much more this time around.

To recap a paragraph sure to bring a smile to fellow anarchonomists;

"It's always been a mystery to Hiro, too, but then, that's how the government is. It was invented to do stuff that private enterprise doesn't bother with, which means there's probably no reason for it;"

Well said, Mr. Stephenson.

zoning for death

2008-04-23T12:06:00.002-04:00

A NY Times editorial published today insinuates that the heady sin of avarice is alive and thriving in the real estate industry, to the detriment of public safety. The article speaks of various regulations that Department of Buildings has tried to implement in the wake of the tragedy at ground zero, among them the widening of and the increase of required staircases.

The main force against such safety precautions is said to be the real estate industry, who are stalwart against the maximization of 'dead weight', space which is neither rentable nor salable, and hence unable to be capitalized.

As usual, what we have here is a few bureaucrats attempting to supplant the will of the people, to try to overrule their desired level of safety, to force them to pay for more safety then what they are willing to voluntarily part for by themselves.

[Monetary] greed, the most maligned, misunderstood characteristic is bandied here as though it simply were a destructive life force of its own. Say what you will of morality in general, but scratch an avowed amoralist, and you should find his instinctual hatred for avarice right there for all to see. I certainly can recognize the presence of greed, but I try to avoid ascribing to it the power of causal explanation.

In this case, it would be far more fruitful to state that the prior intervention of zoning regulation has come at the expense of public safety. Zoning, by arbitrarily and artificially constraining the natural growth of the human habitat has upset the delicate balance of market preferences into favoring space-maximizing strategies at the cost of public safety. It is a safe bet to say that in the absence of such well-intentioned intervention, society will have a better chance at working to obtain an optimal admixture of safety, and pleasant cages than it would otherwise.

Instead of pettily focusing on the motive of greed, it would be more mature (and productive!) to recognize it as an immutable nature of what it means to be human, and to let institutions and relations develop anarchically around that natural formation how they will.

bookmarking bastiat

2008-04-10T20:29:00.015-04:00

I've been sending myself emails whenever I come across passages of particular interest when reading the new collection of Claude Frederic Bastiat's essays on economics prepared by the Mises Institute. I'm not quite done yet, but I've already live-tagged so many nuggets I figured I would start sharing them with my imaginary readership.

So here without further ado is Bastiat on the topic of justice—

"When law and force keep a man within the bounds of justice, they impose nothing upon him but a mere negation. They only oblige him to abstain from doing harm... In fact, it is not justice that has an existence of its own, it is injustice. The one results from the absence of the other." — book 1, page 64

On the contradictory absurdness of dialectical materialism—

"They divide mankind into two parts. Men in general, except one, form the first; the politician himself forms the second, which is by far the most important.

In fact, they begin by supposing that men are devoid of any principle of action, and of any means of discernment in themselves; that they have no initiative; that they are inert matter, passive particles, atoms without impulse; at best a vegetation indifferent to its own mode of existence, susceptible of assuming, from an exterior will and hand an infinite number of forms, more or less symmetrical, artistic, and perfected." — book 1, page 67

Everybody except for themselves of course, a parody of fine quining.

Where he asserts binary exchange is a trade of equal satisfactions to each party—

"After much investigation it has been found, that in order to make the two services exchanged of equivalent value, and in order to render the exchange equitable, the best means was to allow it to be free... When we look into these subjects, we are always compelled to reason upon this maxim, that equal value results from liberty. We have, in fact, no other means of knowing whether, at a given moment, two services are of the same value but that of examining whether they can be readily and freely exchanged." — book 1, page 144

And explicitly rejects Condillac's theory of the inequality of exchange—

"The explanation Condillac has given appears to me to be quite unsatisfactory and empirical—in fact it explains nothing. “From the very fact,” he says, “that an exchange is made, it follows that there must be profit for the two contracting parties, for otherwise it would not take place. Then each exchange includes two gains for humanity"...Holding this proposition as true, we see in it only the statement of a result...Exchange includes two gains, you say. How? Why? It results from the fact that it takes place. But why does it take place? What motive has induced the contracting parties to effect the exchange? Has Exchange in itself a mysterious virtue, necessarily beneficial, and incapable of explanation?” - book 2, page 90

In the former quote Bastiat endorsed the idea that value is a subjective notion, an indeterminate quantum event valid to but a specific moment, observable only through the action of exchange. That's all nice and shiny, however I think Bastiat's criticism of Condillac's theory applies equally as well to his own notion of equal value; how do we know the observed exchange was of equal values? Through the fact that it took place? But why does it take place?

It also seems odd to me that here Bastiat disapproves of Condillac utilizing an empirical method to prove his inequality of exchange theory when Bastiat himself asks the reader to do the same to arrive at the notion- stating that only upon examination of exchange do we know that the values are equal. It's odd to me because Condillac is in fact utilizing a deductive method, to reflect upon a given event to deduce that if it occurred, it was because each party gave up less than what they expected to receive. And furthermore, it seems to me that what Bastiat calls "examination" is also not empirical fact gleaned through a posteriori observation, but rather a priori deduction!

Note: Philosophy mavens and bowtied economists of the cloth are hereby invited to comment and set me straight as to what Bastiat is saying. For now, I'm taking this to be the sometimes unavoidable result of a translation where concepts get mangled when bridging that gulf.

from the frontline trenches of the war on patterns

2008-04-04T14:30:00.002-04:00

I posted the following comment to a Gothamist post relating a NYPD raid on a Queens-based warehouse containing eight trailer loads of goods which were subsequently plundered.

In a non-Kafkaesque world, the headlines would read:

"Brazen Bandits Make Off with $4.5m Worth of Goods, Kidnap and Take Hostages into Involuntarily Confinement".

The government is the only agency which should be prosecuted for counterfeiting; the crime of defrauding [and coercing] customers into exchanging one good for another good of inferior quality.

For a transaction in which both parties are fully aware of the nature of those items which they exchange, it cannot be justly said that there is a victimized party, i.e. when Ms. Tourist purchases a 'Gucci' purse in Chinatown neither party is harmed by the consensual exchange, and in fact both parties profit in the ex-ante sense.

I know that some of you think that perhaps there are other victims here that should be taken into consideration, perhaps the Gucci corporation, or the NYC Department of Finance which didn't steal, umm, 'collect' a sales tax on the transaction.

For one, the Gucci Co. can only be a victim if they were actively deprived of a physical good, or the use of that which they already own. In this case, fictitious rights to so-called "IP" is exactly that, a scam fostered upon the backs of society to prop up the sales revenue of pattern monopolists.

cranial tragedy

2008-04-03T13:22:00.009-04:00

What's that poor excuse for government licensing requirements-- oh yes, oversight for public safety purposes.

Stories like the recent tragic crane collapse in Manhattan which killed seven [see the shocking NY Times report here] bring to light what I call counterfeit goods, the supposed 'public goods' which the intervention of government is allegedly providing but is not in reality. It's no surprise at all to me that such tragedies occur when society mistakenly relies upon a unaccountable government agency whose task is to oversee that crane operators know what they're doing.

This does not mean to say that I think that construction 'accidents' never just happen; I just think it more likely to be the case because of the existing statist-quo than perhaps what counterfactually might occur otherwise in a privately regulated industry.

I'm also quite interested to learn if the insurance companies that insure the crane operators rely on those very same government-approved credentials/licenses to be their sole assurance against underwriting an excessive risk.

In any case, the provision of the supposed oversight by government agency also tends to crowd out private efforts to do the same, especially if the insurance companies didn't overtly prefer a private evaluation of those same credentials.

the ghost of iceberg past

2008-03-31T23:58:00.003-04:00

I just found an old post of mine-- okay it's not that old, but old enough that I didn't recognize the authorship as my own until I reached the end of the post.

"...Governments shouldn't attempt to regulate markets because they cannot. To the extent that they try to, they exaberate the problem on hand, and must seek to correct their earlier correction.

Secondarily, governments shouldn't attempt to "correct" markets, because to say a market has failed is a normative statement, and cannot be proven. In fact, the market is never "right" nor "wrong", as all a market consists of is billions of individuals trading property rights, and who is to say what two or more consenting adults agree to is incorrect?

Last, it's actually a joke to think that government "regulate" a market, because only markets can regulate themselves. The "regulation" that the government deems to provide is a poor substitute, and in fact in most times the regulatory bodies are captured by the special interests themselves, in a process known as regulatory capture. That's why our energy and telecommunication sector lags behind the world, and the biggest firms within that field are typically those that were granted monopolies by the same regulatory crew. And to think you call that "regulation".

As for suggesting that Wal-Mart must take their business elsewhere is to say that government has the right to dictate when, where and which private individuals are permitted to exchange goods. They are not "free" to take their business anywhere, as the word free implies that they have an un-interfered choice. Otherwise it is like saying that a person being mugged is "free" to choose his money or his life.

As for empirical observations, they are invalid as far as economic theory is concerned, since it is impossible to control for every variable. Economic theory can only be deduced from a axiomatic, a priori logic. To the extent that your observational data differs from theory, you must either admit that your data is incomplete or simply wrong."

the root of all evil

2008-03-26T23:51:00.005-04:00

In concern to my last post, I meant to include a specific example indicating Murray Rothbard's even-handed approach to TPo1819, in that he would simply restate the arguments made by the differing parties without explicitly endorsing either.

For example, money-brokers were at one point considered the scourge of the early colonial American bank system. These gentle folk were guilty of the crime of purchasing discounted bank notes belonging to out of town banks, and then taking these same notes and redeeming them at their respective banks for their par value in specie. However the banks wouldn't stand these slimy two-timers who dared to impoverish their banks by withdrawing specie and so they sought to outlaw them.

It was here that I thought that Rothbard could interject that the banks had the duty to thank these money-brokers whose selfish, nefarious actions actually served to bolster the exchange value of the very same bank notes. To see why, simply imagine the lack of such money-brokers; after all if a vendor is presented with a bank note for a distant bank of which he knows almost nothing about, it would be more like that the note would have to be discounted even further before he would begin to consider it worth his trouble to accept it in lieu of specie, or in the notes of a closer banking institution.

The money-brokers in their actions thus filled a role in minimizing the discounting of bank notes of distant banks, and countervailed the tendency to further discount then what would have been otherwise.

don't panic!

2008-03-24T22:38:00.010-04:00

Murray Rothbard's The Panic of 1819 is quite unlike any other scholarly work of his that I'm familiar with in that he let the facts speak for themselves. Though he does color the arguments presented, he does it in a fair-handed, 'just the facts, mam' manner which might mislead the unknowing reader to think that that he doesn't have a horse in the race. Honestly, I can recall seeing the term "Austrian School of Economics" mentioned just once in the entire book, a shocker considering that in it he analyzes the conditions surrounding what could have been the great depression of the early 1800's in support of the Austrian Business Cycle Theory.

The Rothbard that I'm familiar with, from the handful of his books that I've read is never dry, uncompromising, and his arguments intellectually-honed which can help the typical unmotivated reader to slog through the 1,400+ pages scholars edition of Man, Economy and State; perhaps not by the edge of his seat, but enough so.

In contrast, TPo1819 is a work of drudgery, detailing the minutia of inductive economic research, one which Rothbard clearly set aside his prejudice for utilizing the thymological method of Verstehen as pioneered by Mises in favor of appealing to those who favor a rather historical, empirical approach to the matter. After reading the first chapter I already was under the impression that Rothbard was writing not to the choir, but to mainstream historians and economic professors alike in an attempt to subtly win over academia to the ABCT.

Though this book required more patience than what I usually have to offer, I was rewarded every now and then when I found insider comments passed off as innocuous statements. One such comments appears towards the end:

"Stress on the moral virtues often took the form of attack on luxurious consumption and other extravagances of the day. Embryonic Veblenians called upon the rich to set an example in thrifty living to the lower classes, who tended to imitate the former."

false bravado

2008-03-06T22:38:00.006-05:00

There was jitters in the air this morning as the local news-media prattled endlessly about an early morning explosion at the military recruitment station located in Times Square, which resulted in no bodily harm and minor property damage.

Michael Bloomberg, ever the bloviating yenta, wagged his fingers and called out against the coward who perpetrated the attack, if one can call it that.

What I can't understand is why this presently-unknown figure was labeled a coward, and why it should be considered an appropriate epithet in this case. Is it wrong that he lacked resolve to take life, and instead chose to 'attack' when it was certain nobody would be in harms way?

If anything, one can legitimately make the opposite case-- that this is one hell of a brave fellow, who is risking life and limb to deliver a middle-finger salute to the imperial U.S. war regime and her insatiable hunger of destroying human life in her relentless meat grinder of "foreign policy". I reckon that Times Square is one of the worlds most surveilled locations, up there with Orwell's London, and this courageous act sends a loud message to our oppressors in blue that we are resolved to overcome their trigger-happy, cattle-prodding enforced servitude.

Just compare this bomb-throwing 'coward' with the Hercules cavalcade of police squad vehicles which goes on pretty much every day in NYC. For those who've never heard of the Hercules,

"And there are the Hercules Teams, elite, heavily armed, Special Forces–type police units that pop up daily around the city. It can be at the Empire State Building, the Brooklyn Bridge, Times Square, or the stock exchange, wherever the day's intelligence reports suggest they could be needed. These small teams arrive in black Suburbans, sheathed in armor-plated vests and carrying 9-mm. submachine guns—sometimes with air or sea support. Their purpose is to intimidate and to very publicly mount a show of force." - article link

Pray tell, what bravery do these hostile brutes exhibit? Do they suppose it to be especially courageous to parade around the killing fields of Manhattan while waving around machine guns under the protection of cover from air support? The biggest danger any one of these S.S. knuckle-heads face is painful priapism from the hard-on they get from being 'in control of the situation'.

If it were up to me, I'd reverse the conventional doublethink application of the labels for coward and courageous. But as everyone knows, Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.

dinah demalkhuta dinah

2008-03-02T14:21:00.000-05:00

Among Orthodox Jews there is a consensus that government is a necessary institution, and which is legitimated by our religion. Furthermore, leading rabbis often urge that it is an obligation upon each and every eligible citizen to register and vote, for the purpose of having "our voice" heard loud and clear, in order to acquire via political means our fair share of the loot which we ought have coming to our neighborhoods maintenance and pet causes[1].

The Jewish principle which justifies and legitimizes governmental terrorism is known as 'dinah de'malkhuta dinah', which literally translates to "the law of the kingdom is the law". Most laymen are familiar with this halachic maxim, and a overwhelming majority of them take it as gospel, without understanding its applicable parameters, and make even less effort to understand the underlying principle.

A short while ago, I came across the sugya (section) in the tractate Nedarim on pages 27b-28a which discusses cases in which one is permitted to falsely declare a neder, a vow forswearing the benefit from either an activity, an object, or from a person. The three cases where one is permitted to falsely swear is to a brigand, a murderer, and a tax collector. [The purpose of the neder would be to bolster another false claim that the property they are looking to loot either belongs to the temple, or to the royalty which will dissuade them from taking it.]

