What's new

Here's another 60 or so new links and indexes from the past month.

Hard to Handle [More...]

"To paraphrase a line once used about Malcolm X and the 50s and 60s era Nation Islam, Ron Paul may not like white nationalism, but white nationalism sure likes Ron Paul."[more...]

Jeet Heer critiques libertarians on race

Jonathan Blanks and Brian Beutler assembled a number of tweets from Jeet Heer on libertarian problems with race issues, starting with outright racist appeals from Ron Paul and general insensitivity among largely white libertarians. [more...]

Racists

There is a strong overlap between racists and libertarians. Because libertarianism obsesses about independence from social norms, racists are welcome, and actively courted by people like Ron Paul. No surprise that libertarians are 94% white, whiter even than the Republican party. [more...]

VC for the people [More...]

There are reasons to believe that a Basic Income program would be beneficial for growth and allow people to "take chances on more meaningful and ultimately more valuable work." [more...]

12 Alternative Principles [More...]

Thomas Sargent gave a speech with 12 supposed principles of economics. Here's an alternative set. [more...]

The contradiction in economics [More...]

Thomas Sargent's 12 lessons of economics have been criticized as "as either too simplistic, partial or just wrong". But are these really lessons or just assumptions economists make? [more...]

Bastiat's Broken Window Error [More...]

The broken window analogy fails to explain how Europe has become so much more prosperous after innumerable wars. [more...]

Patterson and Kehoe, and the great lead debate [More...]

How Robert Kehoe developed the strategy that the lead industry used to avoid regulation and liability over the course of decades of poisoning of millions. A strategy replicated for tobacco, innumerable other pollutants, and global warming denialism. [more...]

Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy [More...]

A summary of the important findings of Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page's study. "In English: the wealthy few move policy, while the average American has little power." [more...]

Who Are the Koch Brothers and What Do They Want? [More...]

Senator Bernie Sanders explains "how successful David Koch and like-minded billionaires have been in moving the Republican Party to the extreme right" over the past 34 years. "Our great nation must not be hijacked by right-wing billionaires like the Koch brothers." [more...]

Karl Polanyi Explains It All [More...]

Robert Kuttner explains how Polanyi's The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time is more relevant now than ever. "Contrary to libertarian economists from Adam Smith to Hayek, Polanyi argued, there was nothing “natural” about the free market." [more...]

Frederic Bastiat as a Modern Liberal [More...]

"Frederic Bastiat is a liberal in the modern sense–concerned with positive as much as negative liberty, as eager to use government to boost people’s power to accomplish their purposes (when it can effectively do so) as to preserve individuals’ freedom of action from pointless regulatory meddling." [more...]

Frederic Bastiat

Libertarians like Bastiat because he criticized some government practices as foolish or thievery. However, he consider taxation for many government services justified, work programs in times of crisis, infrastructure, etc. He was a modern liberal. [more...]

Classical Liberalism and Classical Liberals [More...]

A large list of classical liberals displaying the huge diversity of their views, including many pro-grovernment or anti-capitalist liberals such as American founders, Rousseau, Kant, Bentham, etc. Libertarians like to misrepresent them with only a list of conservative economists. [more...]

Buchanan clubs [More...]

Starts with a brief, easy overview of Club Goods versus Public Goods. Club goods are non-rivalrous (until congestion occurs) like public goods, but excludable. Much ofgovernment can be characterized as producing public goods and club goods. [more...]

Letting the Free Market Bare Its Teeth [More...]

"If a pro-white political philosophy is to gain traction in a world that now finds it abhorrent, it cannot overtly present itself. Pro-white advocates will have better luck adopting mainstream ideologies that include advantages for whites." Such as libertarianism. [more...]

2013 American Values Survey: In Search of Libertarians in America [More...]

Americans are about equally libertarian and communalist, about 7% each. Quite different than the Nolan Chart would leave you to believe. And surprise! Most are young, while males who favor legalizing marijuana, but oppose same-sex marriage. [more...]

The Noble Task of Revisionism [More...]

Murray Rothbard proclaims the necessity of libertarian revisionist history, because all other history is the "lies and deception of the State and its Court Intellectuals". He wants us to switch to HIS propaganda. [more...]

