Year: 2012

The Rationality of Anti-Antisemitism; The Currency Issue Made Simple

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, History, Liberty , , , , , , , , , ,

The most interesting thing I have read in years about anti-Semitism is in the Wall Street Journal today. A poll in Europe indicates that 50% of Spaniards have a somewhat unfavorable, or a very unfavorable impression of Jews. The percentage in Germany is 25, in France it’s 20, in the UK, it’s 10. There are large number so Jews in France and in the UK.

What makes Spanish anti-Antisemitism interesting is that there are no Jews to speak off in Spain. All Spanish Jews were expelled from the country in 1492. The bulk of those who did not die in the expulsion went to the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire were they were welcomed by the Sultan. Others scattered around Muslim North Africa and Italy. Until WWII, many Turkish and Balkans Jews spoke 15th century Spanish. I knew a Spanish-speaking Turkish Jew at Stanford in the sixties myself. His last name was Cardona.

Between 1939 and the 1970s, the Fascist regime of Francisco Franco promoted a brand of Catholicism that was unfriendly to Jews, as “Christ killers.” For most of the intervening period the Inquisition promised to make life miserable enough for Jews that they did not come back.

So, here you go: The ultimate judgment on the rationality of anti-Antisemitism: The less the chance that you ever met a Jew, the more likely you dislike Jews. At least, that’s true in Europe. Continue reading →

Homicide and the State

Jacques Delacroix Liberty , , , , , ,

I am one of the hundreds of thousands, possibly of millions of conservatives with strong libertarian leanings. Incidentally, I am not just talking, I showed it in several things I wrote and published. (Please, ask me.) There are several things however that prevent me from stating unambiguously that I am a libertarian, and much less, a Libertarian.

Of the two main philosophical obstacles the first is the mainstream libertarians’ barely concealed pacifism. I deal with this issue in several postings in factsmatter.wordpress.com that include the name “Paul” in their title (I also have objections to Ron Paul, the politician, another topic treated in some of the same postings.) My second problem is that it seems to me that serious libertarians have not dealt adequately with the central issue of the state as peacemaker.

Let me say before I proceed that it may well be the case that I am simply exposing my ignorance, that the subject has been examined by many good minds and that I have simply not come across their efforts. There might even be forums where the issue is discussed frequently and about which I am ignorant because of my bad habit of spending a lot of time watching French television series. And by the way, I propose (forcefully) the following rule: No one must give anyone a reading assignment if he/she has not even done the assignment. Don’t tell me to read what you have not read thoroughly yourself!

Now back to the state as peacemaker. Continue reading →

Immigration: More on Conservative, Liberal Ignorance

Jacques Delacroix Liberty

I have heard conservative radio talk-show callers express indignation at immigrants who don’t “become American citizens,” as if it showed ill-will on the part of the immigrants, or lack of love for America.

These calls demonstrate a basic lack of understanding of our immigration laws. First, you have to become a legal immigrant (get the famous “green card”). Most foreigners cannot qualify for this in any way. The doors to this country are not wide open. (See below.) For those who are allowed to apply, it takes time and patience, unusually so, because the Immigration and Naturalization Service is one of the worst, least responsive of Federal bureaucracies. Then, once you are legal, you have to wait four to seven years to apply for citizenship. This arduous process leaves little room for ill-will. It’s exhausting and discouraging.

I have also heard many indignant liberals (liberals are almost constantly indignant or “appalled”) make statements implying that American immigration laws discriminate on the basis of race. They do, but not the way liberals think. In fact, it’s extraordinarily difficult for a European (most European are “white” in American classification) to emigrate to this country. There are reasons I don’t want to go into here though I will on demand. The numbers show unambiguously that people from Latin America or Asia are admitted legally in several times the numbers of Europeans. Of course, federal legislation considers almost all Latin Americans and all Asians in this country as “protected minorities.” This means that they deserve special treatment because they were historically oppressed by reason of their race.