In those three cases, it is permissible to make such a vow to forswear the benefit of his wife and children if he were to be lying about the ownership of the goods in question, which is of course the truth of the matter.

The commentators ask, and in regard to the tax collector, isn't the collector fulfilling a legitimate role to raise taxes for the king based on the principle of dinah de'malkhuta dinah? (Henceforth shortened to DND) So why is one permitted to lie, and on top of that to declare a false vow?

The commentators come up with an answer along the line that if taxes are not being collected equitably from the population, one is permitted to protect his property from that excessive plundering[2].

In any case, where did the commentators come up with this concept of DND?

To some commentators, DND isn't a groundbreaking rule of unique halachic origin, but one simply based upon the principle of ownership. To them, the power to tax derives from the fact the that the sovereign is the landlord, and by that right can demand payment allowing you on his land. Exactly how he comes to own the kingdom isn't discussed, but this explanation will at least frame the boundaries of what DND would entail, contrary to the all-encompassing principle some would have you believe.

Other commentators disagree and instead would like to base DND upon a social compact of sorts, that people are effectively giving their consent to abide by the law of the land by choosing to settle in that certain region. Perhaps this is a more fashionable explanation to the democratically minded who like to think that they live in a contract society, but excuse me if I feel that it's a horrid justification for democracy in search of a halachic source.

The one thing that the commentators are in agreement is to the extent which DND would require of the individual in regards to compliance with positive law. In short, it is limited to 'roads and taxes' which is to say that one is obligated to pay the tolls to use the roads and bridges, and to pay the taxes of their respective jurisdictions. Other than those two categories, a person is permitted to follow the mandates of positive law, but is in no way obligated to. Furthermore, any positive law which to fulfill would necessitate a violation of Torah laws is forbidden.

Most people I know are either unaware of these facts, or simply would like to forget them. To them, DND says what they want it to say so that they can go on accepting the statist quo in their sheeplike existence. To myself, DND does not sanction grand larceny to the tune of 25%-39% tax brackets, even as I acknowledge that yes, there are some lunatics out there who would defend a 150% income tax in the name of DND. The one thing I truly wish to accomplish with this post is to stop the bandying about of DND as a halachic principle justifying any absurdity one can dream up.

---------------------
[1] Thankfully the pet causes I'm talking about are not local tennis and swimming instruction, or banal theater productions, but causes such as senior citizen foster care, food pantry programs, etc. This is no way forgives the original sin of robbery-via-taxation, but hopefully it can be viewed as a lessor evil in light of the thick-thin prism of dialectical-libertarianism.

[2] What makes the taxes inequitable in this case according to the commentators is that the tax collector is trying to burden the rich with the bulk of the taxes. It's not yet clear to me if their distaste was with a proportional or a graduated (progressive) tax rate or perhaps either one, but I think that anything other than a poll (head) tax was considered an odious tax, one which permits the victim to not tell the truth or to take upon vows which he does not intend to keep.

maybe credits

2008-02-14T20:53:00.006-05:00

Here are two F for Fake screen captures from Robert Anton Wilson's Maybe Logic. Click the images for more info.

Note: I think the "Dubya" one needs no further linkage, unless it's for google-bombing purposes.

dragging it on

2008-02-12T14:21:00.000-05:00

About a year ago, BK Marcus quoted verbatim a definition from A.W.A.D. for the word dragoon to which I took a particular fancy, and thus will reproduce here.

dragoon (druh-GOON) verb tr.
To force someone to do something; coerce.

[From French dragon (dragon, to dragoon).]

This is a good example of how a term transferred from an object to a people to an action. Originally it referred to the firearms, either from the fact that they breathed fire like a dragon or from the shape of the pistol hammer. Eventually it began to be applied to a European cavalryman armed with a carbine. Today the term is used in the sense of forcing someone to do something against his or her will.

At the time, I was curious to learn if it was perhaps related to the word goon (when used to connote 'thug') and was mildly surprised to find a bit of disagreement surrounding the etymological origins for the word goon, a word I was convinced was related to the Indian word goonda, slang for ruffian. Most dictionaries attribute to the word goon the following etymology:

goon
1921, "stupid person," from gony "simpleton" (c.1580), of unknown origin, but applied by sailors to the albatross and similar big, clumsy birds (1839); sense of "hired thug" first recorded 1938 (in ref. to union "beef squads" used to cow strikers in the Pacific northwest), probably from Alice the Goon, slow-witted and muscular (but gentle-natured) character in "Thimble Theater" comic strip (starring Popeye) by E.C. Segar (1894-1938). She also was the inspiration for British comedian Spike Milligan's "The Goon Show." What are now "juvenile delinquents" were in the 1940s sometimes called goonlets.

Double-tongued.org doubts the goonda theory; "The Hindi and Urdu term goonda can be translated as rascal or ruffian and even as goon, but there is no evidence to indicate that the English goon comes from goonda or vice versa.

A perhaps less authoritative source argues that "[a]ctually it is one of the many Indian words that crept into the English language during the days of the Raj. It is a modified form of the Hindi term "goonda," which means gangster. This term and a derivative "goondaism" are widely used in Indian English." See here also.

I found a talmudic source which should lend credence to the latter opinion. On daf 32a of tractate Nedarim the word goonda is spelled out in the Aramaic, and in this instance it denotes a destructive fighting force, which can be used to denote a group of thugs anywhere from a squad to an entire army.

What are the odds that the Aramaic word goonda which has been around for 2000+ years to denote a group of fighters in no way influenced the English language, lent to, if not borrowed from the Hindi word for the same? I go with the Aramaic/Hindi theory, at least for the time being.

jumping the tommy gun

2008-02-07T13:40:00.000-05:00

Geez, it's only February 7th, and the criminal gang, writ large decided that they couldn't wait another week for the anniversary of the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre to launch a preemptive strike against a rivalrous mafia clan, albeit one whose coercive power is puny in comparison, and which wholly owes its existence to the larger gang in a parasitic fashion by thriving off the extra-legal scraps they are afforded.

deadpan-materialism

2008-02-07T09:32:00.000-05:00

"Materialist philosophers assert that thoughts are a secretion of the brain as bile is a secretion of the gall-bladder."
- Human Action, Part I, Chapter III commenting on Karl Vogt's Köhlerglaube und Wissenschaft.

"For a doctrine asserting that thoughts are in the same relation to the brain in which gall is to the liver, it is not more permissible to distinguish between true and untrue ideas than between true and untrue gall."
- The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science, Chapter I, Subchapter VII

See, I already told you that Mises was no dullard, and was quite capable of deadpan delivery when need-be.

-------------
Update:

I can't believe I forgot this one from Epistemological Problems of Economics, Chapter IV, Subchapter VIII (pg 172 in the third edition)--
"Even materialism, which professes to have solved the problem of the relation between the psychical and the physical by means of the famous simple formula that thinking stands in the same relationship to the brain as gall does to the bladder, has not even undertaken the attempt to establish a constant relationship between definite external events, which are quantitatively and qualitatively discernible, and thoughts and volitions."

bootlegger & real estate developer coalition

2008-02-06T14:09:00.000-05:00

Says the NY Times:

"It may seem befuddling that an industry group would favor having to pay higher fees to the government for more intense regulation, but that seems to be the case with developers of condominiums and co-ops in New York."

You know I'm shocked, SHOCKED to find that there is a baptist-bootlegger coalition going on over here!

post hoc ergo propter hoc

2008-01-31T09:50:00.000-05:00

Despite the NYPD's best efforts, recorded crimes have continued to decrease year after year according to this NY Times report.

death becomes them

2008-01-30T15:30:00.000-05:00

To my ears (and eyes), the verb kill has a negative connotation which describes a causal relationship to the death of a person, animal or animate matter in a unfair and judgmental manner when there is no direct agency to ascribe the responsibility. Because I shun, excuse me, eschew such usage, I like to substitute the verb die in its various tenses; i.e., "he died from a fall from a four-story window" instead of "the drop from the four-story window killed him."

This is unless I am talking about a scenario involving a conscious attempt of life-taking, in which case I would prefer kill for justifiable or accidental homicide, and murder when it's neither. So if I shoot an aggressing brigand in self-defense it's the former, while if I did the same to a pencil thief, my improportionate response would be tantamount to murder according to a libertarian theory of justice.

It's not a watertight distinction. If someone commits suicide, I don't know if that counts as killing one's self or self-inflicted murder. Or deaths stemming from a reckless driver's car accident, an event he didn't want to eventuate but none the less contributed to by operating his vehicle in a manner not conducive to a safe-driving habitat.

I find that many folks are in this habit of using the word kill to push forward their political agenda (and I'm not specifically referring to anti-abortionists.) For example anti-development zealots will decry the unfortunate plight of construction workers "being killed on the job" to shamelessly push forth their agenda of a housing or commercial stasis.

Thoughts anyone?

arbecht macht frei

2007-12-30T11:40:00.000-05:00

According to diesem NY Post artikel, der kommisars of Westchester County, New York are considering to offer the resident "alter cockers" the wondrous opportunity of being worked till death in order to rectify for the sin of declining to kick der bucket without paying their property tax tribute.

Update: Fixed article link

anti-gravity

2007-12-24T00:18:00.000-05:00

(click image to see entire strip)

Having just purchased the handsomely-discounted complete three-volume set of Calvin and Hobbes (on Amazon.com for $67!), I've been setting aside some time every day to read a couple of pages. At the rate I'm going I suppose I'll be finished some time next year. (BTW, you can view the entire collection here in chronological order.)

The cartoon above was part of the few I skimmed this morning a short while after having breakfast. The cartoon was still on the mind later in the day when I came to a shocking realization that gravity, the force that keeps us mere mortals firmly planted on terra firma is also responsible for that Calvin losing his balloon, for that blimp soaring overhead, and keeping watergoing vessels afloat. Gravity is not arbitrary in that sense that it only applies to certain bodies, but not all.

The revelation of course is intuitive-- the relative density of interacting bodies is the key to deciding via gravitational force which objects will force their way towards other bodies of mass, upsetting and forcing aside less dense materials in the process.

The balloon thus floats away from Calvin because denser molecules of air are pushing to occupy the space that less dense gases dare occupy hidden within their rubber spheroids.

The next step from there is quite unclear to me; yet if you have a rigid, yet lightweight balloon 'filled' with vacuum, I'm supposing that it will float away from earth so long that the density of the air that displaces the entire volume of the balloon exceeds the density of the material comprising the skin of the balloon.

Better yet, if we fill that balloon with anti-matter, or 'negmatter' as Robert L. Forward calls it, we should have ourselves a true anti-gravity device, not one that simply takes advantage of relative density in a gravitational field.

the left hand of.. something

2007-12-16T21:25:00.000-05:00

"Wrong had been done and it had to be balanced out and accounted for personally. But humans were full of rights, and very short of responsibilities." -- Karen Traviss, City of Pearl

City of Pearl is the first book in Traviss's six-part series called the Wess'har Wars. To be candid, I found this book on the formulaic side, one which failed to capture my imagination or blow it to smithereens in the process.

To be fair, it could be my disliking of Traviss's confusing political philosophy which put me off given that her universe is one in which the evil corporations (sigh!) on Earth have eliminated most natural growing foods and have replaced them with genetically-modified and patent-secured replacements to reap monopoly profits with the side consequence of mass starvation for the rest of the human population (::rolling eyes!::)

Or that the protagonist is a former cop, once an environmental hazard protection goon whose past was mired in a conspiratorial battle against eco-terrorists in the highest rank of industry and government.

Then there was the repeatedly mentioned "Government's work is God's work" and other similar endorsements for institutionalized mass servitude, which at times was bewildering because you knew that Traviss had it in herself to transcend from the socialist-leftist memeage into the more mature left-anarchist/left-libertarian tradition. Though to her credit it, I sometimes felt as though I was holding a book by Ursala K. LeGuin, as witnessed by this post's opening quote, by far my favorite line in the entire book.

the political means

2007-12-14T00:15:00.000-05:00

"It's the lawyers. They're evil. They're bloodsuckers. They're parasites. We create wealth, they live off our scraps. They see guys like us with money, and they say, 'Okay, let's invent some law that fucks this guy up. Let's create some rules about accounting that are tricky and complex and arcane that nobody can possibly comply with them. Then let's bribe some Congressmen to pass the law, and we'll shake these rich bastards down.' That's what it is. You pay to settle the case, and the lawyers split the money. They're all in on it together - not just the plaintiff lawyers but your own defense lawyers too. At the end of the day it's no different than if they put a gun to your head and robbed you in an alley. It's a mugging. Same damn thing. Like it or not, this will only end one way - you will write a huge check, and these fuckers will fight over it like a pack of hyenas tearing at a deer carcass."

-- Fake Steve Jobs, oPtion$

Actually it's not quite the same thing--

"The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a 'protector,' and that he takes men's money against their will, merely to enable him to 'protect' those infatuated travellers, who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sensible a man to make such professions as these. Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful 'sovereign,' on account of the 'protection' he affords you. He does not keep 'protecting' you, by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest or pleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor, and an enemy to your country, and shooting you down without mercy, if you dispute his authority, or resist his demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures, and insults, and villanies as these. In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt to make you either his dupe or his slave."
-- Lysander Spooner, No Treason

fall in line

2007-11-14T23:26:00.000-05:00

I was somewhat amused, although not quite shocked to see this postcard stuck in my regular mail delivery.

It's not that often that you see the naked hostility of the state presented in so clear a manner; after all, apologists can be found aplenty to offer explanations as to how the master-slave relationship we live under is nothing more than on a benign voluntary basis.

What I also found sweet is the legerdemain involved in the implication that the leaves which fall off of trees 'owned' by the city, which you can be fined and/or jailed for pruning without a permit and a licensed arborist, would then have the balls to call it 'your' leaves, as if that now makes it your responsibility to contain. Sneaky bastards-- it almost makes me want to suffer violence upon the inexplicably uppity cartoon duo, and the mindless civil servants who brainstormed this mushy propaganda to sugarcoat this KP duty.

But this by far is not as ridiculous as other so-called 'laws' that I've encountered. For instance, while you may not own the sidewalk pavement in front of your property line, you must act as though you do. That includes maintaining and replacing cement flags as the city inspectors determine necessary, keeping a neat and clean condition on the sidewalks at all times including a minimum of 18" further onto to road surface. When it snows, the homeowner or landlord is obligated to clear a path and lay down salt to prevent ice buildup and is held personally responsible for injuries or damages that occur there. And so on and so forth.

