ThrutchBlog

A good blog post on Google's right to charge for and use the property it has created. Link to Original

I enjoyed this Forbes <b><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2012/12/05/inside-the-koch-empire-how-the-brothers-plan-to-reshape-america/">story</a></b> highlighting the Koch brothers ability to build businesses by thinking long-term and willingly taking on calculated risks. They seem to be very admirable entrepreneurs. Link to Original

For some reason markets seem to be much more "jerky" than I would have ever guessed from standard economic theory. I predict that one day in the next three years, the market will suddenly "realize" that's it's been mis-pricing the risk of municipal bond defaults and "haircuts", and the bond market will see a precipitous decline. This WSJ story lists one of the principal risks that, in my opinion, the market currently isn't really discounting: The municipal bankruptcy unfolding in Stockton, California is giving investors a bad case of deja vu. Just as the Obama Administration bailed out the United Auto Workers in Chrysler's bankruptcy while hanging bondholders out to dry, the city of Stockton is subordinating its bond debt to worker pensions. But what's really scary is that the Stockton case could be replayed in dozens of California cities. Link to Original

I think this article is a good example of the positive soul-searching a horrific event can elicit. Hopefully Indian culture will improve as a result of the recent prominent gang-rape-murder. I post this as a reminder that we must continue to try to offer positive and constructive analyses as our own cultures worsens, the alternative is to have religious views gain prominence. Link to Original

It's nice to see Ayn Rand quoted as the lead in to an editorial, especially when the editorial makes a decent point. Link to Original

Here's a good read on the latest developments on AGW, including this teaser excerpt: The big question is this: Will the lead authors of the relevant chapter of the forthcoming IPCC scientific report acknowledge that the best observational evidence no longer supports the IPCC's existing 2°-4.5°C "likely" range for climate sensitivity? Unfortunately, this seems unlikely—given the organization's record of replacing evidence-based policy-making with policy-based evidence-making, as well as the reluctance of academic scientists to accept that what they have been maintaining for many years is wrong. Link to Original

A good rebuttal of Buffett's political nonsense. Link to Original

The Ayn Rand Institute has published a new Q&A on their view of, and willingness to work with, libertarians. Link to Original

I agree with the gist of this well-written editorial. Welfare recipients et. al. are actually worse off for not having a job, even if they're given an amount of money equal to what they could make working. This passage summarizes the broader point: It is a simple fact that the United States is becoming an entitlement state. The problem with this is not just that it is bankrupting the country. It is that the entitlement state is impoverishing the lives of the growing millions dependent on unearned resources. Link to Original

I enjoyed this post on the proper approach to science and how the AGW crowd violates it. Link to Original

I've been predicting something like what's speculated here for a long time. My guess though is that the first step will be to ensure that anyone receiving pension or other benefits will have to live in the jurisdiction in question (and therefore be subject to its taxes). Link to Original

It's sad to see the rampant corruption in Mexico, but as this <b><a href="http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/12/11/wealth-asylum/">story</a></b> helps illustrate, some countries, such as Canada, still benefit from a general rule of law. Let's hope that that's something we can maintain here in the US as well.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/12356304-7203499995501106855?l=amitghate.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div> Link to Original

Too much of what I read as advice to the GOP on immigration is that they have to cater to immigrants in order to get elected; the underlying message being that though it's wrong, it's necessary. As a result, I'm all too happy that Jerry Bowyer prefaces his Forbes <b><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/jerrybowyer/2012/11/15/the-republican-party-needs-a-reset-on-immigration/">print article</a></b> on the subject with the following:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Finally, I add this exhortation to my GOP brethren: If you see your problem with immigrants as merely one of marketing, then you will not succeed. The nativist wing of the party is not just politically inconvenient, it is morally and economically wrong. The point is not to capitulate to political necessity; the point is to have the right policy. The right policy is a growing economy, non-burdensome immigration laws, a welfare system which promotes work, not dependency, and a culture of assimilation, not isolation.</blockquote><br /><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/12356304-2549233410386204073?l=amitghate.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div> Link to Original

