“In this, the congressman differs from other GOP contenders for the White House and, for that matter, from most politicians, period. Your average pol might rail against the intrusion of government into the private lives of its citizens, then turn right around and advocate a law regulating what a gay man does in his bedroom–and see no contradiction. [Very true] Paul is too intellectually honest for that.” [Mr. Pitts, you're starting to make Paul look really good]

“Intellectual honesty is a good thing, if only because it can lead you to reconsider a faulty premise.(If only? It has no other value?) But in Paul’s take on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he doubles down on the bad premise instead.” [Here Pitts confuses government enforced segregation with private prejudice and treats them as equal malfactors which of course they're not. Here the 'bad premise' is private prejudice.]

“In other words, forcing a restaurant to take down a Whites Only sign infringed the rights of the restaurant owner.[Yes, it did] A similar argument was made by segregationists in 1964–and by slave owners in the 1850s.” [Not actually. Slavery and the Jim Crow laws were enforced by local and state governments and should have been repealed. Had they been repealed sooner, market forces would have eroded the private prejudices even sooner than history shows.]

“Can government be overlarge, overbearing, overwhelming, overrestrictive, overintrusive? Of course. And where it is those things, it is the right–and duty–of the electorate to pare it back.” [Obviously Mr. Pitts doesn't think today's government is any of those things because the Tea Party which he opposes, exists to pare it back. Notice too that he doesn't object to the government being restrictive or intrusive, just overly so. He doesn't understand that he is actually saying don't overchain your slaves but chains are ok. But what would happen if the chains were removed completely?]

“On the other hand,unless you enjoy salmonella in your food and lead in your paint, unless you think it’s OK that your doctor has no medical degree and your lawyer no licence, unless you’re fine with breathing sooty air and drinking tainted water, and unless you really think a black woman in Mississippi, locked out of public places by threat of violence and force of law, should have been required to wait on market forces to rescue her, you must regard Paul’s moral imbecility with a certain awe.” [This is a partial rewrite of history. According to Pitts we were walking over bodies in the streets who died from salmonella, lead, tainted water and air and doctors and lawyers who didn't have government permissions to practice until the caring, loving government came along to save us all. Utter nonsense.]

[I have noticed that when statists mentalities are on the brink of achieving or losing their goals, they become more bold in the accuracy with which they identify their true goals and ideals.]

“Heaven help us if the intellectual rigidity he symbolizes is really the only alternative to the intellectual malleability of so many of his colleagues.” [Wow! An open admission that intellectual malleability is the ideal, the norm to be achieved and admired. I will only add that Mr. Pitts is to be admired for his cognitive precision in identifying the intellectual status of Paul's Republican colleagues.]

With pundits like Mr. Pitts bombarding the public with ideas like this it is no wonder that the public has no principled leaders. My hope is that there are principled leaders out there taking notes on the election campaigns and deciding whether the public is ready for principled leadership. I think a growing number are. I just don’t know how big that number needs to be to turn this country around. Perhaps 2012 will give us a clearer picture.

1. Obama loses election
2. Republicans take Senate and add to House
3. ObamaCare repealed
4. Dodd/Frank repealed
5. Sarbanes/Oxley repealed
6. Departments of Education and Energy to be phased out/privatized
7. Fannie Mae,  Freddie Mac and TSA to be privatized
8. Community Re-investment Act repealed
9. Federal Reserve mandate to provide full employment repealed
10. All bureaucracies to be examined for initiating force thus violating rights
11. Eric Holder under investigation for crime of aiding and abetting public enemies (drug cartels) by arming them against american citizens
12. George Soros under investigation for ties to election fraud activities. 
13. (Bonus headlines)

•  NYT and WAPO losing more readers
• MSNBC bought by conservative publisher and revamped or shut down due to lack of viewers
• Well that’s it for this year’s hopeful headlines. You can add yours in the comments of course.