And just a few days ago, I inadvertently opened a letter containing a tax notice for a defunct corporation and shivered over a display of audacious verbiage, including a 'Warrant' notice stating that so-and-so has been appointed by "the people of the state of New York" (funny, I don't remember authorizing anything of the sort) to seize properties of the said corporation for failure to pay taxes. I was quite horrified and repulsed by the brute and stentorian tone found in some sentences which read "you are commanded to do such and such".

monolithesia

2007-11-13T14:06:00.000-05:00

Not too long ago, the NY Daily News ran an article titled 'City neighborhoods losing character to condos, chain stores' bemoaning the fate of losing indigenous mom & pop stores to the faceless, sterile corporate chain stores which often replace them. To it's credit, the article is pretty neutral in that the author simply attributes the wide sweeping change to real estate pressures, and doesn't use the opportunity to clamor for violent resistance (to impose regulations, etc.)

While I can agree with that sentiment on an emotional level, I realize and accept the fact that my preferences are just that, and that it would be immoral to escalate any resistance above a completely bilateral voluntary nature.

It also helps me to understand that the monolithization of our neighborhoods is a direct result of codified violence (zoning laws, licensing, permits) which disrupts the realization of consumers' preferences into a bizarre spectacle of what seemingly is perceived as the 'free market'.

Radley Balko does a wonderful job explaining the process and the unintended consequences that follow.

"...zoning officials and regulators tend to overdo the regulating, then lapse into bureaucratic coma when local businesses try to navigate their way through City Hall. For example, if you want to do something as simple as change the lettering on or repaint the sign outside your business in Old Town, you both have to apply for and pay $50 to obtain a "ladder permit," and apply for and pay $55 for a "building permit." It can take more than two weeks to get the proper permits, even if all you want to do is replace the "e" on your "Ye Olde Sandwich Shoppe" sign.

While all of this is intended to promote architectural continuity and preserve Old Town's historical charm, like most regulations it tends to promote the opposite of what city planners intended...

I guess the question is, whether one ought to need to have a lawyer on retainer in order to open a business in Old Town. And if Old Town is going to make that a requirement--intentionally or not--what effect is that going to have on the boutiques, art galleries, and antique stores that make up the very atmosphere the regulations are trying to promote?

My hunch is that Old Town's expensive, meticulous zoning laws have made it too difficult for the mom-and-pop places to do business. ...Franchise operators can often tap the resources of the parent company, particularly when it comes to accessing on-staff lawyers with experience navigating through and working with local zoning laws and business regulations.

The same people who gripe about how Wal-Mart is pushing smaller, independent places out of business tend to be the people who support onerous regulatory structures. What they tend not to understand is that regulatory burdens hit the smaller, independent places hardest, because they're the places that have the smallest amount of discretionary cash to hire lawyers or a tighter budget and, therefore, a smaller margin of error when it comes to hassles like delaying an opening because some bureaucrat determined their signage is a couple of inches out of compliance."

eris, bringer of strife

2007-11-10T23:47:00.000-05:00

If you thought the last post was all I had to say about Gustav Holst and The Planets, well you might be amused by what I left out, and what I think is the clincher.

For those of you who bothered to wikipedia* Gustav Holst, you would have learned that the discovery of Pluto, the (former) 9th planet was discovered during his lifetime, four years prior to his death. He was asked by many to write an eighth movement to include the newly discovered planet [Earth was skipped in his famous seven movement piece], but refused primarily because he was acrimonious to the fact that the popularity of The Planets eclipsed his other work.

Well it seems that Holst was vindicated after all with the discovery of Eris, a dwarf planet which is the ninth largest body known to orbit the sun, which resulted in the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to officially define the term 'planet' for the first time, and remove dear old Pluto from her esteemed status, and in fact, place it second in line after the troublemaker Eris.

The dwarf planet Eris was such named after her mythological namesake, because "[t]he name in part reflects the discord in the astronomical community caused by the debate over the object's (and Pluto's) nature.¹" What I also found lovely is that she is accompanied here by her daughter moon, Dysnomia.

And so to bring this farce full circle, we can discuss a book Harmonices Mundi, or "Harmonies of the Worlds" by Johannes Kepler which attempted to explain the musical harmony of the spheres, an ancient concept known as musica universalis, which regarded proportions in the movements of celestial bodies as a form of music.

Next, and with many pardons to Isaac Newton who suffered an erisian mishap with a falling orb, a [golden??!] apple which prompts a foray into describing the maths of celestial mechanics, only to be taken down a notch when Albert Einstein throws a wrench into Newton's game with his general theory which explains the erratic perturbations to local spacetime conditions. Isaac Asimov writes a short story about this and calls it "The Planet that Wasn't", [referring to planet Vulcan] although he never lived long enough to see Pluto demoted, which certainly would have delighted Gustav Holst had he been alive.

Whew!

* 'Wikipedia' is a verb, and you can google it if you'd like ;)
¹I think they mean to say 'nomenclature', not 'nature'.

leia, bringer of peace

2007-11-07T21:33:00.000-05:00

By chance I flipped on the cars radio one day, and tune it to the local purveyor of classical music, when I hear an amazing piece which is hauntingly familiar to my ears. I'm prone to getting excited when I hear something very John Williams-like.

Determined to find out more, I check the stations homepage when I got home, to learn that the name of the arrangement is called The Planets by Gustav Holst. The very title alone sent shivers down my spine, as no other outer-worldly piece could inspire a composer who has made world-famous film scores to science fiction monuments such as Star Wars, E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Since I surely can't be the sole person on the globe who has made the connection, I google "The Planets" and John Williams, and sure enough, the first link I'm offered is to an original recording of The Planets, with two bonus tracks- get this, the Star Wars main title and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

After some more mucking around, I turn up the webpage of other people who think likewise;

"Gustav Holst's "Mars: Bringer of War" will sound familiar to science fiction buffs, as much of the score of Star Wars consists of John William’s variations. In particular, compare the climax of this movement to the music accompanying the destruction of the Death Star."

It's these cues which reassure me from time to time that I haven't yet lost my sanity.

think different

2007-10-30T17:06:00.000-04:00

A Gizmodo commenter with the handle OMG-PONIES has a lot to say on the subject of 'consumerism' when it comes to Apple's iPhone. Not having the questionable benefit of a formal education in economics, I'm quite curious to learn if the opinions expressed are what exemplifies the contents of a mainstream education in the dismal science.

"That's not "highway robbery"; it's a sound price point. If the price was egregiously high, people would not buy it because it would be too much of a sacrifice. If the price was too low, it would lose its cachet as an aspirational good and people would not buy it. [Veblen's status goods?]

Compare it to the Freakonomics example of Magnolia Bakery in the West Village. Magnolia sells cupcakes for a couple bucks a pop. They're decent cupcakes, but each one only costs a quarter to make. They were featured in an episode of "Sex & The City", were written up in the New York times, and mentioned in a popular SNL short. As a result, at any given time, there is a line out the door for Magnolia cupcakes.

Logic says that Magnolia can raise the price even higher because there are people willing to wait 1/2 an hour for a cupcake at that price. Theoretically, there is excess demand. However, by raising the price, fewer people will be willing to wait in line. The line adds to the cachet of the product. If they lowered the price, the cupcake would become a bargain and lose its cachet. It would not be a distinctive product.

It's about finding a balance. The buyer should feel a bit of sting in the wallet to convince him/her that s/he is getting value for the money. Too much and it becomes too painful. People shouldn't worry about their rent payment to buy the iPhone; let them charge the cost and pay it off over 10 years time. By the same token, you don't want every schmo to be able to get one because then the iPhone loses its distinction.

Consumerism isn't driven by a desire to conform; it's driven by a desire to be different."

It kind of reminds me of the pointless argument of whether human action is spurred because of the actors' desire to improve his situation, or his desire to remove uneasiness as much as possible. Either way, we know action is purposely driven, and the science of economics, cannot render a valid scientific opinion as to what constitutes the psychological factors behind any action.

As such, the unscientific topic of 'Consumerism' can only be said to represent the fulmination of the collectivist creed of hubris, ostensibly lending an opponent of freedom a scientific soapbox from which he launches a diatribe against other people doing what they believe serves their best interests.

FWIW, he also thinks that "The lead proponent of free-market theory is the Chicago School of Business, which believes in absolutely no controls on the market and advocates, to a large extent, an abolition of consumer protections."

'Nuf said.

King Pharaoh, Anarcho-capitalist

2007-10-14T16:29:00.000-04:00

Admit one John C. Wright to the hallowed ranks of anarcho-capitalists, as this following paragraph serves as his endorsement. Witness;

"I should mention: it was not until I became a Christian that I realized how scary Christians seem to their foes. Here am I, newly vowed to a faith that says I may not lift a hand to defend myself, may not hate my deadly enemies even in my secret heart, but must to pray for them and love them even when they come to kill me; and yet perfect strangers write in to my livejournal to tell me that they quail in a perfect cold sweat of terror, stockpiling arms, because we Xtians are about to oversweep the world and install a Theocracy so tyrannical it will make the Pharaoh seem like an anarcho-capitalist. It happened more than once: people writing me to tell me they were afraid of me. Now, I assume they are not actually afraid of me, because otherwise I would merely pass their names and IP address along to the Holy Office, so that the Jesuit albino-assassins or Benedictine-built killer-robots could come beat them to death with radio-active crucifixes. I hope I am wrong, but I secretly suspect it is puffery, a pose of moral superiority. I have to be painted the aggressor, so that they can paint themselves the victim."

There is a chock-load of interesting material in that post, the author detailing his beliefs and prejudices at the time he began the series, along with the various creative techniques he employed to pen the Chronicles of Chaos trilogy. Although it's quite prolix, I heartily recommend it to those who are familiar with the novels, and were perhaps looking for more critical understanding (verstehen) of the characters' paradigms.

i, dante dilettante

2007-10-12T00:04:00.000-04:00

Shortly before this past summer began, I began reading Mark Musa's interpretation and commentary of Dante Alighieri's famous La Divina Commedia, beginning with Inferno. To be honest, I've never read any other translation, so I have nothing to compare with Musa's work, yet I still thought it to be excellent and very well presented. Not only does Musa translate the vulgar poetry into English (vulgar here meaning Italian, rather than the ancient Latin which was the lingua franca for major works,) but he brings it to life by explaining the back story of Dante's life and the socio-political backdrop of the feuding criminal classes between which power waned and waxed for the Ghibellines and the Guelphs.

With my Jewish Orthodox upbringing, I could relate to Dante's overall theological theme, although he obviously based it upon the Christian version of events. One technique, or device have you, stands out quite clearly in my mind; that of contropasso, a very key element to interpreting his allegory. In Hebraic terms the principle is known as midah keneged midah, which is to say measure for measure.

Many people like to think that God is a mean old cosmic tyrant who likes to inflict cruelty upon his creation for sport. Far from it, the concept of midah keneged midah is not a petty game of divine retribution, but rather expresses a concept akin to Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative; the maxim that "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."

In other words, God is so fair with us, that not only will he not judge us by what he expected from us, but rather according to the very same standards of justice that we ourselves judged to be correct. This is not to say that if one chooses to disobey God that there are no damaging consequences, only that God won't hold one guilty for acting according to the maxims that he or she believed to be universally true.

On Judgement Day™ God will scroll and scrub through this persons' life and check to see if the persons' actions were motivated according to these principles that he claimed to adhere to and flag those inconsistencies, where the man claims to adhere to moral code x, but acts contrarily to his own belief system. In that case the person is found to be intellectually dishonest, and the purpose of his contropasso is remedy his dysfunction.

One of the more enlightening chapters spoke of Dante's encounter with the level of hell reserved for hypocrites, in which the tormented are marched around bedecked in a friars vestment seemingly made of fine-woven gold. These robes however are lined with lead on the inside, making each step a back-breaking experience for the sinner.

Musa humbly explains that Dante's subtle contropasso here is as follows: The word 'hypocrite' stems from the Greek word ypo'krita, that in Latin would translate to superauratus, both meaning, "that which is covered with gold", implying an inferior non-gold substance constituting the interior portion, a striking simile to the hypocrite who pretends to be of noble stature and hides the ugly nature behind his golden veneer. A double-entendre, if I may call it that is inherent in Dante's ingenious choice of punishment.

Incidentally, I happen to think that the word krita meaning 'gold' is related to both carat and Crete, but I can't find any backup to that. And the root ypo is the opposite of Latin's super, the former like the prefix "hypo" indicating that which lies underneath, and the latter what is above, so I'm not exactly sure of how the word relates to the way Dante wants it to. Super is definitely related to Hebrew's TZa'PEh, which means to coat, or cover with an above layer, although it would have been nice if the Hebrew word for hypocrite would be a gold-coated TZaPUY-ZaHaV, the actual term is a more benign TZVoo'Ee, "the one who is painted", a reference to the same concept expressing that which haves a deceiving outer appearance.

_______
Judgement Day™ is a registered trademark of the Libra Corporation, a Delaware registered limited liability corporation.

an eerie caveat lector

2007-10-11T23:47:00.000-04:00

Everyone knows what Q-Tips™ are for, right?

Go immediately to your makeup drawer or bathroom vanity and actually read the suggested usage on the back of the blister package. Ah-hah. You won't find anything about cleaning out your earwax, which in my circles is its raison d'être.

Oh wait a second-- scribed in bold text towards the bottom of is a warning not to use the product to clean your ears, and that if you insist on it, only to use it gently on the outer surface of your ears, so as to not risk damaging your eardrums.

that which is not seen

2007-09-26T14:10:00.000-04:00

“It’s a little ironic that five years ago the administration was saying we should end recycling because there was no market for it,” said City Councilman Michael E. McMahon, a Staten Island Democrat and chairman of the Council’s Sanitation Committee.'" - NY Times article

Mr. McMahon makes these remarks in regards to a new bill which the city council passed which raises fines for companies caught "stealing" recyclable materials from items put out for collection.

So let me get this straight; it's considered theft for a private individual to take materials left out for recycling collection. But when city employees comb through your trash to collect evidence for whatever nefarious purpose, we're supposed to look the other way?

Anyway, that wasn't my main point.

Man, I just love how pundits and politicians can overlook the costs side of the equation and declare any program a success because there is the appearance of profits. This happens when you ignore the elephant in the room so-to-speak; coercion, and by that logic, robbery too can be considered a profitable business.

Yes it may be appear profitable for third-parties to raid recyclable materials left curbside, but that is only possible once the individuals have already complied with the bureaucratic edicts which threaten their home and hearth for non-compliance. There is no shred of evidence however that individuals would find it profitable to separate recyclables if they weren't already threatened to do so. This being the case, one cannot legitamately speculate whether recycle programs are 'profitable' when the costs have been shifted over on to the individual by mean of coercion.

keytzad meraglim

2007-09-23T17:15:00.000-04:00

A well-known Talmudic passage is related in the tractate 'Ketubot' as to what one tells to a groom at his wedding in order to bring him joy. The rabbis who were the students of the sage Shamai state that one is obligated to tell the groom his opinion of the brides qualities- be it pretty or pretty ugly, smart or stupid, etc.