Don’t blame me or conservatives in general for the stupidity of the relevant federal laws. They are entirely the handiwork of liberal opinion. Be it as it may, here is the summary: If you are “brown” or “yellow” your chances of coming here legally are slim. If you are “white,” your chances are practically nil.

If you find all this hard to believe, please take a little trip to the Statistical Abstract of the United States. It’s readily available on-line and easy to read.

Much of our political debate in this country is wasted because people are ill-informed of the issues about which they feel strongly. There is no excuse for this situation. Obtaining info used to be arduous; it used to require specialized skills. Not anymore.

Legal Immigration: Two Fallacies

Jacques Delacroix Liberty

I keep hearing conservative commentators contrasting legal immigrants with illegal immigrants as if the former where civilized, orderly people while the latter were queue-jumpers. This is based on a big, significant misunderstanding of our immigration laws. Let me make fairly simple a fairly complicated matter.

The average Irish school teacher say,  has approximately zero opportunity to emigrate legally to the US. Let me say this again; the operational word is “zero.”  I say approximately because he my yet win the lottery. I don’t mean this figuratively but literally. There is a lottery for would-be immigrants from areas of the world that have not contributed many immigrants to the US recently. The areas included are spread over Africa and western Europe. It’s exactly a lottery: You get a (free) ticket; if your number comes up and you are not otherwise barred, you are it. A very small number world-wide is admitted through the lottery.

Legal admissions to this country normally occurs through a combination of political asylum, decreed by Congress every so often on a country by country basis (Cuba, si, Haiti, no),  selection of individuals whose skills and talents are deemed useful to American society, and “family re-unification.” The latter is by far the most important, numerically. The skills-based admission quota is so small that in recent years, it was filled during the first half of the first day when applications opened. Our Irish school-teacher does not belong to one of the desired categories anyway. Continue reading →

Bizarre Conservative Ideas About Immigration

Jacques Delacroix Politics

I have told several people on the Internet that Gov. Perry was inaccurate in calling Social Security (SS) a “Ponzi scheme.” That’s because what’s morally and also legally objectionable in a Ponzi scheme is that sooner or later the scheme runs out of late investors, or rather, investments, to pay off early investors. Whether SS will so run out depends entirely on two things: 1 Whether fewer late investors may provide large investments to pay off early investors. This may even happen painlessly given high economic growth. 2 Whether there will be many more late investors in SS than mechanically (dumbly) prolonging demographic trends would predict.

The US population may rise much faster than it is now growing through natural increase, including through natural increase fomented by deliberate economic measures. Or the American population may rise suddenly and healthily because our immigration policy is transformed. This could happen overnight and the beneficial effects on SS could be nearly instantaneous. Let me concentrate on this scenario.

Imagine that Congress and the President (not this one, maybe another) decide to admit each year for ten years 100,000 additional healthy and literate foreigners age 20 to 35. Solid research suggests that such a selective opening of borders might aggravate unemployment initially but that it would shortly spur economic growth. The effect of adding one million new people in the best of their working years over ten years would make the fear that we are running out of workers to support the non-working population considerably less relevant. Of course, I am selecting the low number of 100,000 per year deliberately to avoid causing panic without a name. (Numbers admitted legally each year in recent years were about 1,1 million.) In fact, there is no obvious reason why the new immigration could not comprise 200,000, or even 500,000 people annually. Certainly there are sufficient reservoirs of potential immigrants worldwide to achieve such numbers.

My monitoring of talk-show radio leads me to suspect that many conservatives think that if this could happen it would already have happened. This misconception in turn is rooted in the bizarre ideas conservatives tend to entertain with respect to our immigration system.

There are two main bizarre ideas: One regards who is allowed to come into this country (legally, I mean); the other strange misconception has to do with how aliens become US citizens.

The system by which the US admits immigrants is a little complicated and its description relied on a specialized legal jargon. In my considerable experience, few people have the patience to sit through a lecture on American immigration policy. So, let me cut to the chase:

There is no way, zero way, the average married Mexican can legally immigrate into this country.