The Nozickian case for Rawls’ difference principle [More...]

"There is a very strong Nozickian case to be made for Rawls’ difference principle. Because the reality of scarcity causes the use of resources to necessarily infringe upon the liberty of others, it makes sense to say (as Nozick does) that you should only be able to undertake such use if it does not worsen the position of others." [more...]

Salvaging Non-Aggression for Egalitarianism [More...]

"[...] we can say that we should only impose such institutions [property] if we do so in a way that essentially strikes a fair deal with those whose negative liberty we are destroying. This is, essentially, what Robert Nozick has in mind when he says that you can blow up people’s negative liberty so long as you do not worsen their welfare." [more...]

The Social and Moral Philosophy of the Minimum Wage [More...]

Brad DeLong points out that maximizing real income per capita is a choice that does not escape the problem of interpersonal value comparisons, and thus cannot pretend to be dispassionately utilitarian. [more...]

Three Expensive Milliseconds [More...]

The finance industry is hugely wasteful, perhaps wasting 2 percent of GDP. Side effects also include suckering small investors, increasing inequality and destabilizing markets.[more...]

In Defense of Egalitarianism [More...]

"One of the common ways in which this plays out is when someone says that egalitarianism makes no sense because it is obvious that people have different levels of intelligence, different physical attributes, different abilities and specializations, and so on. In other words, egalitarians are characterized as proposing that everyone is inherently equal in such a literal sense. But, to my knowledge, no one actually claims this, and hence it is a gigantic straw man. " [more...]

Egalitarian

A libertarian dog-whistle term, usually referring to strawman positions such as redistributing organs and not admitting that people have different abilities. [more...]

Government Creates Rights

All rights are created by violent enforcement, and modern government is where we choose to sequester legitimate force. Government creates property: without government, there are temporary holdings, but not property in the modern sense. [more...]

Chomsky.info: The Noam Chomsky Website [More...]

Simply the most complete online source available. Articles, audio, video, interviews, talks, debates, letters, articles about Chomsky and more. Well worth searching. [more...]

The short guide to Capital in the 21st Century [More...]

Matthew Yglesias provides a short, clear summary of an extremely important book. He explains both the arguments and their relevance. A must read. [more...]

Koch's Anger Translator

Charles Koch wrote a ludicrous screed in the Wall Street Journal, a stand on dignity to excuse decades of plutocratic meddling in politics. A pseudonymous commenter "Mr." served as Anger Translator at Noahpinion. [more...]

Boycott Koch [More...]

A large activist page opposed to the multifarious political activities of the Koch brothers. Has a connected blog. [more...]

No violence but personal violence [More...]

"When I use the word violence in the context of discussing theories of property, I mean a specific thing by it: acting upon the bodies of others without their consent. This is as neutral a definition of “violence” as you will find. It is the definition of violence implied by the concept of self-ownership. It is the definition of violence implied by the concept of negative liberty, which is defined as freedom from external restraint." [more...]

Private charity can't replace government social programs [More...]

To suggest that community or faith-based charities can effectively supplant government social programs is a fantasy that serves only as a talking point to cut those programs.[more...]

Study Confirms Tea Party Was Created by Big Tobacco and Pollutocrat Kochs [More...]

"A new academic study confirms that front groups with longstanding ties to the tobacco industry and the billionaire Koch brothers planned the formation of the Tea Party movement more than a decade before it exploded onto the U.S. political scene. Far from a genuine grassroots uprising, this astroturf effort was curated by wealthy industrialists years in advance." [more...]

Conservative Donors Pump $1 Billion A Year Into Climate Denying Groups, Study Finds [More...]

"Organizations that actively block efforts to address climate change are funded by a large network of conservative donors to the tune of nearly $1 billion a year [...]" Describes new "dark money" techniques for concealing funding sources, especially from the petrochemical industry. [more...]

What is Wrong with Neoclassical Economics? [More...]

"The list is a long one and includes practically every major theory [...]" At least 16 important assumptions that are often false. [more...]

Review: Jacob Hacker -- The Great Risk Shift [More...]

"First, he looks at the various ways in which risk has increased over the last few decades... But what isn’t hard to trace back are the decisions made by policy makers to exacerbate these risks by aiding and abetting the transfer of risks to individuals rather than countering it. This is the second prong of Hacker’s argument." [more...]

