On February 14, 1859, Oregon was admitted into the American union as the 33rd of the United States.
Author: Redactor
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Oh, For a Smarter Obama
There are some things that can be endured only with irony, or a lot of drink (and I don’t drink).
Last night, as I listened to Barack Hussein Obama’s fifth “State of the Union” Address, I chose irony:
Obama just said he wants a smarter government, not a bigger one. So, surely, the new slogan will be: FREEZE GOVERNMENT SPENDING! Washington Will Simply Work Smarter for the Same Money! Now we’re united. Go Obama!
Live-blogging on Facebook in this manner allowed me to breeze through the rest of the tedium pretty well: my blood pressure didn’t rise one bit.
But this “smarter government” theme is actually a serious issue.
The problem with current government is not the IQs of the folks in our bureaucracies or running for office. The problem is the systemic effects of the incentives and disincentives that modern, barely limited government present to us all. We don’t need smarter government to improve conditions, we need wiser governance. And the wise person knows when to leave well enough alone.
Actually, there’s a lot of intelligence out there. And knowledge. But these are dispersed amongst “We, the People.” Government concentrates power, but it cannot concentrate knowledge or IQ in any multiplicative way. When people live under the right incentives — as provided by liberty and the rule of law — they become more responsible, they learn from their mistakes, and they even achieve some great things.
Government must learn to back off to allow this — or at least freeze spending!
I wonder if President Obama is smart enough, wise enough, to learn that.
Probably not as long as enough people laud him for saying inane things about “smart government.”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Gordon Tullock
Lincoln would now see government not of, by, and for all the people but of, by, and for some kinds of people. He would see it not as of all the people but as of the political activists. He would see government not as by the people but as managed by the politicians and their officials. And he would see government not as for the ordinary people but as for the organized in well-run, well-financed, and influential business organizations, professional associations, and trade unions. It is government “of the Busy (political activists), by the Bossy (government managers), for the Bully (lobbying activists).”
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February 13 Tullock and Kirzner
February 13 birthdays include those of economists Gordon Tullock (1922) and Israel Kirzner (1930).
You’ve probably seen Hillary Clinton in a bikini.
She didn’t pose for that famous photo. No paparazzo snapped it. It was constructed in Photoshop, with her head placed on a somewhat more buxom model’s body. It was a joke.
I’m not sure I “get” the joke completely. Sure, take the Pompous Pol and turn her into a pinup. But, still.
Also not very funny was the recent Photoshopping of Georgia State Rep. Earnest Smith’s head onto the body of a porn star. Andre Walker did the work, as he confessed on Monday. “Rep. Earnest Smith Shows His Thin Skin, Says I Have No Right to Make Fun of Him,” Walker amusingly titled his Georgia Politics Unfiltered piece. The picture? Less amusing.
But de gustibus non est disputandum and all that.
It’s not as if the political mockery that the Founding Fathers engaged in was nice, or even decent.
Well, sooner than you can say “Alien and Sedition Act,” Rep. Smith co-sponsored a bill, HB 39, to make Photoshopping politicians onto nude or indecently photographed bodies a misdemeanor, subject to a $1000 fine.
Earnest Smith summed up his case with PC sanctimony:
No one has a right to make fun of anyone. You have a right to speak, but no one has a right to disparage another person. It’s not a First Amendment right.
He couldn’t be more wrong. The Supreme Court has famously come down on the side of making fun of politicians.
Legislators’ biggest problem is that they want to legislate, even where inappropriate. Maybe they should mandate tests in constitutional law before they are allowed to represent us.
Or perhaps “Earnest” should take a lesson in Irony. Or in “lightening up.”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob
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Destutt de Tracy
There are … laws of nature, which we cannot change, which we cannot even infringe with impunity; for we are not the authors of our own being, nor of any thing that surrounds us. Thus if we leave a heavy body without support we are subject to be crushed by its fall. So if we do not make provision for the accomplishment of our wishes, or, what will amount to the same, if we cherish desires that are unattainable, we become unhappy; this is beyond doubt, the supreme power, the infallible tribunal, the force irresistible, the inevitable punition, that follows, in which every consequence arises as if it had been so predetermined.
Now society makes what we call positive laws, that is laws which are artificial and conventional, by means of an authority purposely constituted, and with tribunals and an executive power to inforce them. These laws should be conformable to the laws of nature, originating in the same source, consequent of the natural laws, and no wise repugnant thereto; without which consonance, it is certain that nature will overcome them, that their object will not be accomplished, and that society must be unhappy. Whence originate the good or bad qualities of our positive laws, their justice or injustice? The just law is that which produces good, the unjust that which produces evil.
