voluntaryXchange

Economics: Just the Basics Please

Stephen Karlson (of Cold Spring Shops) nails it:

… If you get opportunity cost, specialization, substitution, and arbitrage you will get economics.

I don’t want to steal any thunder from Steve, but I’m sitting here thinking about inane policies, and 4 bullet points for each one about how they’ve gotten it wrong on these points.

Technorati Tags: quote,economics,opportunity,cost,specialization,substitution,arbitrage

The Problem with Registering What Morality Requires

Via Cafe Hayek (quoted in full) with a good quote about the bizarreness of good enforced Samaritan laws:

… is from page 242 of Leland Yeager’s important 2001 book, Ethics as Social Science: The Moral Philosophy of Social Cooperation (citation removed; original emphasis):

Mary Ann Glendon makes much of the failure of law in the United States to impose a legal duty to come to the aid of a person in mortal danger….  Yet one might well regard the nonimposition of a legal duty to give help as an example of humility and restraint on the part of law and government.  The absence of a legal requirement does not mean repudiating the moral duty to give help.  To suppose it does – more broadly, to suppose that the law determines or at least registers what morality requires – is a tacitly statist notion.  Government should not try, with coercion as its ultimate sanction, to enforce everything good and suppress everything bad.  Taking on so broad a responsibility would worsen its dangerous aspects.

I have commented on Cafe Hayek about a broader interpretation of this position. Paraphrasing: to suppose that policy determines or at least registers what morality requires — is a notion of tacit centralizers.

Beware centralizers: they have blinkers on, and don’t notice the decentralized decision-making that dominates our lives.

Technorati Tags: quote,register,morality,statist,centralizer,good,samaritan

Grigua’s Prayer

So I saw Grigua’s Prayer quoted today, but when I hit Google … it doesn’t seem to have a reasonable source.

The “prayer” is a response to a situation which has gotten out of hand, and you need:

The Lord to come himself and not to send his Son, as this is not a time for children.

The source I have is David Henderson (of EconLog) quoting Brad DeLong reviewing Skidelsky’s first book about Keynes, specifically his discussions with Jan Smuts during the Versailles negotiations.

So, it would seem the quote comes from Smuts through Keynes to Skidelsky.

Except that if you look it up on Google, the only cites occurring before 2004 are … DeLong quoting Skidelsky.

But, if you look up quotes by Smuts … it’s not there.

So, here we have a quote, alleged to be used in 1919, that is apocryphal before 2000.

I don’t get it. But, I still like the quote.

Technorati Tags: grigua's,prayer,lord,son,children

Pithy Quotes from Mark Helprin

Mark Helprin thinks Benghazi was a bad sign. Me too, but in an unstimulating article I found two quotes I liked.

Here’s some antimetabole On Hilary:

… possibly the next president, comprehend this. Her record-air-mile tenure as secretary of state, in which restless ambition was the cause of unambitious restlessness, brought one of the most confused approaches to the international system ever foisted upon the long suffering Republic, unless you think donating Egypt to the Muslim Brotherhood was Napoleonic genius. [emphasis added]

On the busy-bodiness of the Obama administrations military endeavors:

History and the present tell us unambiguously that we require vast reserves of strength used judiciously, sparingly where possible, overwhelmingly when appropriate, precisely, quickly, and effectively. Now we have vanishing and insufficient strength used injudiciously, promiscuously, slowly, and ineffectively.

Read the whole thing, entitled "Benghazi's Portent and the Decline of U.S. Military Strength" in the April 10 issue of The Wall Street Journal.

Technorati Tags: mark,helprin,quotes,benghazi,hilary,clinton,obama

A Name I Call Myself

Julian Sanchez via Dalibor Rohac:

If Glenn Beck is calling himself a "libertarian" and lefties are going with "progressive" can I have "liberal" back now?

Technorati Tags: libertarian,progressive,liberal,quote,julian,sanchez

Buchanan On Working and Writing

James Buchanan:

Don’t get it right, get it written.

That’s why I blog.

Via Tyler Cowen.

Technorati Tags: buchanan,quote,right,written

One Reason Our Social Thinking Is F***ed Up

From The Last Psychiatrist:

… We don't think in large numbers and apply to one (statistics), we think in terms of ourselves and multiply by 6 billion (narcissism).

This is one reason why stuff like nationalized healthcare is popular: it matters more to each of us that our healthcare is imperfect than it does that collectively we can’t afford better.

Hat tip to BV for suggesting I read The Last Psychiatrist.

Technorati Tags: quote,statistics,narcissism,policy

Today’s Reading

Food for thought, in honor of the holiday:

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

…

… Tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.

…

… As Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.

…

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

…

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" …

…

… I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. … who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; … Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

…

… Right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.

…

I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. … As T. S. Eliot has said: "The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason."

From the “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Technorati Tags: martin,luther,king,jr.,letter,birmingham,jail,quote

The Problem with Doing Something

We elect people to do something. We appoint people to do something.

Should we be surprised when they get busy?

I’m not. But still, it ticks me off.

In California, Governor Jerry Brown has signed into law an astounding 876 new mandates. They all took effect last week. Now in the Golden State you cannot do the following:
- Hunt a bear using trained dogs …
- Sit in an off road vehicle without being in a seat...
- Use a boat in a "freshwater body" without paying a separate fee...
- Drive a party bus without a special license...

The list of new laws is almost endless, and it is clear that Governor Brown and the California legislature have been very busy thinking up ways to control every aspect of people's lives.

…

We Americans need to stop this nanny state stuff. Reasonable protections are fine. It should be a crime to text while driving. But in California it is now against the law to park at a broken meter for more time than you could if said meter were working…

I consider myself a law-abiding person. But I'm exhausted…

So here's my pitch to Jerry Brown and other elected officials. Relax.

Read the whole thing in Bill O’Reilly’s January 10 column.

In my macro classes I suggest – only half-comically – that if we got our legislators hooked on video games they’d stay so busy they’d leave the rest of us alone.

I also suggest – and I am not alone in this – that all laws have a sunset provision. That is, that they have an expiration date, and must be reconsidered and repassed. My guess is that not one of those 876 new mandates in California has an expiration date.

Technorati Tags: legislator,mandate,california,law,rule,frivolous,o'reilly

Trust

From a seminar given by Stephen M.R. Covey, author of The Speed of Trust:

• Trust is all around you, but you can’t see it.
• Trust is an economic driver, not merely a social virtue.
• Trust is a learnable skill.
• Low trust is a tax.

He also claims that trust is the #1 competency of today’s leaders. That’s an interesting thought, but I’m not quite so sure about that one.

P.S. He opened with a cute joke: the towels at the hotel were so good he couldn’t close his suitcase ;)

Technorati Tags: covey,speed,trust,tax,learnable