But suppose you don’t have enough money or feel that he shouldn’t want a sacrifice in return and try to walk out with the shirt. “Wait” shouts the public sacrificer. “I sacrificed for you so you had better sacrifice for me.” “Not so” you retort. “St Ambrose said you don’t do the poor man a favor by giving him your property. You are giving him that which is rightfully his. I need this shirt so it is rightfully mine.” “Yes” the public sacrificer concedes. But I need your $19.95 so that makes it rightfully mine so fork it over or I’ll call the ethics police and have you arrested for selfishness and refusing to sacrifice to the needy.” Fearing jail, you hand over the funds.

I could go on with this imaginary reality but even this reality would be impossible since sacrificing means giving up values and receiving nothing in return for the sacrificer. It would mean that the clothing sacrificer would have to hope someone would come in and sacrifice money to service his need. Since few would, no more clothing would be produced. Everyone suffers.

Notice the nature of the transaction. You lose $19.95. He loses a shirt. A lose/lose event. The moral emphasis is on losing values i.e. suffering. Free trade however puts the moral emphasis on gaining values. You value the shirt more than the $19.95 and he values the $19.95 more than the shirt. Everyone wins because everyone gains a value for himself. It is the gaining of values that altruism, the morality of sacrifice, condemns and seeks to destroy.

I was reminded of this quote when I read this article at Digital Trends. (Hat tip to OActivists) The first paragraph:

“The Federal Communications Commission just handed down new regulation designed to protect small, independent networks, and cable providers are getting seriously riled up. The FCC’s “standstill order” states that cable providers can’t pull networks off the air during contract disputes.”

This demonstrates how government regulations create the need for more regulations, and what happens when the powers that be cannot properly adjudicate property rights which said regulations work to thwart. This incident should tell Republicans of the need to replace government regulations with market regulations. Sadly, I don’t think there are but a few Republicans who even know what market regulations are or how they work. That is why the 2012 election is so important. The events in Atlas Shrugged are materializing faster now than in previous decades.

If the Tea Party confines itself to fighting consequences instead of their causes, it will be fighting an enemy it cannot see. If it can’t see and clearly identify its enemy it cannot defeat it. The movement may win a few battles here and there but will be doomed to lose the war.

I agree that the recent agreement of the debt limit is probably the best we could hope for given the small number of constitutionally committed reps in the House. They need help in 2012. But the help needs to be principled help. The main principle they need to commit to is in the Declaration of Independence, “to protect these rights governments are instituted among men.” This means that if an action violates or threatens to violate a citizen’s right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness congress shall address it. Conversely, if an action does not violate or threaten to violate those same rights, CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW. I screamed those last four words to emphasize that this is what the founders intended. Any potential candidates need to intend it also. This is the particular flame to hold at their feet.

Capitalism is a social system based on individual rights including property rights where all property is privately owned. Not just some of it. The concept of inalienable rights is a moral principle as well as a practical political one. As the most moral system ever devised, it deserves nothing less than a morally principled defense.

The way for the Tea Party to win the public over is to appeal to their rational self interest. It’s what our founders did. The words ‘inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ are words of rational self interest. They are not words of self sacrifice or any kind of sacrifice. The candidates of 2012 and beyond need to understand the political principle of individual rights and the moral principle on which it is based, rational self interest.”

“Mr. Pitts is still peddling socialism despite the fact that it is unsustainable, that people, workers, are rioting in Europe precisely because they refuse to grow up like children throwing a tantrum and realize that it is unsustainable. But he is also peddling government enforced altruism something the government should not be doing. Altruism is not about helping others per se. It’s about getting people to practice sacrifice, the giving up of values, as the only way to help others when in fact the only way to really help mankind is to trade value for value on a free and open market.

The words “… unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” are not words of self sacrifice, but of rational self interest which Mr. Pitts obviously disdains. His claims that those of us in the Tea Party movement are anti government is a straw man. The Tea Party movement is against an unfettered, unrestrained government that no longer is concerned with people’s rights but rather runs around the nation–and sometimes the planet–collecting sacrifices to hand out to beneficiaries that were created by those same sacrifices.