The rabbis who were the students of Hillel the Elder argue that one is obligated to tell the groom that his wife is Na'ah ve'hasuda, pleasant and kind (in other words, heap the praises upon her), regardless what your actual opinion of her may be.

The Shamaiian rabbis ask-- but if the bride is lame or blind wouldn't that tantamount to lying, which the bible forbids against?

The Hillelians retort that if you would see someone in the market place who just concluded a transaction, do you praise his deal even if you think it was a lousy deal or can you criticize it?

Here the Shamaiians were in agreement- indeed you do praise the dealmaker, and the Talmud concludes from here that a person should always strive to be pleasant with others, no matter what your personal feelings as to how you perceive the bride, a market transaction, etc, and this would of course hold even where you might consider such words to be untruthful.

Some commentators use this passage to define what it means to be truthful. Truth, they hold, is a relative proposition, not an absolute and objective fact that stands apart from the situation. The example given is where a soldier is looking to kidnap or to murder a person, and he asks a third-party as to the whereabouts of the would-be victim. In such a case they hold that it is not considered untruthful to deceive the soldier, since the concept of truth is only meaningful within a moral framework, which in such a case of murder or kidnapping is not a required ethic.

bedtime (economic) fairytales

2007-09-17T17:28:00.000-04:00

I first saw this novel when browsing at Barnes & Noble, and while I have not read it, the praise for the book tells me everything that is wrong with this work of historical fiction.

"Bruner and Carr provide a thorough, masterly, and highly readable account of the 1907 crisis and its management by the great private banker J. P. Morgan. Congress heeded the lessons of 1907, launching the Federal Reserve System in 1913 to prevent banking panics and foster financial stability. We still have financial problems. But because of 1907 and Morgan, a century later we have a respected central bank as well as greater confidence in our money and our banks than our great-grandparents had in theirs." -Richard Sylla, Henry Kaufman Professor of the History of Financial Institutions and Markets, and Professor of Economics, Stern School of Business, New York University

This paragraph sums up the mythological tale propagated by the establishment to set the scene for the dashingly bold technocrats to step in and to implement their planned chaos. Next follows the admission that the criminal tampering with the level of voluntary credit allocation (read: capital market) has still not perfected a method to siphon off wealth without creating great disruptions in those markets. The closing sentence is telling too; it's an assertion that the establishment has accomplished to con our generation into quiet complacency, more akin to an insult as disestablishmentarians would take it.

absolutely nothing to do with R.A.W.

2007-09-02T07:40:00.000-04:00

Found on Mercola.com, regarding the raw milk "debate", [which is only possible between equals per HHH's argumentation ethics] one individual calling himself 'Stoic' had this to say in regards to the mentality of posters who take the FDA to task for this one, narrow, and perhaps insignificant fight with the indiscriminate powers that be:

Until "whose business is it?" is debated, and won (nobody's), there will be no shortage of superfluous make-work. What kind of milk you drink is just one of an infinite number of inane distractions. Someone else posted Thoreau's observation already, "There are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." Until people learn to mind their own business, and insist others do the same, the plague of symptoms will continue.

Federal Anti-Trade Commission

2007-08-16T23:47:00.000-04:00

Via John Mackey, free-market libertarian and CEO of Whole Foods Market corporate blog:

"Let me begin this section by registering an objection to the way the FTC conducted their investigation into this deal. From the first day the FTC began their investigation they were very hostile and adversarial towards Whole Foods. Instead of conducting a dispassionate, impartial, and fair investigation into this merger the FTC consistently behaved in a biased, adversarial, and arrogant manner, while engaging in "bullying tactics" again and again and again. Whole Foods was always presumed to be "guilty" and had to try to prove our "innocence" to the satisfaction of the FTC. However, the FTC seemed to us to be completely uninterested in Whole Foods explanations for why we were doing the deal. From the very beginning the FTC staff began to build their case against the deal. It is Whole Foods' opinion that the FTC had already decided to try to prevent this merger before they even began their investigation!

To give one example of FTC bullying tactics, let's look at how they behaved toward us in order to gain multiple time extensions beyond the original deadline. Whole Foods has spent thousands and thousands of hours trying to comply with the enormously burdensome requests that the FTC placed upon us and which have cost us millions of dollars in staff time, lawyers' fees, consultants' fees, supplies, and other expenses. We have produced over 20 million documents for them to "study" (which is of course impossible for them to effectively do since this amount of information is simply too large to be digested, no matter how many tax-payer funded lawyers are working on it), but the FTC could still always claim that we left something valuable out of the documentation and could then force us to start the entire process over again. On more than one occasion we came up against the time deadlines and the FTC "asked" for Whole Foods to agree to extensions. If we expressed any reluctance then the FTC brought up the threat of starting over. Needless to say, we didn't want to start over again so we agreed to the extensions. The entire process was inherently coercive....

While the FTC can look at absolutely anything and everything it wants to about our company does Whole Foods have the same reciprocal rights with the FTC? Of course not! We can't go look at all the FTC e-mails concerning Whole Foods and Wild Oats (which no doubt say some pretty interesting things about how the FTC really operates!). We can't download all the various minutes of their meetings or get a look at the FTC "strategy" concerning Whole Foods. It is totally one-sided. It is unfair. It should not be legal for the FTC to do this in my opinion."

It seems that this world can use a few more people like John Mackey.

ordo templi austrianis

2007-08-07T08:58:00.000-04:00

About halfway through Jesus Huerta De Soto's Money, Bank Credit and Economic Cycles, in footnote 81 on page 372, the author questions whether Friedrich August von Hayek deliberately fails to credit Ludwig von Mises for his theoretical work on the business cycle in order to garner the respect of the scientific community for himself when he published his Monetary Theory and the Trade Cycle in 1929, of which some of the topics were already covered sixteen years earlier in Mises's The Theory of Money and Credit, and more thoroughly again in 1928's On the Manipulation of Money and Credit.

Oddly enough, Austria is the latinized name for Österreich, deriving from the Old German term meaning "eastern realm". Similarly, the term "Orient" refers to lands located eastwards towards the direction of the rising sun, while "Occident" refers to the western world, the direction in which the sun sets.

In this light one can view Aleister Crowley and the Ordo Templi Orientis as allies against the Bavarian conspiracy, to help counter the influence of the German Historical School, the legacy of which today lives on in the mainstream endorsement of empiricist foundations for economic studies, the emblem of which brazenly displayed on every federal [fractional] reserve note of one monetary unit, originally named for a Bohemian valley, once the standard for money of good reputation.

etumos logos, redux

2007-07-30T15:14:00.000-04:00

Part of my fascination in the study of the etymological roots of words is in the inexplicable delight I obtain from uncovering the "true" nature of the words we use to express the concepts that we oftimes have a clumsily understanding of in our minds. By identifying the root of the word I sometimes appreciate a clearer grasp of the concept, although this fastidiousness approach may appear as intellectual overkill to my peers whose verbal usage is merely conventional and rote.

That said, the acclaimed sci-fi author John C. Wright has been hosting a debate on his personal blog on the nature of of conciousness, in support of the position that concepts and abstractions exist qua existence, although not in a material sense, stating that:

"The assertion that all awareness, value judgments, ideas, concepts, and abstractions can be ultimately reduced to some description of mass, length, and dimension is pure metaphysical mysticism. It is mysticism in that it is knowledge that does not come from empirical observation..."

I find this line of argument quite convincing, and in contrast to the causeless explanation of consciousness as found in Douglas Hofstadter's I am a Strange Loop, a book which I thought could be appropriately subtitled "The Incoherent Ramblings of an Aged Consciousness Which Was Once Thought Relevant". No hard feelings intended, [to those senseless neuron firings in that lump of grey matter entitled to a sense of consciousness self-referentially calling itself] Douglas.

What I enjoyed from this very same debate and in connection to the original topic of etymology was the author's response to one of the comments, in which he writes:

"The explanation of the correlation between the mathematics of the physical universe and the rationality of mathematics is this: both come out of one cause. For religious men, call it The Word of God, or Logos. For nonreligious men, call it Logic. Logic means that a statement about numbers cannot involve a self-contradiction. Logic in physics means that the universe cannot embrace or contain a self-contradiction.

The universe cannot be illogical because the word 'illogical' is something that only happens in speech or in unspoken thought: it is the condition where the symbols used to represent the universe no longer follow the rules that allow them to represent the universe. Illogical, in other words, means what the universe is not."

argument from efficiency

2007-07-30T14:07:00.000-04:00

"I do not accept individual freedom because the market is efficient. Even if the free market were less “efficient” than central planning, I would still prefer my personal freedom to coercion. Fortunately, I don’t need to make a choice. Austrian economics upholds the market’s efficiency, and that reinforces my overwhelming desire and right to be free."

- Ron Paul's Mises and Austrian Economics pamphlet (link to PDF)

The quotes around "efficient" are as found in the original text, and I'm not at all suprised to see that coming from an Austrian scholar, being that any and all measures of efficiency are ultimately and objectively meaningless.

its not worth the tree pulp that it's not written on

2007-07-18T14:47:00.000-04:00

Not content with the patent nonsense which passes for a 2-year study of citywide trees, a researcher wasted even more time quantifying how much value each specific tree specie produces per homeowner, taking into calculation the average proximities to the residents.

ministry of sacrament

2007-07-06T14:36:00.000-04:00

In NYC, and I think throughout the tri-state area, the mere possession of fireworks is a punishable offense. As far back as I remember, come July the cops and officials make heady pronouncements as to the danger of non-professionally administered fireworks. Accompanying these PSAs are graphic depictions of those horribly mutilated and disfigured by firework displays gone awry and trumpeted as viceral propaganda to sway those who casually think to disobey the law.

I reckon I know why illegal pyrotechnics are so important to them-- the brazen audacity that the plebes must have to think they can administer the sacrament to the Holy Church of Statehood. The secular priests will have none of this.

I suppose that in some aspects its better this way; perhaps more folks will be disillusioned about the false gods they serve if they are turned away from taking part in their own fashion.

I still find a silver lining in this cloud-- its opportune to stir up well-deserved cognitive dissonance in the unsuspecting statist by questioning their "progressive" ideology, as to how in world does a city or township put up a quarter-million dollars worth of "ooohs" and "aahhhs" when there are still homeless and hungry people in the area-- have they eliminated those problems yet that there is ample taxpayer funds to go to waste?

I think that by taking this first step, you are getting the statist to agree with you, that there are priorities to be attended to before they dare incinerate your property taxes in splendid glory. This back door approach helps to uncondition the first rule of politics, which is to ignore the first rule of economics; the law of scarcity, that in general wants surpass means.

bulges

2007-07-06T09:22:00.000-04:00

I can't recommend enough John C. Wright's latest trilogy, comprised of The Orphans of Chaos, Fugitives of Chaos, and Titans of Chaos. Only in part because I recently read for my first time Dante Alighieri's Inferno, I roared in delight over this passage found early in the second book:

"Come along, Mr. mac FirBolg. We have all had just about enough," I heard Boggin saying.

"Stand back! I'm about to start speaking in tounges! Rafel mahee amek zambi almit! Papa Satan! Papa Satan allepe!"...

...Colin writhed and screamed and frothed, calling them all sinners and condemning them to damnation and hellfire."

Sometimes I wonder how you could possibly enjoy a novel without knowing what the author is alluding to with their cryptic references. I felt equally suprised when I read Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose and discovered a passage smuggling Buridan's Ass ("And so I'm trapped between two opposing forces, like an ass who does not know which of two stacks of hay to eat" Pg. 348.) Heinlein pulled the same one in his Time Enough for Love which I already noted elsewhere. (I've also once noted that Robert Anton Wilson, in his seminal Illuminatus! Trilogy aped Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged with a nested G.E.B.-worthy story-within-a-story titled Telemachus Sneezed.)

patterns

2007-07-05T10:05:00.000-04:00

Today's Mises.org daily article asks,

"Is Intellectual Property the Key to Success?"

Here was one thought I've posted on the Mises blog a while back in regards to IP:

"Information is an abstraction which describes some arrangement of matter into forms recognizable by the human mind, and apart from the mind of the person discerning it, it is ultimately and universally meaningless.
Those arrangements could be the magnetic polar orientation of an iron atom, dark-colored ink molecules weaved into paper fibers, electrically-charged phosphor molecules in a bed of silicon, etc.
To say you have ownership over such things can only be in a physical term- in that specific arrangement pattern.
To say you can control others from making similar arrangements is making a metaphysical leap from objects of nature, to things our minds think about nature."

extortion license

2007-06-18T09:24:00.000-04:00

But master plumber Robert Mengler mentioned another disturbing wrinkle.

"Master plumbers are also allowed to self-certify their work," he wrote. "There are certain licensed plumbers that have made lots of money by renting out their licenses. . . . The chances of this work being inspected is very, very, very low." -Article Link

Obviously the solution to this problem is to remove the need for licensing altogether, that system which erects trade barriers for the sake of protecting the profits of plumbers, electricians and other contractors from excessive competition in a medieval guild-like fashion.

Unfortunately, the NY Daily News takes the irrational populist view that developers are out to destroy neighborhoods, kill little old ladies, and ruin our lives. How pathetic.

the housing that education built

2007-06-05T16:16:00.000-04:00

Last week while exploring some city neighborhoods to gauge the current trends in rental and sales numbers, I was shocked into the realization of how much of a factor that free public education plays into the price of city housing.

Obviously, there is the well known rule that housing in districts known to have "good" public education is in higher demand relative to housing located in districts known to have inferior schools.

While that is certainly an important component of what "adds" value to housing, I was actually focusing more on the counterfactual speculation if public education in general leads to increases in the price of housing solely due to the effect that subsidized education leaving over increased funds available to bid up housing prices.

I find this train of thought interesting to one such as myself, living in a micro-neighborhood where a relatively higher number of students attend yeshiva, a form of private schooling. Looking forward at the prospect of shelling out 10K to send my son to kindergarten is a bit daunting in light that I would like to have a few more kids and not live in debt slavery.

What I realized that day while doing my market homework, when I saw lousy apartments in run-down neighborhoods were paying rents in the ballpark of what I'm paying in this more affluent manicured-front-lawn neighborhood made me think of the factors keeping prices lower around me and higher in those "good" public school neighborhoods are greatly affected in that the average joe around me share higher education expenditures and can't afford to spend as much for housing.

If effect this means that to some extent, the existence of free tuition is benefitting a class of building owners who reap the largess of the taxpayers who subsidize public education to their indirect benefit of increased housing prices.

The people who stand to lose from this proposition are the young professionals just out of school who have yet any substantial cash savings to speak of, nor any [grand-]children which could possibly benefit from this arrangement.