There is only one way the average married Irish man or woman may immigrate into this country: Winning a lottery. In 2008, only about 48,000 people, all from Europe and Africa, gained admission on the basis of winning that lottery.

That’s it, folks. If you want to know more about the raw numbers, study the relevant pages in the Statistical Abstract of the US.

So, contrary to what I suspect is a widespread idea among conservatives, it is not the case that there is an orderly, wide-open legal way to immigrate into this country that illegal immigrants perversely ignore. Illegal immigrants are not rudely jumping to the head of the line; they come in trough a side-door we don’t seem able to close.

Instead of the present  admission policies (plural)  based on viciously absurd selection we have, we could take a page from the Australian and from the Canadian playbooks. That is, we could coolly decide what kind of immigrants we want and tailor a door to those precise dimensions. Presently, we are doing very little of this, however unbelievable it may sound.

Incidentally, I am a product of a rational immigration policy myself.  I was admitted on merit alone. I rest my case!

On to the next misconstrued idea: In fact, in reality, to be allowed to become a US citizen, to take American citizenship, requires several years of residence in this country after being legally admitted.

Hence, personal preference plays little role in determining which immigrant does not become a US citizen. I don’t have the numbers but I am sure that, as a rule, the vast majority of legal immigrants adopt American citizenship shortly after they are legally empowered to do so. It is true that, in theory, some hesitation, some problems may arise in connection with some countries of origin who do not wish to recognize dual nationality. In practice, depriving anyone of his passport is low on the list of priorities of all countries from which new US citizens originate.

The consequence of this scenario is that, contrary to what I think is a widespread notion, there is no horde of legal immigrants living in this country and peevishly and disloyally refusing to take American citizenship.

It also follows that there is no mass of illegal immigrants who obstinately refuse American citizenship. It’s not available to them, period.

If follows from these simple observations that with simple changes in the laws governing immigration, you can modify profoundly the prospects of SS. Conservatives have given this solution essentially not consideration. Yet, contemplating significant policy changes is more dignified and more in line with conservative seriousness than are gross and self-defeating exaggerations as employed by Governor Perry.

Incidentally, at this point, hours before the third Republican debate, I would vote for Perry.

If you want more thinking material about immigration, there is a direct link on this blog to my co-authored article on immigration published in The Independent Review: “If Mexicans and Americans….”

Atlas Shrugged Part II

Warren Gibson Current Events, Liberty, Politics , , ,

I got around to seeing the movie this morning along with about ten other folk. I was reminded of why I don’t go to movie theaters: they’re run by sadists who like to torment people with a quarter hour of promos following the advertised starting time, meat-locker temperatures and ear-splitting sound. I didn’t bring my wife knowing she couldn’t have endured the torment but I’ll get the DVD later.

So, what of the movie? Quite good, mostly. The screenplay is faithful to the novel, thanks, no doubt, to David Kelley. The special effects, notably the tunnel disaster and the airplane chase and crash, are powerful. I wasn’t bothered by the change to an all-new cast. Rearden’s trial was done well. The acting, however, is mixed. Rearden is good and the bad guys are good but Dagny, who is really the central character, was a disappointment. She looked almost bored as she piloted her plane toward what increasingly looked like death. Only later did she crank up the intensity.

Just a couple of nits: two men can’t lift a concrete railroad tie. Galt tells Dagny not to move because she’s hurt and then extends a hand to drag her out of the wrecked plane. A few others but nothing substantial, really.

I give it 3.5 stars out of 4, but I’m sure the critics won’t agree. It looks like the movie will follow Part I into oblivion, sad to say. One only hopes that DVD sales will pick up and that it will enjoy the same sort of underground success that the novel enjoyed following its scathing reviews.