I pay my taxes too. But I pay them because it is in my selfish interest to do so. Not because of some undefined duty to others. We gave up slavery a long time ago. Mr. Pitts wants us to be bound to others by law (taxes). That’s slavery even if only partially. (Forced taxation is a topic for another time)

Notice how Mr. Pitts lumps legitimate functions of government, police and military, with functions that are not essential for the government to provide like education and fixing potholes. Private markets would do an immensely better job of providing those things. It is time Americans discovered laissez-faire capitalism and the moral code on which it rests, rational self interest.”

I think it is important to attack sacrifice, the surrender of values, and promote production of values, free markets and rational self interest as often as possible in today’s cultural climate.

Was it abject fear of Muslim violence (hidden behind an alleged concern for innocents)? If so, was moral cowardice the cause of this fear? But what then could be the cause of the moral cowardice? I’m convinced that it’s the belief that one’s enemies have the moral high ground (because they are more consistent in the practice of self-sacrifice which they share) and that one’s own social system is flawed (because it relies on self interest in order to be prosperous). But why does the evil have to win?

“When men reduce their virtues to the approximate, then evil acquires the force of an absolute, when loyalty to an unyielding purpose is dropped by the virtuous , it’s picked up by scoundrels–and you get the indecent spectacle of a cringing, bargaining, traitorous good and a self-righteously uncompromising evil.” (Ayn Rand The Anatomy of Compromise)

Isn’t that exactly what we saw with the 19th court?

*************************************

I was working in the kitchen a few days ago while one of my grand kids watched Nickelodeon in the living room. I could hear most of the dialog but froze when I heard this statement, from memory now, “I am the superhero Iceman. My job is to travel the universe fighting evil thinkers and evildoers.” Evil thinkers? I listened to see if there perhaps was a context in which he would fight them with good ideas but heard nothing. I think this is a bad idea to plant in the minds of children. Obviously this is paving the way for children to accept the notion that hate speech should be outlawed along with other undesirable thoughts and speech.

We can’t put an end to self-sacrifice and collectivism soon enough.

His slogan “reinvent Michigan” is one telltale sign. Michigan doesn’t need to be ‘reinvented.’ It needs to be freed from the job killing regulations and taxes that have chased businesses out of the state.

Another telltale sign is his decision to go with a government owned second bridge–Detroit River International Crossing, DRIC–over the Detroit river connecting Detroit to Windsor Canada. I had hoped Snyder would have at least opened up the bidding to private enterprise, especially since Matty Marroun, the owner of the Ambassador Bridge from Detroit to Windsor has offered to build the second bridge and pay for it himself. (Yes, the Ambassador is the only privately owned international bridge in the nation)

Snyder, a businessman and former CEO of Gateway, knows that private enterprise is much more efficient than government sponsored enterprises yet he chose the public option anyway. Why? He was lured by the promise of federal Transportation Dept. loot. From a 1/21/11 Detroit News article by Tom Greenwood:

“Snyder, a businessman-turned politician, told The Detroit News that it was the “old accountant” in him that made him ask the federal government whether a $550 million loan from Canada to cover Michigan’s share of the roads for the bridge project could be used to leverage matching federal dollars for other roadwork in Michigan.
“That’s part of the value-added we brought to the table,” Snyder said.”

Unfortunately, for several years, the Michigan toll receipts will be handed over to Canada to repay the loan.

This is pure pragmatism on the part of Gov. Snyder. Pragmatism of course is a range of the moment expediency sans concern for long range consequences i.e. unprincipled. It is this kind of thinking that brought Michigan’s economy to ruin in the first place.

Now, Snyder want’s to replace the oppressive Michigan Business Tax–credited with chasing many small businesses out of the state–with a 6% tax on corporate profits. This despite the fact that he knows wealth creation and therefore a rising standard of living come from only one place–profits. So it seems then that he wants to sacrifice the profits of big business to small business. Neither this nor the public bridge option are free market principles. Then again, pragmatists disdain principles.

