Current Events

How I Know What I Know. How Do You Know What You Know?

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Politics , , ,

Everyday life requires me to make decisions about many topics. In most cases, I have either a superficial understanding of the issue or no understanding at all. Yet, I manage and I have always managed, somehow.

The problem of my ignorance becomes even more acute when it comes to making the simplest of political decisions such as choosing to support a candidate against all other choices. To decide who I want to be President of the United States, I would have to know a great deal about arcane details of the political process, macro-economics, foreign policy, and the conditions in a dozen countries, at least.

Even today, when the Internet has made much knowledge enormously more accessible than it was only a few short years ago, those tasks are daunting. For one thing, there is the issue of specialized language, jargon one must tackle in every field of knowledge. Why, I don’t even know the language of the insurance companies on which my safety and my health rely! Continue reading →

The UN vote on Palestinian Question: Some Comments

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Law , , ,

Recently the UN voted to make the Palestinian territories as a “non-member observer state,” rather than a “non-member observer entity.” The vote was 73% to 5% with 22% abstaining.

As I’ve previously noted, I think the UN is a now-worthless organization, and CNN gives a good interpretation of the facts on the ground here if you’re interested.

My own take on this vote is scrambled, so bear with me as I lay it out here.

The Israelis have objected to this vote because they argue that the Palestinians are trying to forego direct negotiations with the Israelis. This is a fair objection.

However, the Israelis often argue that their state was legitimized when the UN voted in favor of a 1947 partition plan (the vote was 72% to 13% with 15% abstaining). That is to say, there were no direct negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians when the partition of Palestine was being drafted by the UN.

Much of the property owned by Jews in Israel today was acquired legally.

I think that the UN move by the Palestinians is a good one for two reasons:

  1. It gave the Israelis a taste of their own medicine by applying their own legal logic against them.
  2. It follows an ingenious tactic that the Israelis recently unveiled with the inclusion of expelled Jews from Arab states during the wars in the middle of last century.

To conclude, I favor a one state solution. I don’t like the idea of defining states in terms of religious or ethnic denominations, but I think the two-state solution is a good one to pursue for the time being. Both sides are guilty of practicing diplomacy in bad faith, but I have to hand it to the Palestinians on this one. It’s a stroke of genius.

Secession within the EU?

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

While I’m on the topic of secession, I thought I’d point readers to the upcoming vote in Catalonia to see if they want to secede from Spain. Central to my arguments for secession is the role that new states would have within a broader free trade zone (like the U.S. or the E.U.). For Catalonia, the British paper Telegraph reports:

Catalonia wants to collect its own taxes, to control how they are spent and it seems prepared to break away from Spain to do so.

But with a clear road map yet to be outlined the process of separating from Spain promises to be burdened with hurdles.

While Catalans prize their role as citizens of Europe, EU officials have warned that membership of the union won’t be automatic. Instead Catalonia would have to gain admission, joining the queue of a list of new European nations seeking membership, and the process would likely be blocked by a vengeful Spain.

This is key to not only Catalonia’s success, but also the success of secessionist movements everywhere. If regions within current states want independence, they have to be sure to not confuse political independence with economic independence. The latter will only lead to poverty. I highlight this point because new states formed during the beginning of the post-colonial revolution of the 60’s and 70s thought that economic independence was the key to liberty. How wrong they were. Continue reading →

The Case for More States in Africa? Anarchy, State or Utopia?

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Law, Liberty , , , , , , , ,

Yes please! There is an old article in the Atlantic arguing that more states are just what Africa needs, and I’d like to highlight why I think more states are a good thing, and at the same time pick up Dr. Delacroix’s argument on states and libertarianism from a little while back and explain why I think that more states are a good thing and why Dr. Delacroix doesn’t really understand libertarian thought.

Now, I know more states seems at first glance to be a counterintuitive position for a libertarian to take, but upon second glance I hope to show you why this isn’t true.