Did Austrians Never Predict Hyperinflation?

Mark Faber, Peter Schiff, Doug French and Gary North have all predicted hyperinflation since the Great Recession. "The idea that Austrians never predicted hyperinflation in any sense is outrageous, mendacious and contemptible rewriting of history." [more...]

You vs. John [More...]

Take some "nobody is the boss of me" libertarian propaganda and add some real circumstances, and suddenly it shows just how stupid the propaganda really is. [more...]

Cartoons

A picture can be worth a thousand words. Or 100,000 from Ayn Rand. [more...]

A Regulated Kidney Market Designed To Minimize Social Harms

Libertarians endorse unregulated organ markets, but that would bring many social harms. Single buyer markets where the payments go to the donor's choice of charity might solve most of the problems. [more...]

How The Justice System Is Rigged Against These Cheerleaders Suing The Raiders For Wage Theft [More...]

A private attempt to create a kangaroo court that can ignore labor law. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan says (of another case): “The monopolist gets to use its monopoly power to insist on a contract effectively depriving its victims of all legal recourse." [more...]

Arbitration

Libertarians promote privatization of justice through arbitration. Supposedly it is more economical, but it is obviously biased towards employers who require workers to give up rights to take disagreements to court. [more...]

Violence Vouchers: A Descriptive Account of Property [More...]

When a state upholds a system of property, all it is doing is issuing to owners a set of vouchers for violence against those who ignore property. Trade is similarly based on property and violence. Rents also are based on violence, ruling out just deserts and just processes arguments. [more...]

Progressive Taxes

Suggested by Adam Smith, first implemented in the USA: reduces inequality and supported by economic theory. [more...]

Taxation Is Slavery

Libertarians have all sorts of badly stretched analogies they frequently repeat as propaganda. Taxation is not slavery any more than rent or other contracts are slavery. [more...]

Little House On The Prairie

Proto-libertarian author Rose Wilder Lane commits one of the basic hypocrisies of libertarianism. She declares "we never took anything from government" while conveniently forgetting the free land obtained from government dispossession of native Americans. [more...]

A Book That Needed To Be Written [More...]

An excellent, short review or "What Every Economics Student Needs to Know and Doesn’t Get in the Usual Principles Text". [more...]

Economic Realism (Wonkish) [More...]

A discussion of how realistic economic models should be, and for what purpose. Includes a good criticism of Milton Friedman. [more...]

America’s Taxation Tradition [More...]

Taxation to prevent an undemocratic distribution of wealth is an American, progressive-era invention which had enormous support. [more...]

Piketty's Inequality Story In Six Charts [More...]

"[P]artly by using new sources of data, such as individual tax records, and partly by expanding the research to other countries, Piketty and his colleagues have deployed their charts to reshape the entire inequality debate." [more...]

What Every Economics Student Needs to Know and Doesn't Get in the Usual Principles Text

John Komlos shows how misleading it can be to mechanically apply the perfect competition model in an oligopolistic environment where only an insignificant share of economic activity takes place in perfectly competitive conditions. [more...]

Democracy, What Is It Good For? [More...]

Libertarians often disparage democracy as harmful to growth, based on old research. Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson explain why the old research was wrong. "In all, the evidence seems to be fairly clear that democracy is good for economic growth." [more...]

The Case for a Progressive Tax: From Basic Research to Policy Recommendations [More...]

Peter Diamond and Emmanuel Saez explain progressive taxes with optimal tax theory They recommend high marginal tax rates, earnings subsidies to encourage low-income workers and taxation of capital income. They explain why other low-tax policy ideas are not relevant. [more...]

Little Libertarians on the prairie [More...]

Rose Wilder Lane rewrote her mothers memoirs to make libertarian American fables. "Comparing Wilder’s original memoirs to the contents of the published books, it’s possible to see a pattern of strategic omissions and additions." [more...]

Growth Versus Distribution: Hunger Games [More...]

"[...] we don’t actually know much about how to produce rapid economic growth -- conservatives may think they know (low taxes and all that), but there is no evidence to back up their certainty. And on the other hand, we know how to make a big difference to income distribution, especially how to reduce extreme poverty." [more...]