All is not lost yet though. Gov. Snyder does want to repeal the item pricing law that forces retailers to price mark every item they sell. In another News article by Jaclyn Trop we learn:

“The law mostly affects retailers that sell many different items, such as grocers and hardware stores, costing them more than $2 billion annually in labor and materials, according to a report by the Anderson Economic Group that Snyder cited”

It is on things like this that the new governor needs to be concentrating. Reduce crippling regulations and he wouldn’t need to replace the Michigan Business Tax. He could just repeal it.

But that is just one of the regulations Snyder considers ‘needless’ implying that others are needed. He does not understand that all government regulations are ‘needless.’ I know this was just Mr. Snyder’s first major speech and I shouldn’t be too pessimistic yet. But it’s hard to be optimistic when I see business groups applauding his speech. Back to the Greenwood article:

“Business leaders ‘thrilled’
Members of the Detroit Regional Chamber also applauded the governor’s endorsement.
“We were thrilled that the governor said he was all in for the DRIC,” Detroit Regional Chamber chief executive Sandy Baruah said. “I love the fact that he found a very inventive way to tie the interests of the DRIC to every legislator in the state of Michigan by tying those transportation dollars to the DRIC project. I thought that was brilliant. I think it will be the key that gets the DRIC done.”

The editor of the Detroit News also hailed the Governor’s pragmatism in a 1/23/11 editorial in which editor Nolan Finley says:

“Rick Snyder’s first substantive speech as governor left a lot of folks scratching their heads, trying to figure out which political slot he fits into.
The answer is, he doesn’t.
He’s not a politician. He’s a businessman. If that wasn’t clear during the gubernatorial campaign, it should be now that Snyder’s opening State of the State address is out of the way.
It will be pragmatism rather than partisan ideology that guides his administration.”

And:

“That was best demonstrated during the speech by his embrace of the Detroit River International Crossing. Conservatives chafe at government involvement in building a new bridge, since a private investor claims to be willing to build one with his own money.
But for Snyder, it was just a big real estate deal, and one he feels he got the best of by convincing the Obama administration to permit the leveraging of a $550 million loan from Canada to repair Michigan’s highways.
He wasn’t about to let a debate over the free market system get in the way of a windfall.”(MY emphasis)

To be fair the editorial did go on to extol Snyder’s pledge for accountability for all money spent and to get rid of growth inhibiting regulations. All nice sounding words until one reads this:

“Likewise, liberals will find unexpected opportunities to applaud the governor, as they did his view that the state must nurture education from the womb through adulthood, and that government has a stake in the waistlines of its citizens.”

AARRRG!! Michigan is joining California in committing economic and educational suicide with the blessings of media and business.

When I look at Michigan and the new governor I feel like that adult who has explained to an adolescent that doing X will result in failure and misery for him but who still insists on doing x anyway suffering the adult to a future of having to watch the calamity unfold. Sigh.

Maybe some of the newer State Republicans will guide him in a better direction. Not holding my breath though.

>”Obama care completely repealed”

>”George Soros files for bankruptcy.” (this is a perennial for me)

>”Newly elected House Republicans appointed to key committees.”

>”112th congress refuses to fund all of EPA efforts at regulating GH gases.”

>”Congress repeals all bans on offshore drilling. Gas prices drop.”

>”Establishment Republicans agree to study the new (to them) and exciting concept of individual rights.” (Another perennial)

>”Congress convenes to consider Constitutional Amendments 28 and 29.” #28,”Congress shall pass no law abridging free trade by interfering in the market place with initiatory force or threat of same, in the absence of any violations of individual rights.” #29, “Congress shall pass no law exempting itself from application.”

>”Congress repeals Humphrey-Hawkins Act which mandated the Fed to promote full employment by manipulating the money supply, returning it to its original mandate of stabilizing said supply, then orders a complete audit of the Fed.”

>”NY Times and Wapo lose more readers while MSNBC folds for lack of advertisers.”(Yes!)

>”Congress orders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to be privatized.” Puts on EBAY and Craig’s List.

>”Congress begins slashing all taxes while starting process of privatizing many services.”

>”Republican U.S. Congresswoman from Michigan Candice Miller announces she will run for Michigan U.S. Senate seat held by Democrat Senator Debbie Stabinow.” (This is pure wishful thinking for me but I would be jumping up and down excited were it to happen.)