I enjoyed this <b><a href="http://www.smartmoney.com/invest/stocks/immigration-helps-the-markets/">piece</a></b> (from 2010 but still relevant).<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/12356304-1877691410998252443?l=amitghate.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div> Link to Original

A good <b><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/objectivist/2012/10/28/president-obama-duels-with-ayn-rand-over-what-makes-america-great/">column</a></b> at Forbes discussing the contrast.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/12356304-8178440029559881731?l=amitghate.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div> Link to Original

Though I haven't yet used this resource, I've heard that the language teachings for the foreign service are quite good. They're now <b><a href="http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php">available</a></b> online for free (i.e. no additional cost beyond the taxes already spent on them).<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/12356304-8722015114545751995?l=amitghate.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div> Link to Original

Don Watkins and Yaron Brook have a good <b><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/objectivist/2012/10/15/why-ayn-rands-absence-from-last-thursdays-debate-benefits-big-government/">piece</a></b> out at Forbes outlining how Rand's views contrast with those of the current paradigm. One small criticism though, while I agree that Romney and Ryan are (much?) better than Obama and Biden, I'm not so sure that the right as a whole is better than the left as a whole. Hence I don't agree with siding with the right against the left as they do in their final paragraph. (If I've misunderstood either their point or the whole right vs. left issue, corrections and criticisms are welcome, though please try to keep them polite and on point.)<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/12356304-5943152046727029910?l=amitghate.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div> Link to Original

A good <b><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2217286/Global-warming-stopped-16-years-ago-reveals-Met-Office-report-quietly-released--chart-prove-it.html">article</a></b> summarizing new temperature data which further suggests that the threat of out-of-control AGW is a fraud. And while science can be used to combat these frauds on a piecemeal basis, only challenging the underlying philosophy will have wholesale effects (i.e. will stop new variants from popping up ad infinitum.) Such a challenge would include fighting for privatizing science, I might add.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/12356304-908176716964721719?l=amitghate.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div> Link to Original

Though I haven't watched the video of this 1984 <b><a href=" between Drs. Peikoff and Ridpath (representing capitalism) and Drs. Vickers and Caplan (socialism) in decades, I remember it as a tour de force from Dr. Peikoff. You wouldn't know it by the outcome, but the defenders of socialism were credible figures, not hacks. Highly recommended! (The link is to part 1, the subsequent parts are found on the sidebar to the video.)<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/12356304-1327525488634167275?l=amitghate.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div> Link to Original

Harry Bingswanger has an excellent <b><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/harrybinswanger/2012/09/20/virtually-everyone-has-missed-whats-wrong-with-romneys-47-comment/">analysis</a></b> of Romney's class warfare comments out at Forbes. Must reading.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/12356304-8034719071349921834?l=amitghate.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div> Link to Original

I disagree with most of the philosophical analysis in this <b><a href="http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/on-the-freedom-to-offend-an-imaginary-god">article</a></b>, but I emphatically agree with one crucial point:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.383333206176758px;">What exactly was in the film? Who made it? What were their motives? Was Muhammad really depicted? Was that a Qur’an burning, or some other book? Questions of this kind are obscene. Here is where the line must be drawn and defended without apology: We are free to burn the Qur’an or any other book, and to criticize Muhammad or any other human being. </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.383333206176758px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Let no one forget it</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.383333206176758px;">.</span></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">[..] </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.383333206176758px;">The freedom to think out loud on certain topics, without fear of being hounded into hiding or killed, </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.383333206176758px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">has already been lost</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.383333206176758px;">. And the only forces on earth that can recover it are strong, secular governments that will face down charges of blasphemy with scorn. No apologies necessary. Muslims must learn that if they make belligerent and fanatical claims upon the tolerance of free societies, they will meet the limits of that tolerance. And Governor Romney, though he is wrong about almost everything under the sun (including, very likely, the sun), is surely right to believe that it is time our government delivered this message without blinking.</span> </blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/12356304-5400790337295538289?l=amitghate.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div> Link to Original