Taxes And Growth

Low taxes do not produce more growth, though democracy does. Successful reduction of poverty by tax-funded programs does not reduce growth either. [more...]

Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the American Civil War

Revisionist libertarian historian Jeffrey Hummel shows that Abraham Lincoln is the Great Statist Satan who transformed the US into a statist hellhole. How does that work withlibertarian claims that the late 19th century US was closest to libertarian? [more...]

A Case Study In Wingnut Welfare: Think Freely Media [More...]

"Created by individuals associated with the Franklin Center and fueled with right wing billionaire cash, Think Freely Media is a wingnut welfare organization. The “dark money ATM” behind the tea party movement created TFM to provide cushy positions and deals that are completely divorced from those “free market principles” that the tea party movement constantly espouses." [more...]

Wingnut Welfare

Plutocratic funders funnel vast amounts of money for political purposes through myriads of shell companies. They evade campaign finance regulation and mislead the IRS about the purpose to get unjustified charitable tax deductions and conceal the origin of the money. [more...]

Political Libertarianism

Political libertarianism is the most important libertarianism because we are continually exposed to it through the media. It is a mass market astroturf libertarianism. It has been aplutocratically-funded effort since the 1930's and has been wildly successful in concentrating wealth since the 1980s. It is about redistributing society's wealth to the rich and calling that just and moral. [more...]

Libertarian Nuz

Tyler Cowan has written a review of Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-first Century in Foreign Affairs.  He does not provide a disclaimer that he has been employed for his entire career as an agent of the plutocrats Piketty is talking about.  Knowing that, it's not surprising that he writes a highly critical review.  Ethics, anybody?

Racist Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling has been fined $2.5 million, is banned from the NBA and may be forced to sell the team.  If government  did something like this, libertarians would be screaming their heads off.  But because it is a private violation of his liberty to be a racist asshole, this unprecedented punitive action in a corporate kangaroo court must be OK!  The "constitution" of the NBA has set up the commissioner to be judge, jury, and executioner with the effect of a binding arbitration decision that is enforceable in court.  The most surprising thing about it all is that it is happening to a rich white man.

Libertarian racist Cliven Bundy and his domestic terrorist "militia" have gone so far that they've lost the support of Fox, the Tea Party and pretty much everybody who has two neurons to rub together.  I can understand Obama's desire to avoid another Waco siege.  Gone are the days when Washington could crush the Whiskey rebellion with impunity.  It will just be a matter of outwaiting them: they certainly won't maintain their numbers over the winter.  And of course, it would be interesting to see how well their line holds as their identities are established and they are threatened with charges of sedition.

Koch's Anger Translator

Koch's Anger Translator

Charles Koch wrote a ludicrous screed in the Wall Street Journal, a stand on dignity to excuse decades of plutocratic meddling in politics. A pseudonymous commenter "Mr." served as Anger Translator at Noahpinion.

A Bitcoin Thought....

I've felt strange every time I've seen Bitcoin images, and I wasn't sure why.  Today it suddenly hit me.

Essentially every Bitcoin image portrays gold coins, often of large size or in large numbers.  Symbols of wealth accumulated as a hoard.

But Bitcoin's main virtue is supposed to be as a medium of exchange: a better symbol would be a wallet or a checkbook.  Or you could just use the B with the slashes the way we use $.

So why is it portrayed as gold coins?  Because an image of something concrete gives idiots a way to believe in Bitcoins, which are just patterns of 0's and 1's.  To invoke the speculative greed that revolves around the gold market.  It's part of the marketing sucker game.

It repulses me the same way most advertising associates products with sex or wealth or beautiful people does.  It repulses me because it's an attempt to exploit subconscious biases, rather than an honest attempt to sell the benefits of the product.

What's new

I've been spending a lot of time over the past few weeks investigating various extensions for improving the wiki.  I'd love to have something that works like the CategoryTree extension but with my format, and I spent a while seeing if I could modify it: but that's rather hard.  In the long run, I could, but for now I will stick with a simple category system.  I may still switch to using SemanticWiki rather than DynamicPageList.  It makes the entries and the wikitext look much cleaner, though a few tasks are more difficult.