First up, from the Atlantic‘s article:

The idea that Africa suffers from too few secessionist campaigns, too few attempts to carve a few large nations into many smaller ones, flies in the face of conventional wisdom. One of the truisms of African politics is that traditional borders, even when bequeathed by colonizers without the least sympathy for African political justice, ought to be respected. The cult of colonial borders has been a cornerstone not only of diplomacy between African nations but of the assistance programs of foreign governments and multinational non-governmental organizations.

I’ve pointed this out from a number of different angles previously here on the blog, so I don’t want to delve too deeply into this, but the article, written by a professor of journalism at Arizona State, has more: Continue reading →

Around the Web: “I’m Stuffed” Edition

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

I’m so full from food and dessert it’s not even funny. I’m back home in NorCal, too. I hope your holiday has been everything that mine has and more.

  1. Immigration: Giant low-hanging fruit.
  2. Have you ever heard of Opera, the browser? I have, and I tried it out at one point, but Google’s Chrome is where its at. Anyway, Opera is the most used browser in Belarus…and no where else. Find out why, in the Atlantic.
  3. Some literary history. From FEE.
  4. China in Revolt.
  5. Contra #4, Hayek in China.

Happy holidays to you all, and tell your moms I said ‘hi’!

 

Methodological Individualism

Brandon Christensen Books, Current Events, Economics, Links

That’s the title to co-blogger Warren Gibson’s latest piece in the Freeman. I wish I could copy and paste the whole thing, but you’ll have to settle for this juicy tidbit:

Let’s start with what methodological individualism is not.  It has nothing to do with “rugged individualism.”  It is not ideology at all.  It is a term that describes the essential nature of human thought and action.  It is a bedrock principle on which Mises grounds his entire exposition of economics.

“The Hangman, not the state, executes a criminal.”  This is Mises’s pithy summary of methodological individualism […]

When we think about the hangman from the point of view of praxeology (Mises’s name for the science of human action) we are not concerned with the social or psychological factors that may have influenced his action, nor the neural firings in his brain, nor the musculoskeletal actions in his arm.  We are simply observing that actions are always initiated and carried out by individuals and are always motivated by the individual’s expectation of being better off as a result of the chosen action rather than some alternative.

Do read the whole thing.

Israelis Deliberately Slaughter Palestinian Civilians; Assad Cool!

Jacques Delacroix Current Events , ,

As I write, the Israeli Air Force has killed almost twenty Gazans including an important terrorist leader. It did this as a part of its never-ending self-defense against terrorism emanating from Gaza. I wouldn’t be surprised if the number of Gazan dead rose to near one hundred in a short time.

In the past, Israel exchanged hundreds of Palestinian prisoners for one Israeli captive. Once it was against the corpse of an Israeli. The same sort of strange arithmetic prevails with respect to the civilian victims of Israeli military action, according to world-wide liberal opinion. Collateral killings of Arabs by Israeli Jews are unspeakable atrocities. When Arabs deliberately target and massacre Arabs though it’s not really so bad, not really. Mark my word, it will take only days, if not hours, for the liberal media to treat the twenty, or the hundred victims, of Israeli action as more reprehensible than President Assad 20,000 ( and counting).

Look again: 100/20,000.

It’s pretty clear anyway that Arabs killed by other Arabs just get up and dust themselves off when the cameras are gone.

I hope the new Islamist government of Egypt understands that any Israeli government will nuke parts of Egypt rather than see Israel, the state, and even more importantly, its population, seriously threatened. I am not confident that it does understand. Islamists are a parochial lot (ah, ah!) with feet firmly planted in the seventh century. I fear their ignorant, bellicose fantasies. Continue reading →

Around the Web

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Links
  1. Ron Paul’s Farewell Speech to Congress.
  2. A decent briefing of the Israeli-Gaza conflict. I hope to have more on this in the near future. From the LA Times.
  3. Free Speech on Campus? Yeah right. Universities are some of the most reactionary places in a given society, and the free speech codes they have built up over the past 60 years plainly shows this bias. Quick thought: if universities are so reactionary, why are they dominated by hard Leftists? Gold star to anyone who ventures to answer this! From the WSJ.
  4. Old Soviet jokes become the new American reality. Written by an immigrant from the former Soviet Union. Take it with a pinch of salt, though…

Go Bruins!

