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Around the Web

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Links
  1. Forget Asia: Time to Pivot to Europe
  2. Islam and Constitutionalism
  3. Ever heard of the Serer religion?
  4. India: The Neverending Saga

Around the Web

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Links
  1. Gun control: change we don’t believe in
  2. A photo essay of Antarctica. I’m weird (news flash!) and I’ve always had an obsession with Antarctica
  3. On the ethics of voting. Grab a cup of coffee or tea
  4. Canada’s First Nations: Time we stopped meeting like this
  5. What is driving growth in government? This weekend’s must-read

Around the Web

Brandon Christensen Economics, Links , , , ,
  1. What if there really were mutants, X-Men style?
  2. Adam Smith’s anti-imperialism. Grab a cup of tea or coffee.
  3. More environmental destruction in China. We saw the same type of thing happen in eastern Europe and Russia during the Cold War. This destruction is also rampant in post-colonial states that have largely adopted a Leninist approach to state-building. This may just be part of a harsh learning curve that comes with economic development. After all, the property rights regimes that the West now has in place took hundreds of years to develop, and they could all be much, much better. On the other hand, it seems as if Beijing is undertaking many projects without even thinking about the consequences, much less the claims to property by its citizens that are already in place.
  4. Has the Fed Been a Failure? If you read one thing this weekend, let it be this.
  5. More on militias and the second amendment, by –Rick (check out his blog here)

Around the Web: Leftist Edition

Brandon Christensen Links

1. Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit. David Graeber takes a swipe at the discipline of economics. Does he have any valid arguments, or is it all hearsay?

2. The Red and the Black. This is an insightful essay by a doctoral candidate in history over at Cornell. His thesis: profit is the motor of capitalism. What would it be under socialism?

3. What happens when a right-libertarian takes a gander at left-libertarianism? An insightful essay, that’s what. Among the gems:

Now, a note: there are two kinds of things that don’t make sense:

1. pure crap
2. things that make sense but use a framework that’s a bit more nuanced than the one you’re used to.

 

4. Its Time for Gulf Colonialism. No summary of Leftist contributions would be complete without an ode to anti-imperialism. This one is short, sweet and to the point.

Around the Web

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Links
  1. The Case to Keep Dividing Africa
  2. The Cato Institute recently held its 30th annual monetary conference, and the Economist reports
  3. Gun Control’s Racist Origins
  4. The Past is Gone: Why Liberals Should Rethink States’ Rights
  5. Republicans Must Get Real on Foreign Policy

Around the Web

Brandon Christensen Economics, Links

  1. Seven Sins of our Forced Education

  2. Growth: Markets Broad and Deep
  3. Going Off the Rawls. A philosophical conversation with David Gordon.

  4. Learning to Love Volatility

  5. Schools for Slavery

God I’m Lazy…

Brandon Christensen Links

Economist Tyler Cowen defends Hayek and Friedman from a recent hit piece in a center-left magazine. He writes:

Solow neglects to mention that Milton Friedman turned out to be right on most of the issues he discussed (though targeting money doesn’t work), that MPS economists shaped at least two decades of major and indeed beneficial economic reforms across the world, or that some number of the economists at MIT envied the growth performance of the Soviet Union and that such remarks were found in the most popular economics textbook in the profession.

Read the whole thing.

Also, some stuff I’ve read over the past couple of days (weeks?):

  1. Should the U.S. Help Break Up Somalia?

    2. It’s not quite what it sounds like. Read the whole thing!

  2. Redrawing the Map.

Can you tell what’s been on my mind lately? A couple more:

  1. How Corrupt Are Ivy League Admissions? Ask Asians and Asian-Americans…
  2. Longtime reader (and a blogger far more popular than NoL) Hank asks a good question. Feel free to help your humble blogger out!

Around the Web

Brandon Christensen Links , , , , , , , , ,
  1. Free Baluchistan! More on secession, this time in Pakistan. I’d highly recommend taking a gander at this one.
  2. The Economist has great article critiquing France’s “new” relationship with Africa. It appears to be just like the old one.
  3. Six Nations passports, issued in Canada for the indigenous, are more than just travel documents. Or are they?
  4. Bacevich has an article at Foreign Policy suggesting that NATO should become an all-European alliance.
  5. More on secession: Welcome to New Bohemia (this time from the Left).

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.

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…

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!

Around the Web

Brandon Christensen Links ,
  1. Delacroix shares his thoughts on Obama’s re-election.
  2. Cowen on the fiscal cliff.
  3. Oh goody.

I’ve had a crappy midterm session. Forgive my hasty posts of late. On the bright side: I am now officially off the streets (at least until February).

Happy hump day everybody!

Jews and Palestinians: Is the Elusive Peace Close By?

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Links, Politics, Religion , , , , , , ,

A couple of days ago I came across this fascinating article in the Wall Street Journal. It’s about the expulsion of Jews from Arab lands around the same time as the expulsion of Arabs from the new state of Israel and how the Israelis have finally gotten around to bringing this issue up in negotiations. Among the excerpts:

Within 25 years [of the establishment of Israel], the Arab world lost nearly all its Jewish population. Some faced expulsion, while others suffered such economic and social hardships they had no choice but to go. Others left voluntarily because they longed to settle in Israel. Only about 4,300 Jews remain there today, mostly in Morocco and Tunisia […]

And this:

Many of the Palestinians who fled Israel wound up stranded in refugee camps. Multiple U.N. agencies were created to help them, and billions of dollars in aid flowed their way. The Arab Jews, by contrast, were quietly absorbed by their new homes. “The Arab Jews became phantoms” whose stories were “edited out” of Arab consciousness […]

I think that the Israelis were right to bring these expulsions to the forefront of the debates with the Palestinians. A lot of people on both sides have suffered and it is a good thing that the plight of the Arab world’s Jews is now being highlighted. But now that this historical fact is being highlighted by the Israeli state in its negotiations with the Palestinians, will it do any good for the peace process?

The reaction by one of the Palestinian negotiators is telling: 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…