Power and Happiness (President Obama in India)

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Economics , , , , , ,

There is widespread confusion around between two ideas that should be easy to separate from each other. I keep bumping into it. I had several lengthy discussions of it with strangers on Facebook. Some were of the left, some of the right. I found it in my morning paper under the pen of no less than columnist David Brooks of the New York Times (“Midwest at Dusk”11/7/1)).

I refer to the confusion between the happiness of a country’s citizens and the country’s standing in the world. David Brooks wrote:

“If America can figure out how to build a decent future for the working-class people in this (mid-Atlantic) region, then the US will remain a predominant power. If it can’t, it won’t.”

Like this.

President Obama’s post- “shellacking” visit to India is a good time to clear the confusion.

It may be that there is some sort of connection between the happiness of a country’s citizens (or some) and being a “predominant power.” It may be but it’s far from obvious. You would have to demonstrate it. It would be hard; casual evidence does not support the idea. Deeper research does not either. Continue reading →

Illegal Immigration: Bad Faith and Mental Confusion

Jacques Delacroix Politics , , , ,

When I have insomnia, I watch the news and news commentaries in a language other than English. Looking at the same object from different angles makes you smarter, I think. So, the less I sleep, the smarter I become, and the smarter you become, indirectly (to a very small extent, I realize).

Early in the morning, there is a long interactive discussion about immigration on Univisión’s “Despierta America “(“Wake up America”) First comes a badly illustrated, falsely descriptive jeremiad by a Hispanic immigration advocate. He is what I called in academia, a “professional Mexican.” I don’t know what he is getting at. He is not doing anything useful. He only perpetuates a sort of 1970s exploitation narrative that does not even make me feel young. The advocate complains bitterly of course, that today or yesterday, several hundred illegal immigrants, presumably all with a rap-sheet, have been gathered nationwide for deportation. The charming and beautiful anchorpersons play along. Everybody refers to “immigration.” No one ever says, “illegal” immigration or even “undocumented” immigrants. Next comes an immigration lawyer. He takes questions on-air from callers who want help to fix their status as people who entered this country illegally, some, several times. Still, there is no reference to illegal immigration in general; the topic is still simply “immigration.” The show remains on “immigration, “ no qualifier. It makes you wonder if there are any people from Spanish-speaking countries of the Western Hemisphere who ever entered this country legally.

The confusion between immigrant and illegal immigrant in this largest of Spanish-language television networks in the whole world, Univisión, constitutes a massive exercise in collective bad faith. It’s not going to help in the next political stage. No wonder conservative stay pissed off. No wonder their anger at illegal Hispanic immigrants sometimes comes to resemble anger at Hispanics in general.

Speaking of conservatives and of their distaste for illegal immigration, it does not help that they are confused on several important points. The fact that this country does not seem to be able to control its borders, the fact that its official immigration policies do not serve our interests, that’s all bad enough. We, conservatives, don’t need, in addition, to entertain and to propagate false notions of the burden immigrants, legal and illegal impose of us.

First, let me repeat that immigrants earn slightly more money on the average than the native-born. In our economic system, this means straightforwardly that immigrants contribute more, on the average than the native-born. Second, there is a widespread idea that illegal immigrants (illegal) consume government services while they don’t pay taxes. However common this belief, it does not withstand the most superficial examination. Here is why: It’s probably true that illegals avoid paying the federal income tax and also what state income taxes there are. That would be because they fear that filing government paper entails a risk of detection and of deportation. They routinely exaggerate the risk but it’s understandable.

Illegal immigrants however cannot avoid any indirect taxes or most other taxes, be they property taxes (that support schools), sale taxes, or excise taxes, including both federal and state tax on fuels. You might think that’s not much until you remember that 46 or 47 % of Americans do not pay any federal income tax. It’s likely that the % of Americans not paying state income tax is identical or, even higher. Thus, only illegal immigrants who situate themselves somewhere near the top 50% income bracket or within it would have to pay income tax at all if they filed. How many can that be? Think it through, don’t dismiss the thought out of hand.

What am I telling you?

