Blogs

The Definition of Insanity...

It was Albert Einstein who stated that the definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." After the FED's cutting of interest rates by three-quarters of a point today , those of us wary...

Posted to Veritas by zsignal on Tue, Mar 18 2008

Filed under: federal reserve, business cycle, money, banking, credit, fed

2 quick things

1) Pointer from Marginal Revolution to Cop in the Hood . Pre-ordered my copy already and can't wait for the exciting read. 2) Don't know why I keep torturing myself on the whole colorblind thing but I think I'd be some kind of outlier in this...

Posted to Austrian Addiction by Austrian Addiction on Tue, Mar 18 2008

Filed under: marginal revolution, music, cop in the hood

What Is Democracy? Part One: Democracy Is Slavery

This is part one in a three part series: democracy is slavery, democracy is impossible and democracy is liberty. Democracy Is Slavery By the phrase "democracy is slavery", I refer to the tyranny that inevitably arises from the principles of...

Posted to Brainpolice by Brainpolice on Sun, Mar 16 2008

Filed under: Ethics, Universality, Consistancy, Utilitarianism, Collectivism, Majoritarianism, Democracy, Individual Sovereignty, Consent, Slavery

Social Contract My Ass

I hear people talking about a social contract all the time. Usually in the context of some authoritarian action by the government, instituted many times by the “will” of the majority (this is really a misnomer in itself, since the majority doesn’t participate...

Posted to IrishOutlaw by IrishOutlaw on Fri, Mar 14 2008

Filed under: rousseau, locke, lincoln, natural law, social contract, bakunin

Traditionalism As Stagnation

In my understanding, appealing to tradition (particularly for its own sake) causes the stagnation of society. All human progress has resulted from deviation from prior "norms" or "traditions". In my view, a conservative view of history...

Posted to Brainpolice by Brainpolice on Sun, Mar 9 2008

Filed under: Social Evolution, Entropy, Religion, Philosophy, conservatism

Review of two economic museums

For spring break, I decided to go to Mexico again (and mind you, not to Cancun or any beach place like that), but since it was cheaper, I had to go through NYC. Anyways, I visited the Museum of American Finance in NYC (as recommended by Dr. Tucker ) and...

Posted to Musings from an Economics Student by champthom on Sat, Mar 8 2008

Filed under: mexico, currency, museum, history, financial history, inflation, tucker

Crook County

This issue is a bit parochial, but typical of what goes on in many places. The county board of Cook County in Illinois has decided to squeeze the taxpayers further with a full percentage point sales tax increase. This will bring the tax rate in many of...

Posted to econbuff by econbuff on Fri, Mar 7 2008

Gainfully employed!!!

Once again a thousand apologies for such delays between posts, I am sad to report that much of the same can be expected for at least another month or so as I am finalizing my dissertation and defending in the very near future. As for the title of the...

Posted to Austrian Addiction by Austrian Addiction on Thu, Mar 6 2008

Filed under: News

"Private" and "Public" are Misleading Terms

This is a response to the following video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b9qGxjjAP8 Hello Luke I share your frustration with the definitional chaos surrounding these words. In many ways the meanings typically attached to the terms public and private...

Posted to Brainpolice by Brainpolice on Tue, Mar 4 2008

Filed under: Collusion, Patronage, Propaganda, Economics, Corporatism, Central Banking

WHY Pat Michaels says "The Antarctic Ain't Cooperating"

[Update: I have separately posted for the interest of readers my exchange of emails with Chip Knappenberger, Pat Michael`s colleague at his self-described "advocacy science consulting firm" , New Hope Environmental Services.] In comments on...

Posted to TT's Lost in Tokyo by TokyoTom on Tue, Mar 4 2008

Filed under: confirmation bias, Antarctica, climate change, Pat Michaels, fossil fuels

Almost levelled, West Virginia: Crooked justice allows mountain-top removal practices to freely injure homes and health

... with the federal government, state and union all firmly in the pocket of coal firms. This seems to be a classic case, on a huge scale, of the difficulties individual property owners and communities face when confronting clearly wrongful acts by large...

Posted to TT's Lost in Tokyo by TokyoTom on Mon, Mar 3 2008

Filed under: state, Coal, mining, mountaintop removal, Appalachia, statism, power

Antarctic cooling? Or WHY "The Antarctic Ain't Cooperating" [Updated]

[Significant update at bottom] I've decided to put up this little post in connection with Walter Block's recent post, http://blog.mises.org/archives/007828.asp , in order to avoid having my comment stuck in a spam filter (I've found that comments...

Posted to TT's Lost in Tokyo by TokyoTom on Sun, Mar 2 2008

Filed under: James Hansen, Block, ozone, Antarctica, climate change, Pat Michaels, British Antactic Survey, fossil fuels

Prison stats make another new record

I saw this from the New York Times yesterday. Originally I wanted to put up a post that asked the following question: For how long will America continue to set new records in the realm of incarceration and punishment trends without a serious call for...

Posted to Austrian Addiction by Austrian Addiction on Fri, Feb 29 2008

Filed under: Prisons, statistics, incapacitation effect

Visual Studio 2008 to 2005 downgrade utility

Visual Studio 2008 allows you to target .Net Framework 2.0, so you don't have to migrate the solutions you developed in Visual Studio 2005 to a new framework version. The only problem is that it upgrades the solution and project files, making your...

Posted to The Mises Tech Update by David V on Thu, Feb 28 2008

Filed under: development

Re: Moral vs Hierarchical obligations

The following is a response to this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoXjrlxDSL4 Dear Mr1001Nights, Unchosen positive obligations are indeed slavery, which should be obvious because the obligations are not chosen. In claiming or bestowing unchosen...

Posted to Brainpolice by Brainpolice on Thu, Feb 28 2008

Filed under: Anarchism, Ethics, Self-interest, Rational Egoism, Consent, Slavery, Human Nature