I've also entered 300 relevant books, though most of them are uncategorized and undescribed.  Still, now I can use them easily in footnotes and bibliographies.  I learned some python to use the xml dump from Delicious Library.  That let me preformat wikitext for each book to cut and paste into pages.  It took a lot of planning, but the entry got done in one day.  I like python: it is much more legible than my old standby, perl.  At some point in the future, when the Cite extension is released, I may switch from my current system to that.

I've also started reorganizing categories to try to reduce the number shown on the front page and make finding things more obvious, even if nested more deeply.

Even so with all this work, I've entered another 40 or so links and categories.

NEW 3/25/2014: Wealth Over Work [More...]

"It seems safe to say that “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” the magnum opus of the French economist Thomas Piketty, will be the most important economics book of the year -- and maybe of the decade." Paul Krugman's review. [more...]

NEW 3/25/2014: Why you’re wrong about communism: 7 huge misconceptions about it (and capitalism) [More...]

Most of what Americans think they know about capitalism and communism is total nonsense. Here's a clearer picture. [more...]

NEW 3/25/2014: Unlearning The History Of Capitalism [More...]

"Imagine if every time somebody expressed support for capitalism, they were immediately screamed down with death tolls from Colonial India, the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the worst of US foreign policy." A plea for the end of cold-war reflexive aversion to the word socialism. [more...]

NEW 3/25/2014: Notes for Debate with Jeff Miron on Marty Nemko’s Radio Show [More...]

"How much does each of us owe to all the rest for there being here to help us? How much do others owe each of us? How much larger are humanity’s collective resources because each of us is around?" Also, 8 kinds of market failure. [more...]

NEW 3/25/2014: Forces of Divergence: Is surging inequality endemic to capitalism? [More...]

An excellent short review of Thomas Piketty's "Capital in the Twenty-First Century". "But Piketty has written a book that nobody interested in a defining issue of our era can afford to ignore." [more...]

NEW 3/25/2014: The Philosophical Case Against Obamacare Is Here. And It's Weak. [More...]

Greg Mankiw makes a fool of himself in attempting the political philosophy of health care. [more...]

NEW 3/25/2014: Academics Spy Weaknesses in Bitcoin’s Foundations [More...]

Game theory suggests the rules governing Bitcoin may need to be updated if the currency is to endure. [more...]

NEW 3/25/2014: Why do YOU hate freedom?

A hunch of snarky reddit answers to this "when did you stop beting your wife" question. [more...]

NEW 3/25/2014: Some Amazon reviews critical of FDR's Folly

Often, the one-star reviews at Amazon identify the ideological bullshit: either the book author's bullshit or the reviewer's. This case is clear: the book author is full of it. [more...]

NEW 3/25/2014: FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression

A classic of cherry-picking and misrepresenting history to suit ideology. Demonizes FDR, who then stands for all that libertarians hate. Four legs good, two legs baaaad. [more...]

NEW 3/24/2014: Trickle-Up Economics [More...]

A review of Thomas Piketty's "Capital in the Twenty-First Century", which demonstrates why growing inequality is inevitable under policies sponsored by libertarians and the rest of the plutocratic right. [more...]

NEW 3/24/2014: Capital in the Twenty-First Century

This book shows how policies concentrate wealth in the hands of the .01%, increasing inequality. Libertarianism has always been sponsored by the extremely rich, and their positions have favored these policies or worse. [more...]

NEW 3/22/2014: The Worst Book I Ever Read [More...]

" It was a horrendously argued book that relied on straw man arguments, ignoring the middle ground, a complete absence of evidence and mainly stating positions without even attempting to defend them. The only praise I have for the book is that it is mercifully short and easy to read." [more...]

NEW 3/22/2014: Capitalism And Freedom (Robert Nielsen review) [More...]

"Before I read the book, I knew I would not agree with it. Even still, I was shocked at how poor an argument Friedman makes and his complete aversion to using evidence to support his claims. His defence of discrimination is disgraceful and unbelievable." [more...]

NEW 3/22/2014: Atlas Shrugged Is A Ridiculous Book [More...]

"... it is a horrendous book containing cardboard characters, over necessarily long speeches, absurd plot lines and at least 500 pages more than it needs." "It is a combination of all the worst aspects of libertarianism, so much so that I’d imagine most libertarians are embarrassed by it." [more...]