In a way, this also serves to keep the religious, private-school attending crowd living separate from those districts in which it is more common to utilize the public school system making adherence to the religious ghetto more rigid than it would be otherwise.

adage

2007-05-27T21:55:00.000-04:00

The fantastic GrimReader expatiates tongue-in-cheek:

"Well, I don't like all that Trust and rebate business, so I tell my representative to regulate the hell out of those railroad guys. And I started supporting my local Wheelmen's Association. We are trying to get my representative to support public road building. In fact, this is great: let's build roads everywhere so it makes it cheap and easy to drive my new car. You have to have government build roads - a private road would have to charge fees, and everyone knows there's no way to feasibly operate a road that way!"

Actually, in the internet age its not difficult to imagine what private roads could possibly resemble. Popular websites such as Salon.com and the NY Times have long offered both subscriber and ad-sponsored models to price-ration their articles. Many national broadcasters routinely offer costly bandwidth-saturating TV programs free of charge to end-users, sponsored with only regular commercial breaks.

With that model, its not far-fetched to envision the provision of private roads sponsored by roadside billboard advertisers. Private road builders would then compete to capture the eyeball and vehicle traffic and would be incentivized to be focused on providing the most satisfying experience to the commuter to ensure his repeat visit to this particular soap-freeway.

The mind boggles at what might evolve from this--

vehicle transponders which communicate with road identification systems to announce your presence, perhaps relate some personal preferences and vehicle info
"Google" roads with minimal, relevant text-only advertisements based on your prefs
Greasemonkey extensions which free-loading Firefox junkies would use to screen out obnoxious, "PUNCH THE MONKEY AND WIN!!!" -type advertisements by overlaying the windshield with blank spaces along the drivers line of sight
freeways operators offering discount coupons enticing you to choose their road over a competitors
express lanes exclusively offered to purchasers of advertisers products
advertisement rates fluctuating based on traffic volume and speed conditions

This can even be realized today with the de-socialization and genuine privatization of government roads, both toll and the nominally "free" variants, although I'm sure that most people would be horrified of the prospect of having "our" roads being "commercialized".

government for children, by children

2007-05-22T10:56:00.000-04:00

We all heard the terms before--

"have your cake and eat it too"
TANSTAAFL ("there ain't no such thing as a free lunch")
"putting the cart before the horse" (the ability to consume without having to first produce)

In Human Action, Mises aptly describes this child-like behaviour of blindly holding an irrational belief that the wholism of government is godlike in the aspect that it can produce goods ex nihilo.

At the bottom of the interventionist argument there is always the idea that the government or the state is an entity outside and above the social process of production, that it owns something which is not derived from taxing its subjects, and that it can spend this mythical something for definite purposes. This is the Santa Claus fable raised by Lord Keynes to the dignity of an economic doctrine and enthusiastically endorsed by all those who expect personal advantage from government spending. As against these popular fallacies there is need to emphasize the truism that a government can spend or invest only what it takes away from its citizens and that its additional spending and investment curtails the citizens' spending and investment to the full extent of its quantity.

practical etymology

2007-05-03T00:39:00.000-04:00

Just over this past weekend, I checked into the biblical etymology for the words k'fitzat haderech to try to understand the essence of the concept of underlying these miraculous trips. I now believe that I have come up with a biblical proof supporting the notion that teleportation requires no miracle and perhaps may be be thus reproducible to us, non-divine hominids.

Unlike modern Hebrew, in the biblical Lashon Hakodesh, "the holy tongue", KaFaTZ, which is the root for the words k'fitza/k'fitzat does not actually mean "to jump" as I first thought it did-- it very precisely translates to "to shut quickly" or "to collapse". Both KaFaZ and KiFaTZ mean to leap, but that meaning stems from the etymological root literally describing the compression of ones' legs prior to springing forward.

Furthermore, the phonetic cognates of KaFaTZ express related concepts:

KaVeTZ - to gather
KaMaTZ - to close one's hand
GaVaSH - to condense

Let's move on to the second word: HaDerech, the root for this is DeReCH, both a verb meaning "to lead the way", and a noun meaning "path."

Now, going back to the main subject, try to imagine for a moment, a sheet of paper with two dots spaced far apart. According to the rules of Euclidean geometry, the shortest distance between those two points is a straight line.

But if we now look at the expression k'fitzat haderech, we can begin to understand the mechanism of the teleportation feat-- it involved the kefitza, or collapse of the space-time fabric of the derech, or path delineated between Points A and B. This would be analogous to taking the sheet of paper and folding it along the symmetrical axis, so that the two dots are now touching and adjoined in the space-time continuum.

There are a few other instances in which the Lord admits to messing around with the non-euclidean geometric model. The very first implication is in Noah's ark, 300 cubits long by 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high, if I remember correctly. The biblical commentators (and detractors too) point out that if two of each animal from every single specie (excluding sea life) were to be loaded in the ark, they could never physically fit into something of that size, and they conclude that the rules of space-time were bent in this instance to accommodate the entire terrestrial zoo.

The next instance occurs when Jacob goes to sleep one evening during his travel from home to Charan. Unknowingly, he sleeps on the location of the future temple mount, Har Habayit. When he lays down to sleep, the commentators mention that the Lord took the entire land of Israel, and compressed it into the space underneath him, whatever that means.

Much later on, during the time of temples, all Jews who could physically make the pilgrimage, would do so three times a year to the temple to celebrate the holidays of Pesach, Shevu'ot, and Succot. It was said that all the Jews gathered into the temple courtyard, and somehow they all fit. Furthermore, when they bowed down during prayers, each person was somehow accorded a clearance of a four-pace radius.

And for my final example, according to the lore, when the Messiah arrives, the Lord will unfold the land of Israel so that it becomes much larger than it is today.

So why did I get excited?

Its because of a well-known rule that the Lord does not operate outright miracles of the supernatural sort once he finished the creation, although this doesn't preclude cases where his direct influence can be plausibly explained away as a coincidence of natural contrivances.

Yet there is a Mishna in Pirke Avot (Chapter 5, Mishna 8) which reads:

"Ten things were created on the eve of Shabbat, at twilight. They are: The mouth of the earth; the mouth of the well; the mouth of the donkey; the rainbow; the Manna; the staff; the Shamir; the alphabet; the inscription; and the Tablets."

Those are the ten exceptions to the rule, and they were set aside from the time of creation until the later time they would be needed for supernatural divine intervention, the biblical deus ex machina.

Now since k'fizat haderech is not listed above as one of the supernatural miracles, we can thus assume that it is not a supernatural device, but one subject to a common natural mechanism, one that hopefully be realized with the help of the etymological insight into its workings.

pulp peeves

2007-05-01T21:18:00.000-04:00

Lo and behold, a local politico wants to ban unwanted circulars from being littered unto homeowners properties.

"A Brooklyn councilman has proposed legislation that would make it illegal to distribute menus, fliers and other circulars to homes and apartment buildings that display a sign indicating promotional material is unwanted. The councilman, Simcha Felder, a Democrat, has proposed a fine of at least $50 for distributors who leave the materials anyway. Mr. Felder said his constituents had complained about the number of fliers left at their doors. His mother, he said, received a $100 fine from the Sanitation Department for circulars left on her stoop. “You shouldn’t be responsible for cleaning up someone else’s garbage,” he said."

I've long despised those advertisement companies which make it their business to defecate on your front lawn/stoop, and their hapless bottom-of-the-economic ladder stooges who in an effort to finish their route sooner, often throw multiple copies of the unwanted newspaper circulars or other assorted crap.

The best part is when precipitation melts it into a runny pulp that comes apart in your hands as you reach for them to toss them in the trash.

But I heartily disagree with Felder.

Its not my responsibility to post a sign instructing others not to litter, or to otherwise disturb my quiet enjoyment of my home. Those who want to invoke an appeal to "implied consent" in this case must show both:
a) a reasonable expectation that the advertisers truly believe that I, Joe Individual, am really interested and delighted to be a recipient of your crap
b) a viable framework which allows me to withdraw from and opt-out of your indiscriminate neighborhood blanketing

But this is certainly not the case. I cannot recall ever sharing a drink or even a dirty joke with an advertisement publisher insider, who then might have some reasonable expectation that I would like my home to be inundated with his marketing assault. There goes the case for "A".

The worse part is the lack of feedback mechanism to legitimately opt-out. You see, I tried the nice way. I followed some of the litterers back to their distribution van, and spoke to the drivers. I got the names and phone numbers of their bosses who handle distribution in our neighborhood. I begged them time and time again to skip my house, my street. But there is no master list for opt-outees. The driver who covers a neighborhood brings along no such list to instruct his poor, oft-time illiterate underlings where not to litter. And so on it goes. Irresponsible, criminal erosion of private property enjoyment with no way to withdraw your "implied consent".

And as BK Marcus once taught me about appeals to implied consent --

"But notice that in all of these cases [of genuine implied consent], there's a way to withdraw consent. In fact, the very existence of consent depends on the possibility of its absence!"

capitalism, misdefined

2007-04-30T20:45:00.000-04:00

A couple of days ago, I commented on a post at lowercase liberty in regards to R.A.W. and his knowledge of economics as I understood from his writings.

I then realized that my initial comment was harshly imprecise; while R.A.W. could have been knowledgeable in economic theory (although I'm convinced he wasn't), he certainly was sloppy in confusing normative ethics prescriptions with economic systems.

Please witness this one egregious abuse:

"When Playboy fired him, Shea endured terrible anxiety about keeping his house, and dashed off a few novel outlines while looking for another job. He sold his first novel before finding a job and never stopped writing again. I still treasure his comment on why the Bunny Warren cast him out. "I worked hard and was loyal to the company for ten years," he wrote. "I guess that deserves some punishment." I treasure that as the best comment I have ever heard about capitalist ethics."

Erggh!!! I'm certainly not sympathetic to the "bosses are evil" definition of capitalism, and to say what social behaviors are prescribed by capitalism is bunkum.

As far as I know, capitalism is a description of economic system in which individual rights and ergo, property rights are respected, and while some may seem to have better bargaining power, at the end of the day, its the little guy, the consumer who is unforgiving, disloyal, tough to please and is always punishing those soon-to-be non-producers who aren't serving their desires adequately. So no hard feelings dude, its not personal.

Inigo Montoya's timeless words are thus suitable for this misdefintion of capitalism -- "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

the socialist tree calculation

2007-04-19T22:37:00.000-04:00

(cross-posted to the Mises blog)

While the headline of a recent New York Times article employs a subjectivist notion of value, "Maybe Only God Can Make a Tree, but Only People Can Put a Price on It", the article makes it clear that the concept of price formation is something less well understood in the so-called paper of record.

Witness how the tree prices were derived:

"Step 1 was a tree census, a two-year process that sent more than 1,000 volunteers to count every tree on every street in the city. The census results were then fed into a computer program that spit out a dollar value for each of the 592,130 trees counted, a figure that does not include the roughly 4.5 million trees in parks and on private land...

It takes into account several factors, including a tree’s impact on local property values, its contribution to cleaning the air by absorbing carbon dioxide, and how much its shade helps reduce energy consumption.

Factoring in the costs associated with planting and upkeep, New York City’s street trees provide an annual benefit of about $122 million, according to the Parks Department. The study concludes that New York receives $5.60 in benefits for every dollar spent on trees."

But wait just a second-- how does a computer program determine the price for the trees? I'm reminded of Gary Galles's article "And Then a Miracle Occurs." Much like the cartoon professor who uses that phrase as a stage in a mathematical proof, the "price-calculating" black-box could only invoke some arbitrary determination based on of what the historical market demand has been for street-side trees.

Now although the city government presumingly pays market prices to private contractors for the planting and maintenance of these trees, the notion of these trees now having a determinable market value or price is quite meaningless without a market to set them. To further ascribe the role these trees play in property valuations is an empty consideration without the knowledge of what opportunities were forgone with their planting. Thus is the nature of the socialist beast.

The root of this problem :) was brought up by Mises over 80 years ago in a series of articles beginning in 1920, shortly thereafter culminated into his Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis in 1922, and later in his treatise Human Action.

Lacking both omniscience and a market to determine the value individuals place on trees, planners cannot determine the opportunity cost that the trees represent, making any monetary calculation of the benefits provided a worthless spectacle of ignorance on stilts.

aphasiac

2007-04-16T16:09:00.000-04:00

Everyone knows what to call the lack of sight, hearing or speech. But I've long wondered what to call the lack of ability to either smell, taste, or to feel objects.

Thanks to OneLook, I now know that:
hyposmia is a "lessened sensitivity to odors."

anosmia is the "absence or loss of the sense of smell."

hypogeusia is a "decreased sensitivity to taste."

ageusia is the "loss or impairment of the sense of taste."

anaphia is the "total or partial absence of the sense of touch."

Now just to commit those words to my vernacular, so that they roll off my tongue with the same smoothness that I have for expressing blindness, deafness and muteness.

point of view

2007-04-06T15:46:00.000-04:00

From Ayn Rand, I've learned that appeals to efficiency are not as important as liberty, and that even if methodological individualism and capitalism were to be more "costly" policies to society, we should still prefer liberty to interventions seeking to enhance efficiency and stability.

From Ludwig von Mises (and Murray Newton Rothbard) I've learned that appeals to efficiency are false because costs are subjective and hence unmeasurable. Furthermore, they demonstrate in so many ways how interventions is always a decrease in utility, and would probably cause more instability, not less.

From Robert Anton Wilson I've learned that all appeals to efficiency are essentially an appeal to an illusion, a fiction with no bearing on reality.

A simple example which demonstrates the difference between all three positions would be that of your typical environmental concerns.

Ayn Rand would insist that human life is the ultimate end, and that appeals that value biological and ecological diversity above human life is irrational and anti-life.

Mises or Rothbard would argue that environmental concerns are those problems which stem from the lack of rigid property rights, the classic tragedy of the, [because there are] commons. Once polluters have to internalize all aspects of their costs, the environmental problem stops being a societal concern and one for individuals to work out in a tort system to minimize specific, individual harms. Furthermore, they would point out that government, and not private concerns have been the greatest polluters simply because they have no incentive to be efficient, as all pollutions are essentially a form of inefficiency on part of the producer who have not captured the fullest usage of all their output.

I haven't seen Robert Anton Wilson's position on environmentalism, but if he were to be a consistent discordian, he would insist that the environmental bugaboo is to be biased towards certain chemical compounds, as if the earth or "mother nature" cares for a particular composition or molecular arrangement (which it obviously doesn't). It cares not if the entire surface is desert, water, ice, forested, denuded, or atomic wasteland. The homuncular inhabitants may have their neurological circuits prefer a specific scenario, but it wouldn't exceed a normative whim in importance.

we-know-whats-good-for-you

2007-03-29T14:29:00.000-04:00

In an affront to individual sensibilities, NYC has now decided to usurp your right to live in an "unlivable" city just as I have thought would eventually happen.

(Heh, that's almost as funny as asking for animals to be treated "humanely".)

"Mr. Washburn, 44, is charged with making sure the parks get the right amount of sun, buildings aren't too bulky, and the skyline stays coherent. He will act as Ms. Burden's eyes for the incredible number of projects now under way in the city"...