It’s likely that illegal immigrant pay something close to their normal share of all taxes. I mean of the taxes they would have to pay if they were legal immigrants or US citizens. Not worth getting into a tizzy over, I say!

I know I have not dealt with payroll taxes, including taxes that support Social Security and Medicare. It’s likely that, by and large, illegal immigrants don’t pay those either. Reason is fear of detection again (see above). I know what you mean. I am with you. I wish they would pay those, right now, or at least, tomorrow. Please, follow through with this thought also. You will be amazed.

Bad faith, intellectual dishonesty on the one side; utter confusion fed by angry indignation on the other. It does not look good unless some conservatives will come to their senses. (Hint: The Wall Street Journal does a good job on the topic of immigration but it’s doing it so quietly hardly anyone is paying attention.)

PLEASE, THINK OF FORWARDING TO YOUR CONSERVATIVE FRIENDS.

The Year is 1534, and…

Brandon Christensen Books, History , , , , ,

…a great deal of Spanish conquistadores are trying to cut up Mexico into personal spheres of wealth and property.  I am reading Robert S. Chamberlain’s 1966 book The Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan, 1517-1550, and so far what I have gleaned from it has been great.  Check out this passage:

“Attempted conquest with small numbers and insufficient support for expeditions […] were the result of overconfidence on the part of [the would-be conquistadores…] They had a total misconception of the character of many of the Maya.  [Two of the conquistadores] had seen a few Spaniards destroy Montezuma’s imposing empire and bring it under the yoke.  They were firmly convinced of the invincibility of their arms in face of any odds, and, underestimating the determination and military capacity of the Maya, they believed they could easily be subjugated.

Furthermore, until it was too late, [the conquistadores] failed to understand that many caciques gave fealty only as a temporary expedient, and that they intended to appeal to arms at the first opportunity […] Many mistakes could have been avoided had the [conquistadores] accurately appraised the character of the people with whom he had to deal.”

Now, since the writing of Chamberlain’s book, new statistics and revision of the historical account of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire (referred to by specialists as the Triple Alliance rather than the Aztec Empire) has fleshed out his writings.  Instead of a handful of Spaniards that brought down the Triple Alliance, it was a combination of Spanish forces and tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of indigenous soldiers from rival states that crushed the Triple Alliance.  The vast majority of the indigenous soldiers were commanded by indigenous military officers. Continue reading →

Big Horrors, Small Horrors

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Politics , , ,

“Militia” members guided by official Syrian “security” forces massacre civilians in their houses.They use both tanks and knives. About fifty of the civilians – all terrorist opponents of the Assad regime, of course –  are children under ten. The response of nine rich countries including the US is severe: They call in the Syrian ambassadors, Assad’s buddies all, and they tell them severely to pack up and leave. No ifs and buts; teach the child-killers a lesson; the bastards will get the message now! Every one of those countries has an air force capable of destroying all Syrian tanks within three weeks.

Not so long ago, Arabs of all provenances were infiltrating into Iraq though Syria, precisely. They were on their way to kill the American oppressors who had destroyed that great assassin, the mass murderer of Arabs, Saddam Hussein. Where are the Arab volunteers now infiltrating Syria to go and protect Arab children from Assad’s slaughterers? If I were an Arab man from any country today, I would be dying of shame. Or I would consider donning the hijab. Here is a question: If the violent jihadists could do it, enter Syria clandestinely, why can’t you?

I am repeating myself, I know: When Arabs massacre Arabs it’s not so bad, right?

And, by the way, the silence of the Israeli political class regarding the atrocities next door wins Israel no friends I would guess. Continue reading →

Race in America Right Now

Jacques Delacroix Politics , , , , , ,

I live in Northern California where Indian restaurant food and French restaurant food taste alike. That’s because the first is Mexican Indian food and the second is Mexican French food. All the cooks are Mexican. That’s an interesting economic fact. That’s not the whole story by a long shot. America is a great country where menial jobs have for generations led to entrepreneurship and in time, to dignified economic independence. So, Mexican cooks sometimes become Mexican-American restaurant owners.

