Presciently titled podcast, for there is one error in it. Guess which it is:
Author: Redactor
One swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.
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Zola and Menger
On February 23, 1898, Émile Zola was imprisoned in France after writing J’accuse, a letter accusing the French government of anti-Semitism and wrongfully imprisoning Captain Alfred Dreyfus. Zola was a leading force in extending realism to the novel.
Fifty-eight years earlier, Austrian economist Carl Menger was born.
Menger would go on to contribute to the development of the theory of marginal utility, which supplanted cost-of-production theories of value in economics, in his first book, translated into English as Principles of Economics. Though expert in mathematics (he served as tutor in economics and statistics to Archduke Rudolf von Habsburg, the Crown Prince of Austria not long after the publication of the Principles), his approach to marginal theory was the least mathematical of his famous “co-discovers” of the principle, William Stanley Jevons and Leon Walras. Rooted in a subjective theory of value, it was the most realistic and least model-based of the marginalist revolutionaries, and he was most interested in price formation, not “price determination,” which focused almost exclusively on equilibrium conditions. He developed an evolutionary theory of money, as well. His second book expanded upon invisible hand processes in society.
Zola died in 1902; Menger died in 1921.
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Liz Windsor Makes Me Sick!
…and other adventures in republican values.
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Heroes Executed
On Feb. 22, 1943, brother and sister Hans and Sophie Scholl, and their colleague in the White Rose resistance organization, Christoph Probst, stood trial before the Volksgericht — the People’s Court that tried political offenses against the Nazi German state. Found guilty of treason by Roland Freisler, head judge of the court, the three were executed that same day.
The method of capital punishment was guillotine.
Their six pamphlets had spread throughout German-held territory before the war ended.
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Christoph Probst
Every word that comes from Hitler’s mouth is a lie. When he says peace, he means war, and when he blasphemously uses the name of the Almighty, he means the power of evil, the fallen angel, Satan. His mouth is the foul-smelling maw of Hell, and his might is at bottom accursed. True, we must conduct a struggle against the National Socialist terrorist state with rational means; but whoever today still doubts the reality, the existence of demonic powers, has failed by a wide margin to understand the metaphysical background of this war.
From the fourth leaflet by “The White Rose”
“We’re not going to throw out capitalism,” declared Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former New York City mayor now seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination for president.
“Other countries tried that. It was called communism and it just didn’t work.”
Bloomberg was responding to a question by MSNBC’s Hallie Jackson at Wednesday night’s Las Vegas debate regarding his thoughts on Sen. Bernie Sanders’ proposal to “require all large companies to turn over up to 20 percent of their ownership to employees over time.”
“Let’s talk about democratic socialism, Mr. Bloomberg,” countered Sanders. “Not communism — that’s a cheap shot!”
But is it?
The Vermont Senator has a long history of offering effusive praise for repressive socialist and communist regimes, including the Soviet Union, Cuba, and Nicaragua. After lauding the late Fidel Castro for providing healthcare and education and “totally transform[ing] the society” — while ignoring Castro’s complete disregard for human rights — Bernie judiciously added, “Not to say that Fidel Castro or Cuba are perfect, they are certainly not.”
Sanders has also called for “public ownership of the major means of production.” Unlike Karl Marx, I guess Bernie doesn’t sweat the small stuff.
“What a wonderful country we have. The best-known socialist in the country,” offered Bloomberg, referring to Sanders, “happens to be a millionaire with three houses!
“What did I miss?”
Asserting a need for a second residence, the Vermont senator replied, “Well, you missed that I work in Washington.”
“That’s the first problem,” Bloomberg interjected.
The first of many.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Nicolaus Copernicus
Those who know that the consensus of many centuries has sanctioned the conception that the earth remains at rest in the middle of the heavens as its center, would, I reflected, regard it as an insane pronouncement if I made the opposite assertion that the earth moves.
Copernicus was born February 19, 1473.
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Three Horrors
On Feb. 21, 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published The Communist Manifesto.
On Feb. 21, 1916, the Battle of Verdun began with German bombardment of the city of Verdun, France. For ten months, the longest single engagement of the First World War, German forces attacked the French along a 20-kilometer front crossing the Meuse River. When the battle ended, with no change in the strategic position of either army, the combined death toll was over 300,000 (out of over 700,000 casualties).
On Feb. 21, 1965, Malcolm X was gunned down by rival Black Muslims while addressing his Organization of Afro-American Unity in New York City.
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Save Me, Good and Hard
The problem with making my own decisions? I might make a mistake.
That’s not good for me, is it?
So what you government boys ought to do is make me scrape and bow and beg for permission. Make me fill out more forms, struggle with invasive new privacy-invading requirements. Make it super-hard to comply — so I give up before I do anything . . . ill-considered.
That way, you prevent me from taking actions that might just possibly go badly — like investing my own hard-earned money the way I want to.
The SEC is seriously considering meeting this demand.
Give it to me good and hard, SEC!
But let me clarify. By “me” I mean every small independent investor. By “give it to me” I mean “don’t give it to me.”
Don’t do what Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton and other SEC commissioners are considering: imposing a regulation to “effectively ban many middle-class investors from buying mutual funds and exchange-traded funds.”
Don’t make it lots harder to use the Robinhood app to make certain low-fee or no-fee purchases. Don’t prevent investors from buying funds through discount brokerages and apps like Robinhood unless they first fill out an intrusive questionnaire about their personal finances and pray for permission.
Don’t make us beg to invest.
Don’t.
Stop mulling whether to further harass Americans who want to be free to make their own choices and live their own lives.
Don’t enslave.
Liberate. Laissez nous faire, you condescending thugs.
This Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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