"Senator Moynihan believed that good design is not just about aesthetics, but that the look of a city expresses the values of the people who live in it," he said.

Now where exactly do these folks get off dictating the "values" that the city-people want? And in any case, to what relevancy does it matter what some third-party pretends to want for everyone's values?

"It's really the citizen that will be the measure of our success," Mr. Washburn said. "How do you make sure New York doesn't become dull, but has the greatest streetscape with the greatest variety and the greatest texture? To keep everything vibrant and authentic with new projects is really tough. You have to calibrate everything very finely. Every time you change something in the city, you affect another constituency."

Which is exactly why central planners should be kept as far as possible from urban development. I mean just look at Brasilia, or ask yourself why Robert Moses is one of the most despised man in NYC urban development history.

But the sheer amount of haughtiness and conceit is astounding considering all the misplaced faith put into the past anointed guardian saints for urban aesthetics. This should be a fine example to those planners of how aesthetic expectations are valued both ex ante and ex post, thus making the goal of aesthetic perfection for posterity at best a Sisyphean task.

On a positive note, most people who are concerned with urban aesthetics usually prostrate to the altar of the Jane Jacobs goddess and her seminal work The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Since Jacobs ideas were inspired in part by F.A. Hayek and his aversion to central planned economies, one has hope that they can transcend from the position of merely recognizing the beauty of unplanned, and 'chaotic' order, and to come to the realization that utilizing the violence of the state is the furthest thing from affecting the spontaneous communal life that they so very much desire.

pattern tyranny

2007-03-28T14:45:00.000-04:00

Like a scene out of Stephan Kinsella's most horrid nightmare, I did a double-take after seeing this written on a bag of pretzels.

And for those of you who want to quickly get to the point:

ma gavte la nata

2007-03-21T10:29:00.000-04:00

Although Andrew Berman is one most pompous busybodys around town as the organizer behind the GVSHP, I can still find the courage to commend him for acting in a civilized manner in regards to his latest bellyaching over aesthetic concerns to a billboard erected in what is known as the Meatpacking District.

Civilized, in the sense that he organized a boycott of local merchants to protest the erection of this unwanted advertising sign by having the participant shun and ostracize the party they feel offended by. This is largely in contrast to his usual tactics of complaining to the local goons and fabricating all sorts of wishy-washy nonsense on stilts which would supposedly justify their aggression against the despised party.

an apropos analogy

2007-03-13T12:23:00.000-04:00

Tarran, a frequent and admired commenter on the Mises blog delivers this nugget (via Cafe Hayek) on his world view of the business world, one that I very closely share:

"comparing tax burdens is precisely the same act as a bunch of shop-keepers getting together to discuss the protection money they pay to the local Mafia family, and getting into an argument as to whether the more affluent shop-keeper is paying his "fair" share."

Of course, this is all said to the extent that the business we are talking about is a business qua business; a viable one that does not ultimately depend on a violent, criminal-class customer base (read: no-bid government contracts) for most their income, for in that case I would acquiesce to the left-lib side and call a spade a spade-- a net tax recipient which didn't take in much loot as it would have otherwise.

one bad bite deserves no other

2007-03-12T13:45:00.000-04:00

Nothing spells CYA over-reaction like city government.

This brouhaha occured after a KFC-Taco Bell joint was found to be infested with rodents a day after they were green-lighted by the NYCzar's Health Inspectors, leading the Department of Health to react by shuttering a record 89 food establishments around the city.

As I've argued before, it's not always that anarcho-libertarians have a beef with the goals of government; it's that in the [racketeering] job that they purportedly serve to justify their monopolizing or market-crowding existence is one marked by corruption, inefficiencies, and incompetency; a sure recipe for failure under free market conditions.

geriatric pastures for trannies

2007-03-07T09:56:00.000-05:00

"Barbary Lane Communities at Lake Merritt, one of the country’s first urban independent-living communities for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) seniors is being developed in Oakland, Calif...

According to BLC, the needs of LGBT seniors are currently unaddressed in the senior housing industry largely due to lack of awareness, discrimination and homophobia. There are presently over 3 million LGBT seniors over the age of 65, and that number is expected to double by 2030." - Article Link

eine kleine nachtmusik im museum

2007-02-27T00:07:00.000-05:00

Just in case you didn't catch this- in the very first scene introducing Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) to the night life in the museum, a tyrannosaurus-rex exhibit mysteriously goes missing.

If you listen carefully to the accompanying soundtrack, you can hear composer Alan Silvestri's tribute to John Williams, as he uses the theme from Jurassic Park's "Dennis Steals the Embryo" to highlight Daley's confusion as to whom might have pinched the exhibit.

map-line worship

2007-02-26T12:39:00.000-05:00

Though I was less than satisfied with this novel, it did have its redeeming parts. This following passage questions the rationality of nationalism; the illogical and evil religion worshiped by ~~billions~~ millions in their fervor to violently exclude immigrants, block free and voluntary exchange, and of course, to wage murderous wars.

For all of humanity's sake, I hope we can advance beyond this childish notion of fixed-pie economics, where unfortunately the bulk of grownups live a nightmarish reality, feeling threatened by the mere existence of other people.

"How does one hate a country, or love one? Tibe talks about it; I lack the trick of it. I know people, I know towns, farms hills and rivers and rocks, I know how the sun at sunset in the autumn falls on the side of a certain plowland in the hills; but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving it a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply?

What is love of one's country? Is it hate of one's uncountry? Then it's not a good thing. Is it simply self-love? That's a good thing, but one mustn't make a virtue of it, or a profession...

Insofar as I love life, I love the hills of the Domain of Estre, but that sort of love does not have a boundary-line of hate."

For Sale: One Brooklyn Bridge

2007-02-21T10:51:00.000-05:00

misplaced aggravations

2007-02-21T09:49:00.000-05:00

"Merck & Co. said it would stop lobbying states to pass laws requiring that preteen girls be vaccinated against cervical cancer in the face of a growing backlash among parents, physicians and consumer advocates." - Full Article

Sure, it's easy to get all pissed at Merck for a little rent-seeking, but if this doesn't get your blood boiling against the state mechanism which makes it all possible, you have nothing to complain about.

fiction[-writer] versus [economic] reality

2007-02-14T10:54:00.000-05:00

On a topic I hold dear, Mises blog authors discuss the economic and aesthetic repercussions when the real estate market is disrupted via the political process in an attempt to craft a city more to the liking of the planning czars.

Mises.org
Can We Trust the State with Preservation?

By Gene Callahan and Julius Blumfeld

"Harvard economist Edward Glaeser, commenting on the controversy surrounding 980 Madison, sensibly noted that blocking the construction of new Manhattan residential space will result in housing costs being higher than they would be if the apartments were built. Wolfe's response demonstrates his ignorance of the fact that his pet cause entails very real costs: "[The proposed 980 Madison Avenue project] certainly isn't going to help the housing situation. Just more people who have the money will be able to move in" (Gillette, 2007, p. 21).

Wolfe apparently has never considered the fact that, when very rich people move into those new apartments, that will ease the demand for the residences they would have occupied otherwise, allowing the slightly less wealthy to acquire those spots. That, in turn, will free up the housing those people would otherwise have chosen, making them available to yet others, and so on. An increase in the housing stock at any price level will tend to lower housing costs in general, although, of course, that effect might always be offset or even swamped by some other factor working in the opposite direction.

Wolfe, not content with this first display of economic naïveté, continues, "To take [Glaeser's] theory to its logical conclusion would be to develop Central Park." Here, he confuses the recognition that action X would act towards lowering the cost of good Y to imply that, therefore, X must be done! Without a doubt, filling Central Park with apartment buildings would lower New York City rents. Similarly, butchering all of the dogs and cats in the United States for food would lower meat prices. But that in no way implies that either course of action is indisputably recommended. People quite sensibly prefer not to eat their pets, even though doing so would reduce their meal expenditures, just as New York City residents might prefer a bucolic respite in the midst of their urban environment, even given the higher housing costs that entails.
Glaeser is doing nothing more than noting that the elementary principles of supply and demand apply even to virtuous causes, while Wolfe, by refusing to concede such a basic truth, raises the suspicion that his campaign may have more to do with his public image than with concern for the greater good."

I've argued this very same point in the past, as evidenced, here, here, and here that some people would like to have their cake and eat it too.

I guess it's just that some fiction writers have no grasp of reality.

whence order arose

2007-02-12T16:30:00.000-05:00

"I have never doubted the truth of signs, Adso; they are the only things man has with which to orient himself in the world. What I did not understand is the relation among signs... I behaved stubbornly, pursuing a semblance of order, when I should have known well that there is no order in the universe."

"But in imagining an erroneous order you still found something. . . ."

"What you say is very fine, Adso, and I thank you. The order that our mind imagines is like a net, or like a ladder, built to attain something. But afterward you must throw the ladder away, because you discover that, even if it was useful, it was meaningless. Er muoz gelichesame die leiter abewerfen sô er an ir ufgestigen... is that how you say it?... It's hard to accept the idea that there cannot be an order in the universe because it would offend the free will of God and His omnipotence."

kitchen unwisdom

2007-02-02T00:29:00.000-05:00

I think I've come up with a novel way to end the timeless recipe mix-up involving baking soda and baking powder - just swap their respective containers and go on making your mistakes.

eudaemonic

2007-01-20T22:40:00.000-05:00

Holy crap- one of my favorite authors- George R.R. Martin has just signed a deal with HBO giving them rights to produce his "Ice and Fire" series. I'm seriously hoping that his books will gracefully survive the treatment to this newfangled audiovisual media device.

beyond the grave

2007-01-13T20:05:00.000-05:00

(what might be an inappropriate title based on something you will read shortly)

In a very personal spell of synchronicity or perhaps merely coinci-dance, I've just finished off Robert Anton Wilson's "Email to the Universe". At the near end of the book, it recounts an interview from 2002 with Paul Krassner that ends with this:

Paul Krassner: Recently, when I spoke at a college campus, a student asked what I wanted my epitaph to be. I replied, "Wait, I'm not finished." What do you want your epitaph to be?

Robert A. Wilson: I have ordained in my will that my body will get cremated and the ashes thrown in Jerry Falwell's face. The executor of my will should then shout one word only: "Gotcha!"

Since this book is classified as non-fiction, I patiently await Reverend Falwell's decoration by a guerrilla ontologist.

R.A.W., R.I.A.

2007-01-11T18:40:00.000-05:00

With much gloominess, I learn of Robert Anton Wilson's transcendence from his mortal coil.

R.A.W. will be sorely missed by all, to use clichéd verbiage, and fnord I not-so-humbly offer my sincerest condolences to his family, close friends, and all his extended readership who are all surely saddened by his passing.

Kallisti, rest in anarchy.

petty potty patrol psychotics

2007-01-11T15:29:00.000-05:00

What happens when busybody lawmakers prohibit food establishments from having their sole restroom located behind the counter?

According to The Brooklyn Paper's Gersh Kuntzman [is that even a real name??]:

...But not any more, because Roma ripped out half of its seats rather than fight a law that requires restaurants with more than 19 seats to “provide toilet facilities for the public.”

And “public” means that the crapper can’t be in the food-preparation area because the dirty, filthy public (again, I’m not talking about myself here) is not legally allowed to be in the food-preparation area — except in restaurants with fewer than 20 seats, apparently.

So Roma now has only 16 seats — and the bathroom remains behind the counter. The result? I still have to ask the counterman to let me go into the kitchen to use the can — and now I can never find a seat at my neighborhood pizzeria!

Don't you love the unintended consequences of road paving to hell (i.e., all lawmaking)- it also manages to create hell on the way there too.

pseudos etumos-logos

2006-12-27T23:53:00.000-05:00

Wherein I pretend to dabble in the dark arts of etymology, I tend to discover inner meaning when there really isn't any. For example, a common slur against Iranian Jews is to stereotype their frugality. Hence, the term parsimony has special meaning to me as it may be broken down to the [false] roots 'parsi' + 'mony', 'Parsi' being the Hebrew word for "Persian".

Another such example would be to relate the word "Hasidic", which in its original Hebrew sense did not depict a Jew wearing a funky hat, curly sidelocks and a black frock. Instead, in Mishnaic terms it referred to a person who refrained from the pleasures of the world, choosing to live the most basic, ascetic life.

Where am I going with this? Well I wanted to devise an explanation for the division of man-made law into two categories:

1) common law
2) private law

The difference between the two is lies in it's origination. I reckon that the typical origination of common law was a spontaneous arrangement of acceptable, universalized principles which civilized society could easily agree to, such as prohibition against murder, enslavement and robbery. These are such prohibitive laws that from the viewpoint of the individual are obvious (since the prohibited action is clearly harmful to another party), and need not to be instilled for one to be aware of them (and I stop short of referring to these as 'natural laws'.)

Private law, or positive law on the other hand, is comprised of laws which are many times non-obvious, and therefore to be known must be learned (although one will be found guilty in unknowing transgression, since ignorance of the law is not an excuse.) The law's prohibited action might be seemingly or truly harmless, and one might be found guilty in the nebulous sense of committing a "crime against society". These laws, even if well-intentioned, will favor the interests of a private few, required active legislation to define them, coercion to gain their employ, and in effect lead to the breakdown of, and de-civilize society.

R.A.W. (and R.S.) said it squarely, or rather, Hagbard Celine did:

PRIVILEGE: From the latin privi, private, and lege, law. An advantage granted by the State and protected by its powers of coercion. A law for private benefit.

With this historical background, we can better grasp the typical hurdle often encountered by many an anarchist in the conflation of these two types of law. It is the difference between the two law types that anarchists object to when they object to rulers, but not rules.

What anarchists may or may not realize, privilege-private laws are those "rules" which beneath the print are just rulers disguising themselves in the rubric of rules in order to demand obedience and/or enslavement. These pseudo rules do not arise from conflict-reducing norms, and in fact create more conflict.

Private laws are those which anarchists are most confident will not arise in a market-anarchy, whilst the common law they hope will be rigorously obeyed, whether out of a sense of common decency (in my belief), or because of an expectation that the market institutions will have a much better replacement to the state's pathetically useless enforcement agencies.

impromptu thoughts

2006-12-18T22:06:00.000-05:00

In the never-ending debate of nature vs. nurture; doesn't the latter approach run into a regression problem? What I mean is that if we consider a man's behavior to be the product of the inputs of his social environment, where did the social environment originate those inputs?

quixotic exotics

2006-12-13T12:15:00.000-05:00

Catallarchy commenter Sam writes in regards to so-called 'exotic' goods:

"This is an issue for semantics only. A good is not merely a physical commodity, but a commodity acquired for the purpose of providing satisfaction to the consumer. If “$20k Rolls-Royce” and “$60k Rolls-Royce” provide different levels of satisfaction, then they are, in fact, different goods."