Brandon Christensen Current Events , , , ,

That is all.

I’m originally from northern California, by way of Utah (long story: ask me about it sometime!), but I love Los Angeles! One of the world’s greatest cities.

In case you are wondering, UCLA’s football team just beat Southern Cal and won the division title in the nation’s toughest football conference. I don’t care what you say, but until I see some SEC teams come out West and play our boys, I’ll continue to argue that the West plays the best football in the country.

As for Southern Cal, well, there’s always basketball season…

Atomic Radiation and Mental Health

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Liberty, Religion , , ,

The average level of radiation to which inhabitants of the beautiful city of Denver  are exposed is .9 rem (zero point nine). The level of radiation in the hots spots around the damaged Fukushima nuclear reactor was .1 rem (zero point one).  Yes, it’s nine times lower near Fukushima than in Denver.

Denver residents concerned about the effects exposure to radiation have on their health should evidently have moved to the Japanese hot spots for greater safety, it seems to me. I hear the price of real estate plummeted in that area.

The first paragraph is drawn from “The Panic Over Fukushima” in the Review section of the Wall Street Journal of August 18 – 19 2012. The article is by Richard Muller, PhD,  a Professor of Physics at the University of California, Berkeley. (But what does he know?)

The cynical deduction in the second paragraph is mine, of course. Here are more.

Shouldn’t alarmists employ their high capacity for panic in connection with large and certain killers of people such as road accidents and the myriads of illnesses that unwashed hands cause?

How difficult is it to understand that nuclear energy is the cheapest and the safest alternative to poisonous coal emissions and to “blood for oil”? Yes, it’s that simple. Continue reading →

Around the Web

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Links , , , ,
  1. The Future of Freedom Foundation has revamped its website. Be sure to give those guys some love.
  2. Reason on the Israeli airstrikes in Gaza.
  3. For some reason I keep coming back to this blog. The writing is just superb.

Have a good weekend!

National Economic Systems: An Introduction for Intelligent Beginners – 3

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Economics, Liberty , ,

My Debt, your Debt and Future Poverty.

I told you in previous installments of this series of essays that we, in the USA, are not facing one economic crisis but two.

The fist crisis is a recession. It’s a common event in the long run of market economies. Recessions are defined by serious people (according to me) as two consecutive quarters or more of economic shrinkage. Recessions go away whether any government does anything about them or not. One school of thought (Keynesian), to which the Obama administration belongs, maintains that large government spending – stimulation- can lessen or shorten a recession. I argued that the Obama stimulus package of several months ago cannot possibly stimulate, even if you believe in the stimulation scenario.

The second crisis, by far the most serious, is the abnormally high debt the federal government has incurred since President Obama came to office. It disturbs me because the people, you and I, will have to pay interest on the debt for a long time, and eventually re-pay the principal. Else, the government will have to repay its debt in bad currency, in devalued or in eroded currency. If this happens, we will simply all be poorer, in real terms, If your dollar is worth half in ten years of what it is worth now, you will simply have to pay two dollars for what you buy today for one dollar. There is no reason to assume your income will automatically follow. This is a common fallacy (perhaps the topic for another essay): It takes about forty Indian rupees to buy a US dollar today and the same mountain bike that costs 400 US dollars in this country costs 600 US dollars in India. A good income in India would be 12,000 dollars per year. (That’s about twelve times the national average.)  Continue reading →

Le nouveau mandat d’Obama

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Politics

Selon ce que j’ai entendu à la télé française pendant la campagne, les Francais ont souvent du mal à comprendre le sytème électoral américain. Celui-ci est, à vrai dire, assez peu accessible à l’intuition.