Justice and injustice therefore had an existence before any positive law; although it is only to laws of our own creation we can apply the epithets of just or unjust; since the laws of nature being simply necessary in the nature of things, it belongs not to us to question them any more than to act contrary to them. Unquestionably justice and injustice existed before any of our laws, and had it not been so we should not have any, because we create nothing. It does not appertain to us to constitute things conformable or contrary to our nature. We can ascertain and explain what is right or wrong, only according to our right or wrong comprehension of it; when we declare that to be just which is not so, we do not thereby render it just; this is beyond our power; we only declare an error, and occasion a certain quantity of evil, by maintaining that error with the power of which we have the disposal: but the law, the eternal truth, which is opposed thereto, remains unchanged and the same.
But it must be understood, that what is here said by no means implies, that it is at all times just to resist an unjust law, or always reasonable to oppose with violence what is unreasonable. This must depend upon a previous consideration, whether the violent resistance would not cause more evil than passive compliance: this however is but a secondary question, always dependent on circumstances, the nature of which will be discussed in the sequel…. we are yet a great way in the rear of that subject.
It is sufficient that the laws of nature exist anterior and superior to human laws; that fundamental justice is that only which is conformable to the laws of nature; and that radical injustice is that which is contrary to the laws of nature; and consequently that our posterior and consequent laws should be in unison with those more ancient and inevitable laws. This is the true spirit, or genuine sense, in which all positive laws ought to be established. But this foundation of the laws is not very easily explained or understood: the space between the first principles and the ultimate result is immense.
While President Barack Obama, Intoner-in-Chief, reads his “State of the Union” Address this evening, in front of a Congress of Over-Clappers, seated next to his wife will be Apple CEO Tim Cook.
Gene Sperling, White House economic advisor, enthused about the symbolism:
Apple is a great American company, and it stands for our sense of innovation, invention, entrepreneurship, and risk taking and I think that’s quite an appropriate person to be in the First Lady’s box when the president is talking about our economic future, the importance of job creation, manufacturing, innovation and how we create strong middle-class jobs.
Apple is, indeed, a great American business — one of the few that people who typically disdain business can’t stop loving. But it might be worth remembering that Apple’s success doesn’t so much “stand for our sense of innovation, invention, entrepreneurship and risk taking” as exemplify all of those things . . . “our sense of” those qualities is secondhand at best.
But politicians like to soak up secondhand qualities. They eat symbolism for lunch and dinner.
I wonder if the president, in stating the union’s state, will dare compare the qualities of America’s best companies and folks like Tim Cook (corporate heir of Steve Jobs; master of the supply chain) with that of America’s government.
A huge chasm separates them. Having won the election, President Obama enjoys a captive customer base over the next four years. Mr. Cook does not. Obama seeks to raise his revenue by taking more from a tiny minority. Cook has to persuade people to willingly buy his product.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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B-B, Feb 12
On February 12, 1809, Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born. But today’s big birthday celebration here at Common Sense must be that of Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, 1851.
Böhm-Bawerk was an Austrian economist who followed in the footsteps of Carl Menger, ushering in what has been called “the marginalist revolution” in economics. He applied the new understanding of economics’ first principles to the problems of capital and interest, penning two of the great classics of the literature, known “Capital and Interest”: the two major volumes are “History and Critique of Interest Theories ” and “Positive Theory of Capital.” He also wrote the first scholarly and systematic refutations of Karl Marx’s exploitation theory and general economic perspective, including the brilliant “Karl Marx and the Close of His System.”
On February 11, 1752, Benjamin Franklin opened Pennsylvania Hospital, the first hospital in the United States. On the same date in 1790, the Religious Society of Friends, also known as Quakers, petitioned U.S. Congress to abolish slavery.
In an early effort towards republican government transparency, on this date in 1794, the first session of United States Senate opened to the public.
February 11 birthdays include
1805 – Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, son of Sacagawea
1833 – Melville Weston Fuller, American jurist and 8th Chief Justice of the United States
1847 – Thomas Alva Edison, American inventor
When bad government policies create problems, government officials often pretend that the causes are unrelated to the effects. Instead they enact further bad policies. They may even seek to outlaw the effects, as if prohibiting puddles could stop the rain.
Suppose a government greatly expands the money supply, which leads to a general rise in prices obvious enough to cause people to complain about sticker shock. Governments may try to “solve” the problem with slogans and price controls.
In Argentina, which is lurching toward 30 percent inflation, they’re skipping the Whip Inflation Now buttons and going straight to the price controls. The government has temporarily frozen prices in the largest supermarkets. The two-month freeze is the result of an “agreement” between the trade group representing big stores and the Argentine government.
Now what happens?
Well, customers will race to the big stores, but small stores won’t lose business except in the short run. As the inflated demand outstrips a deflating stock of goods, the big stores and their suppliers won’t see much point in replacing goods that they can sell only unprofitably or at a loss. If they do replace the sold-off stock, they’ll likely do so with shoddier stuff in smaller packages.
Monetary inflation imposes hardship; price controls worsen the hardship. By the same logic, you help somebody whose leg you just broke by smashing his other leg too. You may think that this procedure would restore health, but actually—no.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Note on the illustration: The French assignat was an early instance of paper money inflation in Europe.