From a March 16th 2006 email to Professor Emeritus Walter Block,

"My thoughts about the phenomenon of veblen and giffen goods are such and I would like your comment. In economics, goods can be said to be homogeneous if the units supply the same exact service. If there is any differentiation, even if but a psychological differentiation (such as ice in the winter being a different good than ice in the summer), under the scope of economics they are considered to be two different goods.

So too, "goods" as regarded by economics should not include special categories for either veblen or geffen goods, because the goods in question (either a veblen status-good, or a giffen substitute-good) have essentially transformed into another type of good providing a different array of services. There is nothing special about either of these to qualify for an "exotic good" category, as the theory only gives an explanation why the good transformation should occur.

Any child could come up with examples of goods which transform into other goods and provide a sound explanation; for example, a fur coat in the winter and summer, a pastrami sandwich before and after eating a filling meal, popcorn during a movie and afterwards, a discount coupon before and after making a purchase, etc.

If this is so, would it be correct to ignore such so-called exotic goods, despite the mainstream acceptance of these concepts?"

Sadly enough, he never responded to me on this particular point.

Economics 2.0

2006-12-08T13:47:00.000-05:00

[Crossposted to the Ludwig von Mises Blog.]

Can the Future Do Without Economic Logic?

Flying cars and little green men aside, many science fiction writers have shown an uncanny ability to predict and "foresee" the future.[1]

Yet, for all their prophetic accomplishments surrounding the development of future technologies, many fail to grasp the economic laws — the catallactics — that have remained unchanged for thousands of years.

Here is a quotation to get our discussion off the ground:

"Capitalism doesn't have a lot to say about workers whose skills are obsolete, other than that they should invest wisely while they're earning and maybe retrain: but just knowing how to invest in Economics 2.0 is beyond an unaugmented human. You can't retrain as a seagull, can you, and it's quite as hard to retool for Economics 2.0." — Charles Stross, Accelerando

Hard science fiction author, Charles Stross published a novel last year entitled Accelerando that tackled the issue of "the Singularity" and its rippling effects throughout society.[2][3]

Initially taking place around 2010, the reader follows the lead character — Manfred Macx — a computer nerd turned globe trotter whose modus operandi is said to be altruism.[4] He bills himself as a venture altruist, building and seeding productive ideas in exchange for mere reputation points.[5]

Ever the second-hander intellectual mountebank, Stross manages to mangle a bevy of technical and economic gobbledygook and shoehorn it into an exponentially spiraling plotline.[6]

However, Stross for all his valiant efforts falls short of delivering a futurist economics that is not subject to the economic principles we know today.

Russia has been back under the thumb of the apparatchiks for fifteen years now, its brief flirtation with anarchocapitalism replaced by Brezhnevite dirigisme and Putinesque puritanism, and it's no surprise that the wall's crumbling — but it looks like they haven't learned anything from the current woes afflicting the United States. The neocommies still think in terms of dollars and paranoia. Manfred is so angry that he wants to make someone rich, just to thumb his nose at the would-be defector: See! You get ahead by giving! Get with the program! Only the generous survive! But the KGB won't get the message. He's dealt with old-time commie weak-AIs before, minds raised on Marxist dialectic and Austrian School economics: They're so thoroughly hypnotized by the short-term victory of global capitalism that they can't surf the new paradigm, look to the longer term.

While some self-professed Marxists have allegedly embraced Austrianism — and vice versa — one wonders exactly how to synthesize the Marxist Labor Theory of Value with its polar opposite subjective theory as enshrined by the Austrian School.[7][8] This fact is punctuated best by Das Capital, in which Marx embraces historical materialism as the de facto epistemology to explain how and why historical events occur, in part, through the now-classical bourgeois-versus-proletariat class struggle.

In direct contrast is the Austrian School's a priori science approach, called praxeology.[9] Its foundation was laid out by Ludwig von Mises's axiom of human action or purposeful behavior. Society is a product of the human urge to remove uneasiness and dissatisfaction as far as possible; it is not a product of social classes, political hierarchies, and various other synthetic structures.

The Calculation Debate 2.0

While introducing the decade of 2070 A.D., Accelerando's narrator notes:

The last great transglobal trade empire, run from the arcologies of Hong Kong, has collapsed along with capitalism, rendered obsolete by a bunch of superior deterministic resource allocation algorithms collectively known as Economics 2.0.

It is these algorithms that Manfred earlier sold to an Italian politician, as a means to objectively calculate prices in a command economy. The mechanics of such equations are never fully fleshed out, leaving the reader to wonder exactly how a third party can, in some manner, come to such a measure of the multitudinous subjective values and preferences that individuals intrinsically have towards goods and services.

These "superior resource allocation algorithms" have been conjectured among numerous economists over the past century as it has played a central role in the socialist calculation debate. And while political scientists and technocrats continually busy themselves with tweaking the economic "black box" with various inputs, they fail to grasp how prices arise.[10]

Unfortunately for Stross, the future holds no deus ex machina in store to rescue this storyline, because a finite set of supercomputers cannot encompass a problem set containing infinite sets of possibilities. In this respect, the idealized command economy is a mathematical impossibility.[11]

Misplaced Energies

At one point in the story Macx's French mistress broadcasts news that Macx is in town:

"Oh, and he's promised to invent three new paradigm shifts before breakfast every day, starting with a way to bring about the creation of Really Existing Communism by building a state central planning apparatus that interfaces perfectly with external market systems and somehow manages to algorithmically outperform the Monte Carlo free-for-all of market economics, solving the calculation problem. Just because he can, because hacking economics is fun, and he wants to hear the screams from the Chicago School."

In this passage Stross now makes the error of "solving" Mises's calculation problem with the band-aid solution of copying consumer goods prices from a market system and transplanting them into the command economy. The use of this technique only affirms Mises's position, and is hardly a novel solution considering that Soviet planners were regularly thumbing through Sears catalogs for their coefficients.[12]

But we can still make lemonade out of this sucker — in theory we would have no issue per se with the argument that a super[-human] intelligence could drive entrepreneurial activity, and make smarter choices than a mere human opportunity exploiter. This is where the present and future can possibly diverge: can a two-state computational engine ever approximate human intelligence?[13]

Bursting Bubbles

While discussing what to do with a guest in their spaceship, several characters meander off the deep end:

The orang-utan explains: "Economics 2.0 is more efficient than any human-designed resource allocation schema. Expect a market bubble and crash within twelve hours."

Stross is guilty here of the mainstream economic error of cum hoc ergo propter hoc, by attributing the phenomenon of the business cycle to the emergence of capital markets in the industrial revolution. Under such mistaken impressions, it would be then quite natural for him to assume that an immense acceleration of the market process would also speed up the rate of market boom and bust cycle, although never explaining how or why it occurred in the first place.

Contrary to the mainstream, the Austrian Business Cycle Theory posits that cycles are exogenous to the market, a creature wholly belonging to the governments manipulation of the money supply, which, by artificially lowering the rate of interest, misrepresents the general level of time preference and ultimately misleads entrepreneurs en masse into malinvestment of the capital stock in sub-marginal pursuits.[14]

In contrast to the tenets of the neo-classical error, the condition of a free market would tend toward the evenly rotating economy (ERE), although never achieving equilibrium, as the minor perturbations mirror the transient value preferences on the market.[15] Under such conditions, Stross is incorrect to think that ratcheting up the intelligence and computational speed of the market would have a bearing on the amplitude, rather than only the frequency of misallocation.

However a simpler question may be posed to Stross: if "Economics 2.0" is more efficient than human-based pricing and has perfected an all-encompassing algorithm that allocates resources with near-absolute precision, how can capital malinvestment ever occur?

What is a reputation worth, anyway?

One of the most intriguing concepts found in the novel is that of "reputation markets."[16] While Stross also does not deign to explain in detail how this concept would function, one can make some guesses, although none of the interpretations seem to add up to anything useful or novel.[17]

Apparently Stross imagines that reputations will supplant the usage of currency and markets in a post-scarcity world as one is lead to believe from passages such as the following:

His reputation is up two percent for no obvious reason today, he notices: Odd, that. When he pokes at it he discovers that everybody's reputation – everybody, that is, who has a publicly traded reputation – is up a bit. It's as if the distributed Internet reputation servers are feeling bullish about integrity. Maybe there's a global honesty bubble forming.

… She doesn't approve of Manfred's jetting around the world on free airline passes, making strangers rich, somehow never needing money. She can see his listing on the reputation servers, hovering about thirty points above IBM: All the metrics of integrity, effectiveness and goodwill value him above even that most fundamentalist of open-source computer companies.

While we can only guess at what Stross meant by reputation markets, there are only the two possibilities: either it is a commodity-backed market, or not.

The problem with the former scenario is two-fold. First, because we are supposedly dealing with a post-scarcity world, the concept of commodity-trading is absurd as would be the trading of air or ocean water in our present world. Goods that are in superabundance are not subject to the study of praxeology, and certainly not within the scope of catallactics.

It is clear, though, that the world that Stross has created cannot be a post-scarcity world, if one still has to exchange in order to acquire the use of goods and services. The exchange of a valued reputation sounds interesting, but is quite problematic as will be explained momentarily.

In the latter scenario, if we posit that reputation markets are not commodity-backed, (and ignoring for a moment his apparent confusion over what comprises a post-scarcity world), all Stross has managed to do is recreate the concept of money substitutes, with the nexus of reputation markets to facilitate the exchange of this currency.[18]

In both these scenarios then, the objective exchange value of this money or money substitute comes into question without the benefit of the regression theorem to explain its present monetary valuation by the economic actors.

There are other fundamental questions to be asked about a reputation-based currency, most notably, how are reputation monetary units quantified or graded, and who or what intelligence will determine that?[19]

One can make the case, however, that although "reputs" (the story's marketable reputation units) may presently hold no objective exchange value (as they are essentially mere data patterns stored on a server) they may still hold monetary value, if and only if they once held objective exchange value.[20][21]

As intriguing as the technological wizardry within the story may be, the plot is unfortunately riddled with economic misconceptions and non sequiturs.

Tim Swanson is a graduate student at Texas A&M University. Send him mail. See his archive. Isaac Bergman is a real-estate developer in New York City. Send him mail. Comment on the blog.

Notes

[1] For instance, from Arthur C. Clarke's imagination sprang the notion of placing communication satellites into geosynchronous orbit. And Gene Roddenberry was one of the first individuals to envisage an all-in-one handheld device, capable of measuring, communicating, and storing information.

[2] Accelerando can be viewed online for free at www.accelerando.org.

[3] While somewhat tangential, Charles Stross operates a Wiki to further explore and explain many of the ideas discussed in Accelerando. Of particular interest is his critique of libertarianism, in which he simply links to Mike Huben's smorgasbord of pro-statist arguments.

[4] The nomadic and quasi-Bohemian lifestyle that Macx lives has been described as a "serial entrepreneur"; however it is arguably closer to the life and times of grey hat hackers such as Adrian Lamo. These individuals attempt to highlight security vulnerabilities at companies, while having a credo of operating for little or no personal gain. In the story, Macx's character conveniently is able to side-step these economic uncertainties through the generosity of third-parties (e.g., "a grateful multinational consumer protection group" paid for his hotel visits). Note: one argument surrounding individuals such as Lamo is that they are, in fact, attempting to gain publicity in order to market themselves for monetary contracts.

[5] This is reminiscent of the classical argument that all monetary systems should be scrapped and replaced with a system of credits for hours of labor, as determined by the rate of a person laboring for an hour with a shovel. Not only is this average unrealistic but it also ignores the dissimilar, heterogeneous abilities and productive levels each individual is capable of. See also "labor notes" and the Cincinnati Time Store. Reading "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut may also be instructive.

[6] Apropos Peter Klein, while we enjoy an entertaining storyline, we can only suspend our disbelief so far.

[8] The academic discourse comparing the LTV and STV is voluminous. For instance, see chapter 5 in "Epistemological Problems of Economics" by Ludwig von Mises. For a recent layman's explanation of the STV see "Artwork and the Subjective Theory of Value" by Yumi Kim.

[9] See, "Praxeology: The Methodology of Austrian Economics" by Murray N. Rothbard, "Praxeology and Understanding" by G.A. Selgin, and Human Action by Ludwig von Mises.

[10] Prices themselves are not fixed points along a line, but rather temporally subjective valuations of goods and services. For more discussion on this paradigm of "perfect information" and what a price "should be" see "Knowledge vs. Calculation" from Stephan Kinsella.

[11] See Robert P. Murphy's "Cantor's Diagonal Argument: An Extension to the Socialist Calculation Debate" in The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, Summer 2006, 9(2), pp. 3-11 (available in PDF).

[12] For the Sear's connection see, here. See also Gennady Gerasimov's joke of sparing the markets of New Zealand.

[13] Regarding the centralization of knowledge and prices, see: "Socialism: A Property or Knowledge Problem?" by Hans-Hermann Hoppe and "Why a Socialist Economy is "Impossible"" by Joseph T. Salerno. See also "Knowledge vs. Calculation" from Stephan Kinsella.

[14] For more discussion on the ABCT see, The Austrian Theory of the Trade Cycle compiled by Richard M. Ebeling, Money, Bank Credit, And Economic Cycles by Jesús Huerta de Soto, and "Expectations and Austrian Cycle Theory" by Frank Shostak.

[15] For more on the ERE see, chapter 14 in Human Action by Ludwig von Mises, and the Study Guide to Man, Economy, and State from Robert P. Murphy.

[16] This criticism can also be leveled towards the Whuffie system used in "Down in Out in the Magic Kingdom" by Cory Doctrow.

[17] Rating, risk analysis and credit scoring companies exist today; based upon a plethora of metrics they will rate the value of companies, bonds, etc. However these "reputation" companies are providing a service good, not a currency. Incidentally, both Standard & Poor's and Moody's have been erroneously sued in the past for providing debt ratings of government solvency. Stock market's themselves are institutions that — when free of regulation — can also accurately reflect and rate the health of organizations.

[18] One seemingly extraneous example that illustrates the difference between the hypothesized reputation currency and a money or money substitute system is Frequent Flier miles. These miles can arguably be called money, since they have monetary exchange value in which people acquire and maintain "cash" balances for future consumption or exchange. In the case of frequent flyer miles, the miles are initially valued for their objective exchange value, because they represents a claim on a specific good: transportation via airplane. However the reputation currency has no such explanation of any historical objective use balance, and is unlikely, if not entirely impossible, to become valued for its monetary function. See, The Theory of Money and Credit by Ludwig von Mises.

[19] "Reputs" are to reputation scales what 'utils' are to cardinal value scales. Furthermore, how exactly do you cash in a few points of reputation? Are they redeemable for any material object? As long as the reputation system is an exchange system, it is subject to economic laws. And assuming that Stross's reputation system somehow solves the "decider" problem, a number of other issues remain unresolved. For instance, how many "points" can each person use throughout the day? Do you get to give someone a point for every time someone does something? Every 5 seconds? Once an hour? Can you remove your vote? Is a point for yawning weighted as much as shooting a bulls-eye in archery? Ad nauseam.