Voici une précision sur l’élection présidentielles de 2012 qui aura échappé, je crois, à tous les commentateurs Francais. Obama l’a emporté en Floride, après un comptage épuisant, par 50% contre 49,15% seulement. Au plan national, Obama a gagné les élections de façon décisive avec 332 voix de grands électeurs contre 206. Cependant le proche examen du vote populaire impose une interprétation divergente du mandat que lui aura octroyé cette élection.

Un court article du Wall Street Journal du 14/11/12 fait observer qu’il aurait suffit de 333.000 votes supplémentaires pour Romney, répartis sur seulement trois états, pour que ce dernier l’emporte. Ceci pour un total de suffrages exprimés dépassant 120.000.000 (cent vingt millions), ou donc une proportion comme ceci: 333/120.000.

Je répète qu’Obama a indubitablement gagné. Cependant, il n’est pas possible de considérer sa victoire comme écrasante.

Ce fait explique en partie pourquoi beaucoup des conservateurs défaits par cette élection, moi y-compris, se prononcent déjà pour que le Parti Républicain se serve de sa majorité à la Chambre des Représentants pour faire de l’obstructionisme vis-à-vis des politiques fiscales à venir du président re-élu.

[Editor’s note: this essay first appeared on Dr. Delacroix’s blog, Facts Matter, on November 14th 2012]

Foldvary on the Concept of “Forward”

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Economics, History, Politics ,

Co-editor Fred Foldvary has an excellent post on the historical meaning of the Obama campaign’s choice of the word “Forward” as its political slogan. He writes:

The issue here is not about any political campaign, but the social concept of “forward.” Socialism is, first of all, a family of concepts. Some socialists seek greater statism, the control of society by the state. Other seek “social democracy,” whereby people vote on the major policy options. There are also socialists who seek to put the means of production, land as well as capital goods, in the hands of worker cooperatives.

Usually the “forward” thinkers seek, if not as an ultimate goal, then as the instrumental goal, a governmental control at least of the “commanding heights” of the economy: the financial system, the highways, education, medical care, and retirement pensions. Socialists seek strong controls on the remaining private production, and they also seek an equalization of wealth through a massive redistribution, with highly progressive taxation.

But the world has already experienced the results of “forward” policies in the failed economies of the old USSR, the China of the 1950s and 1960s, Cuba, North Korea, and Eastern Europe. The “forward” socialists seek a progression to the failed past. Of course they claim that their brand of socialism is different from that of the collapsed USSR, but the evidence of history reveals what was attempted in practice world-wide, even when it differs from hypothetical doctrines.

And this, too:

Instead of “forward,” a better metaphor may be “upwards.” Upward takes us to a higher place, and also to the origin of a flow such as a river. But how do we know which way is “up”?

Do read the whole thing, and what do you guys think of Dr. Foldvary’s suggestion of moving “upwards”?

National Economic Systems: An Introduction for Intelligent Beginners – 2

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

Part Two: Taxing the Rich.

I argue in Part One of this essay that the stimulus package could not possibly stimulate the economy the way a stimulus package is supposed to do. That is, the present stimulus package cannot shorten or lessen the current recession by stemming the growth of unemployment and by jump-starting the national economy, the way Keynesian economics has it. I suggested there had to be another agenda for this massive spending of public money.

Recessions – two consecutive quarters when the national economy contracts instead of expanding – are common under capitalism, in market economies. They wane, whether or not anyone does anything about them. This fact makes if difficult to assign credit to government measures designed to lessen or shorten recessions when economic indicators do look good. Economic indicators don’t look good right now, although some of the press is announcing the beginning of the beginning of the end of the recession.

At any rate, the recession will end eventually. That is, economic growth will resume. I would bet on it but I don’t know when. When growth resumes, we will be left with the second economic crisis facing us. That second crisis is less routine, more extraordinary, and more worrisome than the first crisis, the recession itself. It’s massive public indebtedness. I have to go into the reasons why the Federal Government is even able to incur massive debt. Continue reading →