voluntaryXchange

Bill Clinton's Special Friend

Remember that secret trial separation between Bill and Hillary that's been going on since late 1999?

Turns out Bill has a new special friend (pictured together here). Her name's Belinda Stronach, and she's:
1) Young (quite a bit younger than Bill and Hillary at least)
2) Blond
3) Good looking (yes, this is subjective)
4) Rich
5) Conservative (in the Canadian political sense)
6) Already a powerbroker (click the "continue reading" link below)
7) Likely to be the member of Parliament from Newmarket-Aurora, Ontario soon

And, you've got to think she just might be Prime Minister of Canada someday. What will that make Bill? He just doesn't seem like the Denis Thatcher type.

Can Animals Feel Pain?

Does the worm hurt when you put it on the hook. How about the fish when you remove it?

It turns out scientists know a little about where the borderline is.

Outsourcing Folktales

Monday's Wall Street Journal has a good front page article on outsourcing (online here - subscription required). It discuss four historical instances from the 19th century of technological advances leading to outsourcing. Positive and negative effects, and political responses are discussed in detail.

Takfiri

Remember the takfiri? I didn't think so. Me neither. Perhaps we should.

In short, takfiri are islamist jihadis who believe in violence against everyone who is not a devout moslem. They believe in infiltration into western society, recruit women, and support themselves through crime. Think Mohammed Atta - Roland Jacquard, one of the world's leading scholars on Islamic terrorism, says flatly, "Atta was Takfiri."

Why should we care now? Because the 3/11 bombers in Spain were takfiri. Fifty-five pounds of hashish were bartered for the explosives to kill 200 people.

Here is a Time expose on takfiri from the early part of the war on terror. Here is an even earlier warning that these people are out there.

The Vision of the Annoited

I just finished Thomas Sowell's The Vision of the Annoited. I think if you combine it with Eric Hoffer's The True Believer, you'll have a pretty good set of tools for figuring out where a good chunk of the chattering classes are coming from.

Sowell's thesis is that there is a substantial portion of the policy making population (the annoited) for which their beliefs are more important than factual support (the vision). He doesn't come right out and say it, but there is a self-supporting belief structure held by this group - essentially a religion for people who probably wouldn't approve of religion.

This means that the arrayal of facts about what works and what doesn't, and the discussion of the incentives required to yield good outcomes, are subjects which will get you nowhere with certain groups of people.

Unfortunately, Sowell offers little advice about how to work with these people. Other than to be persistent.

Hoffer explained pretty clearly why someone would want to join such a group, and what characteristics joiners and their leaders would have.

Curious? Buy it here:

Smart Liberal Columnists

Let's hope this is just a lazy mistake.

I don't always like Ellen Goodman, but I thought she was smarter than this.

But remember that adding "In God We Trust" was also a political sop to opponents after Lincoln rejected their proposal to insert Jesus Christ into the preamble of the Constitution.

Tip of the hat to Best of the Web Today.

Kleptocrat Characteristics

What are the economic characteristics of the countries of the top ten kleptocrats (see Ben Muse March 26th post, and Marginal Revolution).

The most definitive cross-section of national economic data is the Penn World Tables. How does it match up with the top 9 technocrats (this source does not contain data for Serbia).

1) All 9 countries rate as less open to international trade than the U.S.
2) Seven of them have a larger share of GDP devoted to government than the U.S. (and the other two are close).

Of course, its common knowledge that most countries with kleptocracies are poor, so we need a metric for measuring poorness. Most Americans are familiar with Mexico, so lets use that.

3) Seven of the nine countries are poorer (in per capita terms) than Mexico.

Kleptocracies are usually regarded as a phenomenon of small countries that are easily dominated by the few. Again, we need a metric, so lets choose American states.

4) Nine out of nine of the kleptocracies have a population that would get them 7 or more electoral votes if they were states (about the size of Kansas or Mississippi).

Obvious wealth isn't the problem either:

5) Only 2 out of 9 have substantial oil wealth, and only 1 has nukes that could be sold for cash.

Lastly, a considerable amount has been written about the poor institutions in many developing countries being relation to their former colonizer. Running down the list, there is not as much pattern as you would think: 4 former Spanish colonies, then 1 Dutch, 1 Belgian, 1 English, 1 French, and 1 Russian.

See my earlier post on Haiti for related information.

Kleptocrats Top Ten

The list of top ten kleptocrats is somewhat flawed.

Ben Muse reported (on March 26th) on Transparency International's list of the top ten kleptocrats.

The problem is pretty obvious. Because the list is dominated by recently deposed kleptocrats, one can be almost certain that it is not corrected for inflation. So, these are nominal kleptocrats, rather than "real" kleptocrats.

So, who should probably be on the list? One nomination would be Fulgencio Batista, the predecessor of Fidel Castro. Another would be any of the kings of middle eastern countries that were deposed in the 1950's and 1960's. How about Idi Amin. I don't think he's in the class with the others, but maintaining a lavish lifestyle in Saudi Arabian exile for 20 years should indicate something to us.

A tip of the hat to Marginal Revolution for bringing Ben's post this to my attention.

Degree Mill Food Chain

The Dallas-Fort Worth Star-Telegram notes that the same Liberian degree mill used by 10 Georgia teachers to garner raises, also provided a Ph.D. to the president of a business college.

Further, this particular college president sits on a national accreditation board!

Freemasons at the IMF

"The whole IMF - freemasons - they rule the world".

Only another economist would laugh as hard at this as I did.

The penultimate episode of The Chris Isaak Show featured one character's conspiracy theory, the freemasons was the target, and this was one of the many tidbits he blurted out.