[20] This aggregation mystery belies subjective indices such as BCS football rankings, college rankings, and even GDP. "What is up with GDP," by Frank Shostak, articulates perhaps the clearest account of why the GDP framework is fallacious and misleading.

[21] Regarding the present valuation of money, Ludwig von Mises writes in The Theory of Money and Credit:

Before an economic good begins to function as money it must already possess exchange value based on some other cause than its monetary function. But money that already functions as such may remain valuable even when the original source of its exchange value has ceased to exist. Its value then is based entirely on its function as common medium of exchange.

NYC to Plunder an Extra $1.9B in 2007

2006-12-08T00:20:00.000-05:00

The city was helped by record Wall Street profits and a strong market for commercial real estate.

Reality Decoded By: Iceberg
Published: November 29, 2006 - 2:26 pm

New York City will have a record surplus of $1.9 billion in fiscal 2007, helped by [the] record [pillaging of] Wall Street profits and a strong [boom] market for commercial real estate, according to a report released Wednesday by state ~~thug~~ Comptroller Alan Hevesi.

"New York City is reaping the benefits of a [successful raid upon a] growing economy and [un]sound management [despite the anti-market] decisions made by the mayor and City Council over the past five years," said Mr. Hevesi in his report, adding that the surplus will cut the city's projected budget gap to $510 million from $3.8 billion [making people wonder how $3.8B - $1.9B is equal to $510 million!]

Real article found here (subscribers only)

Market Solutions

2006-12-07T12:47:00.000-05:00

DECEMBER 06, 2006 -- New Brighton, Minnesota -- Spartan Protection Services, a Robbinsdale, Minn.-based property protection company, has instituted a dress code for residents of the Timbercrest Apartments, a 68-unit complex located here, in an effort to cut the number of calls the local police department receives regarding gang-related crime at the distressed property. Link to full article

The market may originate some weird ideas, but if this works expect to see it happen elsewhere.

And of course if this does work, some intrusive busybody will criminalize this form of discrimination.

the pen is mightier than the reality

2006-12-05T11:51:00.000-05:00

To those within the halls of government power and her intellectual whores within the state-subsidized ivory towers, I hereby beseech your help in removing the difficulties that make life nasty, brutish, short, and generally uneasy.

Just like by the stroke of pen you create wealth, affordable homes, good paying jobs, eliminate poverty and hunger, et. al., I humbly request that you grant us some relatively easier boons.

First, as you may already know, NYC has a serious vermin problem. Please, if you would only pick up your quill and draft a law to ban all forms of vermin within city limits all our problems would go away by fiat, and they wouldn't dare disobey your holy writ.

Also, so many people die from cancers and vascular ailments- can't you ban those horrible illnesses too? It would be so much simpler than just banning the use of trans-fats as NYC just has, and would resolve our health problems immediately. If we just ban obesity, we will witness a transformation as suddenly our cities will feel roomier than before, the train less crowded, the streets easier to navigate, and everyone will trade in their cavernous SUV for some smaller hybrid car.

While you're at it, can you just ban all death, you know, like declare a moratorium on all forms of dying, which we all know does serious economic harm, tears families apart in bitter inheritance lawsuits, and is the greatest cause of involuntary widowhood. This will also greatly help raise the general living standards because people will no longer invest in life or health insurance and would be able to put that money to better, higher uses.

Why stop there? Let's ban divorces, which tie up our family court resources with puerile "he said, she said" controversy. If we ban childish bad behavior, our schools will be able to do their jobs and teach our children properly. We might enact a similar law which will make our students smarter by making it a crime to get anything less than an A+ on a test.

Let's join together to ban Co2-spewing volcanoes so we can end the rapid climate change that threatens to wreck our planet and drown our cities. At the same time, we should ban the ocean from tidal waves, and the winds from blowing devastating hurricanes, monsoons, and tornadoes.

I know that it seems might a lot to ask, but if all it costs is some ink and paper, couldn't you just conjure those up too?

fractional musings

2006-11-28T21:45:00.000-05:00

Here is a question I pose to the more accountant-minded individuals out there-- does the policy of fractional reserve subsidize bank promotions? For example, if a bank offers you $100 to open a checking account with them, is this promotion somehow subsidized by the fact that your $100 promotional gift redeposited into the new account is worth another $900 to the bank in loanable funds?

My first question is then, why does the bank need to give the money to the customer in the first place, instead of "depositing" it themselves, and reaping the full benefit. Then again, I'm not an accountant, nor a banker, so I don't know if these funds are coming from bank profits or from another depositors account, and if from the latter, I would think would just be a wash as far as the total loanable funds and gain the bank perhaps nothing besides another customer.

Can someone help me shed some light on this question?

styrofoam houses

2006-11-26T10:00:00.000-05:00

Back in April, I blogged about the false assertion of market failure.

Monday, April 17, 2006

the free market fails to fail
One often hears of the term "market failure" as an excuse for unbridled statist aggression to rob, plunder and steal from her ~~slaves~~ unwilling servant class. It might be used to justify environmental policy; to fund canal digging; bridge, road, and railroad building; etc.

Alas, "there is no such thing as market failure - only lack of private property rights." Hence, externalities are the creature of the mixed markets, those in which government has preempted the common law of liability, with its own ineffective policies, in which some cases is a form of corporate welfare (logging industry, fishing rights, etc.)

Without delving further into the economics though, I'd like to state that such a claim is prima facie fallacious because the very notion that there exists an objective definition of what services and goods that billions of interacting individuals ought to offer one another is preposterous. If that weren't true, I humbly submit that there is a market failure to deliver styrofoam houses, bicycles made from gold, and teleportation machines.

Thus said, there is no market failure because one cannot argue that such goods or services ought to be provided by the market, only that they, strictly on a personal basis desire the provision to be made.

I thought it worthwhile to bring up again, because to my surprise I have learned that builders have found it economical to construct homes with styrofoam blocks, and poof! - there goes one ridiculous example of market failure!

More recently though, I came across Prof. Hans-Hermann Hoppe's analysis of public vs. private goods in which he thoroughly ridicules the conceptual distinction.

For one thing, to come to the conclusion that the state has to provide public goods that otherwise would not be produced, one must smuggle a norm into one’s chain of reasoning. Otherwise, from the statement that be cause of some special characteristics of theirs certain goods would not be produced, one could never reach the conclusion that these goods should be produced. But with a norm required to justify their conclusion, the public goods theorists clearly have left the bounds of economics as a positive, wertfrei science. Instead they have transgressed into the field of morals or ethics, and hence one would expect to be offered a theory of ethics as a cognitive discipline in order for them to legitimately do what they are doing and to justifiably derive the conclusion that they actually derive. But it can hardly be stressed enough that nowhere in the public goods theory literature can there be found anything that even faintly resembles such a cognitive theory of ethics. Thus it must be stated at the outset, that the public goods theorists are misusing whatever prestige they might have as positive economists for pronouncements on matters on which, as their own writings indicate, they have no authority whatsoever. Perhaps, though, they have stumbled on something correct by accident, without supporting it with an elaborate moral theory? It becomes apparent that nothing could be further from the truth as soon as one explicitly formulates the norm that would be needed to arrive at the above-mentioned conclusion about the state’s having to assist in the provision of public goods. The norm required to reach the above conclusion is this: whenever it can somehow be proven that the production of a particular good or service has a positive effect on someone but would not be produced at all, or would not be produced in a definite quantity or quality unless others participated in its financing, then the use of aggressive violence against these persons is allowed, either directly or indirectly with the help of the state, and these persons may be forced to share in the necessary financial burden. It does not need much comment to show that chaos would result from implementing this rule, as it amounts to saying that everyone can aggress against everyone else whenever he feels like it.

how (not) to end war

2006-11-19T21:31:00.000-05:00

Skip M. Oliva reckons that N.Y. Rep. Charles Rangel is trying to enslave American youth under the pretense of helping avoid war, with Rangel's recent bill to reintroduce a national service draft that will indiscriminately target youth of all stripes and persuasions. Per Rangel's tortured logic, politicians would think twice before declaring war since their own relatives will be at risk of conscription.

Skip offers some evidence for his suspicion of Rangel's ulterior motive:

[Rangel] said having a draft would not necessarily mean everyone called to duty would have to serve. Instead, "young people (would) commit themselves to a couple of years in service to this great republic, whether it's our seaports, our airports, in schools, in hospitals," with a promise of educational benefits at the end of service.

Where Señor Oliva doesn't actually finish the complete analysis of Rangel's national enslavement bill, I will.

A. The bill won't accomplish what it is set to; in this case to end the drive for war, since the "national service" draft contains such a broad category of possibilities, giving politicians the peace of mind they need to kill other people's children when their own loved one's will be strategically positioned somewhere in the relative safety of National Guard duties :cough: Bush :cough: or some cushy desk job at the National Propaganda Agency.

B. As a few Mises commenters point out, you don't fight the war machine by enabling easier access to unwilling labor assets.

C. As Tarran brilliantly writes there--

If you want to give pause to those who wish to start unpopular wars, the answer is not to force people into the military, but to allow those already in the military to leave more easily!

After all, if my employer orders me to go to my competitors offices and break their legs as they come in for work, I don't have to do it, I can say "cheerio" and quit. Soldiers aren't given that option (in fact they are threatened with death for attempting to quit).

Let's give them that option. I think something like changing the rules so that any soldier can quit, anytime, and they get evacuated after the wounded (if the exigencies of the fighting permit), are transferred to the U.S, and honourably discharged.
Thus, every soldier who risks his or her life would not be doing it because they feel they have no choice, but because they feel the risk is worth it. It would blunt the U.S. government's abilities to conduct offensive operations, but would enhance the U.S. government's ability to conduct defensive operations (should the warlike Canadians ever decide invade us).

Thus we can safely concur with Señor Oliva and conclude that congresscritter Rangel is not looking to end war, but rather sneak involuntary servitude over the great, brainwashed hoi polloi.

RIP Milton Friedman

2006-11-17T13:26:00.000-05:00

Of the thirty or so articles I've parsed so far, the most lingering and salient point I've gleaned from Milton's life-long (sometimes inconsistent) struggle for individual freedom, is this:

"In the 1970s, he was a leading advocate for the abolition of the military draft. At one hearing, Friedman became annoyed with a general who likened those in an all-volunteer military to ``mercenaries.'' Friedman told the general that if he insisted on using that term, he would liken draftees to ``slaves.'' The general made a rhetorical retreat."

With his razor-sharp wits at his beck and heed, Milton was certainly nobody's monkey.

frist [born] post

2006-11-13T23:11:00.000-05:00

It is with great pride and pleasure that I announce to all the finest denizens of the interwebs the birth of my first child, a son.

A special shout-out of gratitude goes out to BK Marcus for all his [unsolicited] advice which is greatly appreciated, as well as the cute baby gifts he sent us.

perspective matters

2006-10-17T10:21:00.000-04:00

After reading Ken MacLeod's latest book, Learning the World, I found it that it's not exactly what I'd consider a page-turner. However I can relate that his novel took a fresh approach to the old "humans make alien contact" storyline, by presenting it mostly from the POV of the non-homo sapiens.

What makes this book interesting is that MacLeod switches the usual positions of the "us and them", in that the aliens of the novel are us humans, while the aliens being visited are referred to as the humans.

By reversing the positions, MacLeod's story cleverly presents the homo-sapien intergalactic travelers as aliens to the readers, which is made all the more-so believable because their behavior and culture is seen as strange, so distant, and alien to us.

The society of the non-homo sapiens on the other hand, aside from their physical differences, can be easily related to by the reader, because their society is rife with war, slavery, government tyranny, etc. In that sense, the reader is being presented with a subtle slap in the face, perhaps awakening him to see that the values and ideas that most people today consider the virtue of civilization are in fact quite barbaric and uncivilized.

bruce lemmon

2006-10-06T17:30:00.000-04:00

In what must be flattery, who would you guess served as inspiration to actor Jim Carrey's manic character roles?

Now call me crazy, but I'm willing to bet it was Jack Lemmon after recently watching The Apartment. Also starring Shirley MacLaine as Fran the elevator woman, it's about the life of a lowly actuary named C.C. Baxter, played by Lemmon, who is constantly cajoled into lending the use of his apartment to his higher-ups in the company because he can't turn them down.

At first I found it eerie in how similar his body language was to that of Jim Carrey, but I was blown away when he uttered to Fran "That's the way the cookie crumbles" (the trademark phrase have you, from Bruce Almightly starring none other than Jim Carrey.) If that wasn't enough, Fran later says "I guess that's the way it crumbles, cookie-wise".

I guess it could all just be some screenwriters joke on ol' Jim though, but I'd like to think that he was in on the laugh. Come to think about it, they even look alike as evidenced in the picture below.

bar none

2006-10-06T13:51:00.000-04:00

In response to the constant complain of late-night noise and rowdy drunks, the NY State Liquor Authority, which oversees the issue of liquor licenses has declared a heavy-handed moratorium against the issue of new licenses to any establishment located within a 500 foot vicinity of any other watering hole. This surprise edict has even affected longtime operators who amidst a relocation have found they can no longer serve alcoholic beverages at their new joint.

While this policy will certain bring financial ruin to many an unfortunate business owner, it is hoped that use of this back-door tool of withholding licenses will help the government solve the noise problems and other neighborhood disturbances caused by late-night revelers making their woozy way home at 2 AM.

I'd like to commend and quote an excellent comment made by an astute individual on a Gothamist post on this topic:

It's the noise and riff-raff that's a problem, not the bars or the booze they serve. Young fools pack into these bars like sardines, and cutting the number of liquor licenses is only going to make the existing places even MORE unbearable than they already are. And they are pretty freaking unbearable already.

Welcome my friend to the world of wacky intervention.

paper shackles

2006-10-04T09:49:00.000-04:00

Is a contract anything more than the mere semblence of colored atoms contrasted against the surface of another medium, designed in a fashion in which it contains arranged patterns recognizable to humans as the expression of inscrutable thought elements?

If that is so, can we still posit existant duties and enforcability consistent with libertarian application of justice for contracts, whether penned or merely verbally expressed?

I like to think that a contract derives it economic power from the market process, and not from the terms of enforcability and that this would be likewise true of the bonding companies which would serve to protect a system of free contracting.

An individual or firm who failed to meet their contractual duties and/or the bonding company which failed to remunerate the damaged parties would be quickly put out of business.

This is not to say that there could be no foundational ethic to support the rights and enforcabilty measures, but rather one should not have to posit the existence of contractual rights in order to uphold the ideal of free contracting.

Overall I'd like to think that the libertarian justice system can sleep securely, while the benign king of "good will" reigns as the final arbiter over civilzed society.