NEW 3/22/2014: Why Taxation Is Not Theft [More...]

"Just as all political debates inevitably end with someone making a Hitler comparison, all debates with libertarians sooner or later involve the claim that taxation is theft...." [more...]

NEW 3/19/2014: How Class War Has Impoverished The Middle And Lower Classes

Gradual changes in wages, opportunity, debt, risk, tax policy and other factors have badly hurt the vast majority of families over the past 40 years. [more...]

NEW 3/19/2014: The Most Important Economic Chart [More...]

"The gap between productivity and median real income is at an historic all-time high today." [more...]

NEW 3/19/2014: Voluntary Failures

Just as there are market failures and government failures, there are also voluntary failures such as philanthropic insufficiency, philanthropic particularism and philanthropic paternalism. Where voluntary and market efforts fail, government should step up. [more...]

NEW 3/19/2014: The Voluntarism Fantasy [More...]

Libertarian stories of 19th century voluntary charity ignore the historical facts of how horribly insufficient that system was and how much it was supplemented by state and federal aid. The Great Depression destroyed most voluntary charity, and brought about progressive social insurance programs. [more...]

NEW 3/17/2014: The Programmed Prospect Before Us [More...]

Robert Skidelsky reviews: Mindless: Why Smarter Machines Are Making Dumber Humans. “Scientific management” and “Computer Business Systems” are resulting in de-skilling of the worker and dehumanisation of the workers and the workplace. [more...]

NEW 3/16/2014: On the Wrong Side of Globalization [More...]

Trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership would make our problems worse. "Huge multinational corporations complain that inconsistent regulations make business costly. But most of the regulations, even if they are imperfect, are there for a reason: to protect workers, consumers, the economy and the environment." [more...]

NEW 3/16/2014: Globalization, Free Trade and Economic Freedom

Code for "let business run the world: the heck with the populace." The anti-liberal dominance of plutocratic property and business over popular sovereignty. Historically, we could extend these concepts to include buying, owning, and selling slaves. The arguments made then were the same. Used by propagandists to trump other freedoms. Also known as economic liberty. [more...]

NEW 3/13/2014: Imposing options on people in poverty: the harm of a live donor organ market [More...]

"If a free market in organs was permitted and became widespread, then it is reasonable to assume that your organs would soon enough become economic resources like any other, in the context of the market. Selling your organs would become something that is simply expected of you as and when financial need arises. Our new ‘option’ can thus easily be transformed into a social or legal demand, and it can drastically change the attitudes that others adopt towards you." [more...]

NEW 3/13/2014: Repugnance as a Constraint on Markets [More...]

Alvin Roth presents an even-handed overview of repugnant market issues and arguments. With special reference to markets for kidneys. [more...]

NEW 3/13/2014: Repugnant Markets

Some markets (or potential markets) are offensive for a variety of reasons. Markets for kidneys, for example. They may involve objectification, coercion, slippery slopes, or undermining of important institutions. Libertarians often say marketize anyhow, while ignoring non-market alternatives. [more...]

NEW 3/12/2014: My Life as a Retail Worker: Nasty, Brutish, and Poor [More...]

" I didn’t realize the stamina that would be necessary, the extra, unpaid duties that would be tacked on, or the required disregard for one’s own self-esteem. I had landed in an alien environment obsessed with theft, where sitting down is all but forbidden, and loyalty is a one-sided proposition. For a paycheck that barely covered my expenses, I’d relinquish my privacy, making myself subject to constant searches." [more...]

NEW 3/11/2014: Bryan Caplan

Yet another creative, ideological, bomb throwing recipient of right-wing welfare at the Koch-fundedGeorge Mason University Economics Department and Mercatus Center.[more...]

NEW 3/11/2014: Intellectual Autobiography of Bryan Caplan [More...]

"It began with Ayn Rand, as it proverbially does...." And goes downhill from there. [more...]

NEW 3/11/2014: The libertarian solution to inequality [More...]

"So, the libertarian solution to the problem of inequality is to socially persecute anyone who talks about inequality?" A strange notion of liberty. [more...]

NEW 3/11/2014: Friday Open Thread (Don't Take Advice from Right Wingers Edition) [More...]