<div class="tr_bq">I think I've mentioned previously that I'm becoming more and more convinced that not only are transfer payments and entitlements harmful to those who are forced to fund them, they're also deeply harmful to the newly created underclass of chronic dependents who accept them.</div><br />John Allison has often stressed the spiritual value of engaging in a productive life, at whatever level, as obviously has Ayn Rand. But I'm only now starting to appreciate the full value of their insight. It is, as far as I can tell, another aspect of the good being objective (not intrinsic). Thus money on its own is not a value, it takes the whole context, including the reality orientation, self-responsibility, etc. of those who work to earn it, that truly makes it a value. (I don't mean here to discount the value of the material sustenance it provides, but to highlight the larger picture which chronic dependents completely miss out on.)<br /><br />As a result I now see articles like this <b><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444914904577619671931313542.html">one</a></b> pointing to an even worse problem than I'd previously understood. Here's a snippet describing the situation today:<br /><blockquote>What is monumentally new about the American state today is the vast empire of entitlement payments that it protects, manages and finances. Within living memory, the federal government has become an entitlements machine. As a day-to-day operation, it devotes more attention and resources to the public transfer of money, goods and services to individual citizens than to any other objective, spending more than for all other ends combined.</blockquote><blockquote>The growth of entitlement payments over the past half-century has been breathtaking. In 1960, U.S. government transfers to individuals totaled about $24 billion in current dollars, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. By 2010 that total was almost 100 times as large. Even after adjusting for inflation and population growth, entitlement transfers to individuals have grown 727% over the past half-century, rising at an average rate of about 4% a year.</blockquote>And a snippet describing the original American attitude which previously made the existence of an entitlement state impossible:<br /><blockquote>The proud self-reliance that struck Alexis de Tocqueville in his visit to the U.S. in the early 1830s extended to personal finances. The American "individualism" about which he wrote did not exclude social cooperation—the young nation was a hotbed of civic associations and voluntary organizations. But in an environment bursting with opportunity, American men and women viewed themselves as accountable for their own situation through their own achievements—a novel outlook at that time, markedly different from the prevailing attitudes of the Old World (or at least the Continent).</blockquote><blockquote>The corollaries of this American ethos were, on the one hand, an affinity for personal enterprise and industry and, on the other, a horror of dependency and contempt for anything that smacked of a mendicant mentality. Although many Americans in earlier times were poor, even people in fairly desperate circumstances were known to refuse help or handouts as an affront to their dignity and independence. People who subsisted on public resources were known as "paupers," and provision for them was a local undertaking. Neither beneficiaries nor recipients held the condition of pauperism in high regard.</blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/12356304-3962370877977179620?l=amitghate.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div> Link to Original

Leaving aside this <b><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444812704577609432855449486.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_h">editorial's</a></b> pro-Republican bent, I think it illustrates how much impact advocates can have at the lower levels of government, and how those results can then serve as a beacon and example for the federal level.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/12356304-1976733732712138887?l=amitghate.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div> Original: http://amitghate.blogspot.com/2012/09/activism-at-state-and-local-level.html

I'm becoming more and more impressed with Alex Epstein's <b><a href="http://industrialprogress.net/">Center for Industrial Progress</a></b>. Here's a keynote address he delivered to the American Coal Council: <iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/KET-lghduGg" width="560"></iframe><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/12356304-4019477414063088960?l=amitghate.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div> Original: http://amitghate.blogspot.com/2012/08/center-for-industrial-progress.html

Hey NASA, the Science is Not Settled: This is encouraging, though it would be more so if current NASA employees would also sign on (though I know that's difficult given NASA's government monopoly in the field). Original entry: See link at top of this post