In my town, there are dozens of Mexican restaurants and taco places. One full-fare restaurant stands among all others. It’s located downtown. It’s spacious and clean. The food there is reasonably good and moderately priced. The restaurant is also perfectly organized for the kind of fare it serves. Scarcely more than five minutes elapse between the moment you place your order and the moment it’s brought to your table. The table is cleaned within one minute of your leaving it so that the next customer does not have to wait.

This Mexican restaurant does not belong to a junior college drop-out, aging surfer as is often the case around here. It was launched and it is staffed by Mexicans immigrants and by their grown children and their buddies. You might say that it’s a great American entrepreneurial ship with a wholly Mexican crew.

One day, I noticed there an old Chinese man bent over a broom, laboriously sweeping the restaurant’s floor. Continue reading →

Language and Informational Prisons: The Case of Arabic

Jacques Delacroix Current Events , , , , , , , , ,

What language you are born into matters. It matters because it’s a means of communication and it matters even more because it’s a kind of soft prison. I regularly turn off the French language media because I become cumulatively irritated at the number of absurd statements I hear coming out of the mouths of presumably university-educated French newsmen and newswomen. There are fewer absurd affirmations in the news in this English-speaking country simply because good information is more abundant in English than it is in French.

We are used to believing that whoever is intelligent is also well informed. The reverse, we know, is not true. There are plenty of people who accumulate information and who are perfect fools. The best way I have heard it put is from an anonymous author played recently on my local radio station (KSCO Santa Cruz 1080 AM): Being aware of the fact that a tomato is a fruit is to be well-informed; to abstain from putting tomatoes in a fruit salad is to be wise!

The assumption that intelligent people are automatically well informed is so general that when we come across someone who is obviously intelligent but ill-informed we study him like an infinitely interesting creature. I have known several people like that in my life. They drove me crazy. One I know now, is smarter than I, I suspect but nearly everything he believes to be true is false. My friend has made a philosophical decision not to have any electronic media in his house. He usually carries a book. Over time, I have come to suspect that he does not read very well, that he is dyslexic (whatever that means) or something like that. In general, we don’t think enough of this rare case: The ignorant intelligent person. Continue reading →

Around the Web: Nobel Prize Edition

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Economics, Links , , , , , , ,

I just got three of them.

  1. Why we need to separate the central bank from the monetary authority.
  2. “Market Design”
  3. Noble Matching.

Maybe one of our in-house economists can share their thoughts on the award this year as well…

An Afternoon Fog

Brandon Christensen Liberty ,

Sometimes the fog from the beach

Keeps the sunlight out of my windows

During the weekends

I get to sleep in until

My roommate, a gay doctor,

Starts to crash about the apartment Continue reading →

Ron Paul and the American Right

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Politics , , , , , , ,

It boils down to foreign policy. President Obama has proved more competent than Bush in this area, but being a more competent beehive whacker does not take a whole hell of a lot of work. Most of Rep. Paul’s domestic policy proposals would have to go through that beautiful, awe-inspiring labyrinth of constitutional checks-and-balances created by the Founding Fathers of this great republic. However, Presidents have much more leeway when it comes to foreign policy. This is something that Ron Paul has talked about checking, but it is also something that could convince independents on the Left to vote for Ron Paul.

Think about it: he would (unfortunately) have a tough time getting some of his domestic policy proposals passed, but as President he commands the military, and he wants to bring our troops home.

My main concern upon writing this little blurb is the Right’s reluctance to embrace Ron Paul’s foreign policy of freedom, commerce, and honest friendship. The following is meant to convince those of you on the Right who would otherwise vote for Ron Paul if it weren’t for his foreign policy views.

The reluctance on the Right to yield to both superior reasoning and common sense on the issue of American foreign policy stems from three basic points: Continue reading →