The late Prof. Milton Friedman, whose birthday is on the 31st, exerted influence on a number of policy issues, none more important than “the draft”:
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Author: Redactor
There are some things people with different values just won’t “get” about their opponents. Folks who support gun bans and greater gun control just don’t “get” arguments for the Second Amendment and for “more guns” in peaceful citizens’ hands. And so, when confronted with a scholar and analyst of gun control like economist John Lott, they shy away from actually arguing with his points.
Their approach? Scattershot. Sniping. Crossfire.
Thus it was, this week, on Piers Morgan’s CNN interview show. Morgan grilled Lott in the wake of the Aurora, Colorado, movie theater atrocity. Lott ably started making his case numerous times, but Morgan refused to engage Lott’s points, instead unleashing a barrage of “isn’t your positions just ridiculous?” non-questions.
The lack of engagement with ideas is astounding.
When Alan Dershowitz joined the “debate,” it only got worse. Dershowitz repeated an accusation of “junk science” without really demonstrating how the science marshaled by Lott was unsound, and engaged (falsely) in the favorite ad hominem gambit of the age: “research funded by the NRA.”
The sad thing about this is not the inability of Morgan and Dershowitz to understand Lott. The sad thing is their unwillingness to even give it a good ol’ college try. It was downright uncivilized. Dershowitz is a lawyer, so his resorting to base rhetoric in a no-holds-barred attack is understandable. But Morgan is allegedly a journalist, on the advance guard of history, a seeker of truth.
But Morgan is not seeking truth; his mind is already made up. Facts be damned. That doesn’t lead to good interviews.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Milton Friedman
I say thank God for government waste. If government is doing bad things, it’s only the waste that prevents the harm from being greater.
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Milton Friedman
I think the government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem and very often makes the problem worse.
In education circles, “lifelong learning” is a mantra, a piety, a cliché. For the rest of us, it’s how we maintain sanity.
Take words. It’s worth learning a few new ones now and then. After all, with new words can come new insights. Mostly, it’s just fun.
Yesterday, I learned a new word: Listicle.
This gem courtesy of Jesse Walker with Reason. He blogged about a Cracked “listicle” entitled “The 6 Most Popular Crime Fighting Tactics (That Don’t Work).” If you are on the Internet (and, since you are reading this, you almost certainly are) you’ve seen plenty of “listicles.” These are articles constructed in the form of a list. They are very popular, often linked on Facebook, tweeted on Twitter. Walker defends his recommendation: “Don’t sneer. Many listicles are excellent. I’ll take the average listicle over the average op-ed any day.”
I’d never heard the word before, but I am certainly aware of the art form. The listicle in question was concocted by Robert Evans, and he makes some great points:
- Drug Dogs Are Inaccurate . . . and Racist
- Car Chases Are More Dangerous Than Criminals
- Drug-Free Zones Keep Dealers Close to Schools
- Red Light Cameras Are Killing People
- “Dry County” Laws Increase Drunk Driving
- Capital Punishment Does Nothing to Reduce Violent Crime
Walker excerpts the “dry county” prohibition story, which is well-reasoned. I’m against capital punishment, but not moved by Evans’s take on it. Still, a tip of the hat to his red-light intersection revelation . . . which I won’t quote, because, like the most popular listicles, this one contains a plethora of words that, were I quoting, would contain a superabundance of aster**ks.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
When I was coming of age, the economic ideology of Keynesianism was going bust. Keynesians couldn’t explain the stagflation of the 1970s. Monetarists triumphed and the Austrian School experienced a resurgence.
Now, monetarist disputes are hard to follow, and the Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle is not exactly a piece of cake. But Austrian economists’ preferred policies possess a kind of common sense: The thing to do is prevent false booms. Once you hit bust, it’s too late: we are going to experience the pain of readjustment, “recalculation,” as we find new prices and levels. I riffed on this theme last weekend, in my column “Dead Hobo in Trunk.”
Keynesians, now back in the limelight, have it easier, promising “less pain.” They offer drugs to make us feel better: Borrow, go further into debt, and spend, spend, spend!
So you can see why today’s Keynesians would hate Austrian wisdom. Not inflating the money supply, not engaging in deficit spending? Risible! And “austerity”? Keynesian shill Paul Krugman never tires of pillorying that program.
Which brings us to Estonia.
The little post-Soviet Baltic state was one of the few countries to actually restrain spending after the 2008 bust, freezing pensions and cutting public employee salaries by 10 percent. Krugman infamously blogged about it, noting that the country’s current recovery hasn’t yet reached the height of the pre-bust boom. He thinks this tells against “austerity.”
But to Estonian economists, the height of the boom was a false prosperity that couldn’t last. They’re glad their country’s rid of it, and note that their current recovery is above the pre-2005 levels.
In other words, Estonians not only understand their country and their situation better than does Paul Krugman, they understand economics better.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Thomas Sowell
The inefficiency of political control of an economy has been demonstrated more often, in more places, and under more varied conditions, than almost anything outside the realm of pure science.
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Aldous Huxley
Liberty, as we all know, cannot flourish in a country that is permanently on a war footing, or even a near war footing. Permanent crisis justifies permanent control of everybody and everything by the agencies of central government.
President Obama often takes credit for President Bush’s worst policies while also averring that the economy hasn’t resurged yet because of his predecessor’s bad policies. I’m happy to blame both of them for the bad policies and bad results.
While campaigning in Ohio recently, Obama said we should pick him in November because he didn’t “let Detroit go bankrupt.”
Financial writer Steve Conover points out that the car-czar idea started with Bush in the frantic last months of his administration. Also that the choice for dealing with troubled auto firms “in 2008-2009 was not bankruptcy versus no bankruptcy [but] between precedent-driven bankruptcy and White House-driven bankruptcy — rule-of-law versus rule-of-czar.”
Not every car company was going bankrupt back then and being “rescued” by the elephantine intercession of the federal government. GM and Chrysler were the special beneficiaries of that galumphing guidance. As were the auto unions at whose behest the usual bankruptcy procedures were bypassed.
Better-managed firms like Ford and Honda had circumvented the abyss. The reward for their hard work and foresight? Government-subsidized competition. Conover’s most basic point is that the only resource that can (and should) “save” any company from failing in the marketplace is “a sufficient number of buying customers.” The auto industry would have continued minus GM and Chrysler. People who wanted to buy cars would simply have bought cars elsewhere — from companies better able to supply their demand. And auto jobs would have moved accordingly.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Aldous Huxley
To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior “righteous indignation” — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.