“Private property and free trade stand on exactly the same footing, both being essential and indivisible parts of liberty, both depending upon rights, which no body of men, whether called governments or anything else, can justly take from the individual.”
Auberon Herbert, The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State (1885)
On June 21, 1915, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down an Oklahoma law denying the right to vote to some citizens. In Guinn v. United States, the Supreme Court found “grandfather clauses” in effect in several formerly slave states to be little more than sneaky ways of allowing illiterate white folks to vote while disallowing illiterate black folks.
“We’re so much more rational in sports,” says Thomas Sowell, than in economic policy.
Here Sowell clarifies a major policy issue that flows from the “market failure” analysis that grew out of “perfect competition” models in modern economics. But without the math.
On this date in 1787, at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, it was moved and debated to confine legislative powers to two distinct branches, and to strike the word “national” from the document.
The final wording eventually became “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.” And the word “national” does not occur anywhere in the Constitution.
“The nature of man is indivisible; you cannot cut him across, and give one share of him to the state and leave the other for himself.”
Auberon Herbert, The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State (1885)
Real and effective “anti-establishment” ideas come from unexpected places. That is, they are unexpected if you read only the dominant media and its insider sources, or follow politics only during the quadrennial presidential farce.
Quite a few news junkies would be surprised at David Stockman’s critique of current Federal Reserve behavior and policy, for example. In “Why Ronald Reagan Is Rolling In His Grave: The Keynesian Putsch At The Fed,” he charges the central bank with having managed “an economic coup d’etat” by engaging in an ongoing wealth redistribution scam — shoveling wealth to the rich.
Stockman sees the confidence of Fed Chair Yellen’s macro-policy micromanagement agenda as a scary case of hubris, of self-appointed effrontery. “Yellen & Co believe they are in charge of virtually everything on the main street economy . . . based on nothing more than their own subjective and unexplained wisdom.”
Stockman is in high form, here. Yellen’s latest pronouncement, he says, is “unaltered Keynesian claptrap. It is the arrogant over-reach of a model-obsessed academic zealot who has no respect whatsoever for the real main street economy and for the historically proven truth that free markets are the best route to prosperity and higher living standards for the people. . . .”
Her policies, he claims, amount to “‘trickle down’ economics with malice of forethought.”
Does that sound Bernie Sanderish to you? It shouldn’t.
The case for limited government and against the Fed (and federal government management in general) are that it is modern unlimited government that serves the few at the expense of the many. Stockman is just restating very old wisdom.
Remind your Occupier friends of this. They are on the wrong team.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
“A man can only learn when he is free to act.”
Auberon Herbert, The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State (1885)
In 1941, Václav Klaus was born; other June 19 births include Salman Rushdie in 1947, Kathleen Turner in 1954, and Laura Ingraham in 1964.
In the first week of June we were told to expect egg shortages. The avian flu had infected millions of hens: egg production would plummet.
This was news, reported as “Egg Rationing in America Has Officially Begun.” The Washington Post cited a few signs in Texan retail groceries warning customers that the stores were not in the wholesale biz, supplying eggs for restaurants and the like.
And then the follow-up: On Tuesday the New York Times reported, “Bird Flu Sends Egg Prices Up, but Slowing Demand Prevents Shortages.”
Author Stephanie Strom is probably not responsible for the title. Her copy was not horrible.
It’s hard to get over the title, though. Economist Mike Munger offered his reaction headline: “NY Times Causes Head of Mungowitz to Explode.”
Why?
One word: “but.”
The title should have read, “Bird Flu Sends Egg Prices Up, So Naturally Slowing Demand Prevents Shortages.”
Why that “slowing demand”?
I’ll let Munger explain it:
There can never, NEVER be a shortage if prices are free to adjust. Because a shortage is insufficient supply at current prices. Lagniappe: This was in the “Science” section. Yes, it was.
People buy less when prices rise. So those who value eggs less cede those humpy dumpties to folks who want them more. Fitting. Harmonious!
So the title was witless, Munger insists, “on the order of ‘Water: Still Wet!’ or ‘That Crazy Sun: Rising in the East Again This Morning.’”
I like “good news” stories. Too bad the Times wasn’t quite up to delivering the good news that was clearly fit to print.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
“He who carries self-regard far enough to keep himself in good health and high spirits, in the first place thereby becomes an immediate source of happiness to those around, and in the second place maintains the ability to increase their happiness by altruistic actions. But one whose bodily vigour and mental health are undermined by self-sacrifice carried too far, in the first place becomes to those around a cause of depression, and in the second place renders himself incapable, or less capable, of actively furthering their welfare. In estimating conduct we must remember that there are those who by their joyousness beget joy in others, and that there are those who by their melancholy cast a gloom on every circle they enter.”
Herbert Spencer, The Principles of Ethics: Data of Ethics, § 72, pp. 193-194