"Glibertarian economist Bryan Caplan -- who may in fact be the world's stupidest serious academic -- is on npr this morning to promote his book arguing that we should all have more children. Magically omitted from his discussion though is the cost of children. And he's a fucking economist." [more...]

NEW 3/11/2014: Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Why Being a Great Parent is Less Work and More Fun Than You Think

This book demonstrates two principles. First, extend libertarian and economic ideology to cover everything you can, no matter how ridiculous. Second, no matter how stupid, all repetition of propaganda points promotes ideology. [more...]

NEW 3/10/2014: What do voluntary mean? [More...]

Matt Bruenig makes clear that following antidiscrimination rules for business is exactly as voluntary as following property rules for business. Because you have a choice of not being in that business. And if one violates self-ownership, so does the other. [more...]

NEW 3/10/2014: Liberty, Equality, Efficiency

Inequality of outcome is a drag on economic growth according to recent studies by the IMF. "In short, what’s good for the 1 percent isn’t good for America. And we don’t have to keep living in a new Gilded Age if we don’t want to." [more...]

NEW 3/09/2014: Science

Libertarians (such as John Stossel) are renowned for science denialism. They have a long and bad history of misrepresenting science on tobacco, global warming and other issues. [more...]

NEW 3/09/2014: Objectivism, Libertarianism and Anarchism [More...]

It's a three-way cage match to determine which ideology is the true standard bearer for liberty! An index of 25 webbed articles at the Objectivism Reference Center. A pox on all their houses. [more...]

NEW 3/09/2014: Mythopedia [More...]

The Dictionary of Conservative Lies. A project of Media Matters for America. [more...]

NEW 3/09/2014: The Doomsday Cult of Bitcoin [More...]

"Ask any of these Bitcoin believers about any of the recent incidents, and they will defend the currency with religious fervor. [...] But these are head-fakes, meant to distract from Bitcoin's disastrous move to the mainstream while consoling believers about the current state of affairs. [more...]

NEW 3/09/2014: In America’s War on Poverty, the free market is AWOL [More...]

The expanded safety net has contributed significantly to reducing poverty in America over the past half-century; but our market economy has not. [more...]

NEW 3/09/2014: Proof Libertarianism is an Illuminati Ploy [More...]

"Libertarianism and its twin sister Austrian Economics were invented by the Money Power to be the opposite of Communism in a dialectic." It's the Illuminati Jewish bankers conspiracy, I tell you! [more...]

NEW 3/09/2014: The Satanic Core of Libertarianism [More...]

Libertarianism is part of the Illuminati Dialectic with Communism: "Essentially, two seemingly opposed forces advance the same goal: a world police state governed by an oligarchy of billionaire Satanists." A paranoid conspiracy rant about Bernard de Mandeville. [more...]

NEW 3/09/2014: Crank Criticisms Of Libertarianism

Beware of damaging your brain reading these. The authors are serious believers in paranoid conspiracy theories who want to prove that everything you know is wrong. Read them for the lulz. [more...]

NEW 3/09/2014: Money Power

"The Money Power" is an old populist term for a conspiracy of Jewish bankers to control currencies and finance. Gold was the defense against this paranoid theory. It is often a dog whistle in support of goldbuggery. [more...]

The new wiki-based site may be offline for a while today...

I need to do some upgrading: I'm about 2 years behind.

...

There, it is functional again.  If anybody spots something not working, let me know please.

Bitcoin Schadenfreude

Those Bitcoin Masters Of The World have taken another drubbing today as Mt. Gox closed amid claims that almost a million bit coins have been stolen.

But I hardly think that will kill Bitcoin.

The Bitcoin jingoists are proclaiming the end of amateurism in Bitcoin exchanges, as if this will be the last theft and shutdown.  Anybody who believes that is an idiot.  Just think about it: billions in value in bitcoins just waiting to be stolen by anybody.  Russia and China (and other nations) have huge digital warfare operations that could target those bitcoins, either officially or extracurricularly.  No matter how cryptographically safe, systems can be penetrated through hardware or personnel.  And no government guarantees!  I wonder who will write them insurance knowing this?

But as I've pointed out before, Bitcoin will eventually be swamped with similar currencies and lose value until it is replaced by government-backed currencies.