That’s it for my wishful thinking for now. I could have added many more but if only 3 or 4 of these happen or begin to happen it will be a good year.
Happy New Year!!

“What does this mean? That chemicals in the environment, newly termed obesogens, may lend a helping hand in the obesity epidemic, especially in babies and children. Studies show that these chemicals are found in the water and food supply as well as in other man-made chemicals.

As far-fetched as these new studies sound, one particular agency of the federal government is taking it very seriously — the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

An article in the New York Times stated, “U.S. EPA regulators convened with scientists last month to discuss how to design regulations for chemicals based on emerging science that connects exposures during pregnancy with disease much later in life.” Diseases including obesity.”

Between the EPA and the FDA, expect everything that could, might, maybe make you fat to be severely regulated. The premise on which the EPA and FDA are based is the notion that some men have the right to initiate force against others to achieve some noble goal.

The newly elected congress, which can refuse to fund this nonsense, can’t take office fast enough for my liking.

“Environmental groups, which are as quick to fang each other as they are dirty polluters, are lining up in opposition to the lines and to wind farms in general. In fact, they’re lining up against most current sources of renewable power: the Audubon Society hates wind farms because the blades kill birds and bats; hydroelectric covers up large swaths of land and releases “greenhouse gasses” when decaying material is exposed to the air; the Sierra Club has opposed solar plants in the Mohave. Apparently, even geothermal creates toxic waste no one wants. So what’s the solution?”

Mr. Richardson goes on to say:

“There isn’t one. The power companies involved in the Kansas program are still trying to get the approval they need. Lawsuits have already been filed to stop the construction. The lesser prairie chicken is still doing its mating dance, and environmental groups still continue to oppose all types of power generation.”

We see the general attitude of the green movement here against human life; the lesser prairie chicken has a right to its habitat but humans–who must reshape nature for their survival–do not have a right to theirs.

For more on the green anti-human attitude, check out these quotes from the horses’ mouths.

I’m disappointed to see the Democrats continuing to cash in on the false notion that the people on Wall Street are the enemies of the people on main street. This ad represents all that is wrong with Michigan (and national) politics. Readers are presumably supposed to be relieved that these Democrats are anti-wall street. It is blatantly anti-business in tone. And yet it is only businesses that can create productive jobs. Government cannot create jobs. All government has to offer is force and the threat of it. And for decades government has used this power to chase businesses out of Michigan.

It’s time to get government out of the way and let business do what it does best: create prosperity. We’ll have to see if the new republicans are up to the task. The Democrats sure aren’t.

The next paragraph contains another mention of common good: “The American people are speaking out, demanding that we realign our country’s compass with its founding principles and apply those principles to solve our common problems for the common good.” Sigh. Actually, the people want the government to apply those principles to solve our individual problems for our individual good. One more.

“We pledge to uphold the purpose and promise of a better America, knowing that to whom much is given, much is expected and that the blessings of our liberty buoy the hopes of mankind.” Wow again! ‘Given’ by whom? This is the collective notion that one’s freedom and prosperity is given by society or the state or god or some such external source and must be paid back lest one be condemned as an evil taker. Completely missing from this introduction is any idea that freedom and prosperity are earned by creating values and trading them for individual mutual benefit on a free market.

This is only the first 3 pages and we see that such statist concepts as ‘common good’ ‘national purpose’, polarizing environment’ and required duty to society–longstanding tenets of the leftist Democratic Party–are shared by the Republican Party. It’s plain to see that the Republican party does not understand our founding principles. In fact, these three pages tell me that the entire document will be an epistemological disaster because they list many noble sounding ideals and generalizations which are treated as if they were concrete bound particulars unrelated to each other.

This short introduction is dissuading me from reading the rest but I shall take two aspirins and plod on perhaps posting on it later. I don’t see the Republican party changing its stripes anytime soon but I’m hopeful that this new crop of winners in Nov can filter into the leadership and bring a few rational thinkers with them. I’m not holding my breath though in the knowledge that this Introduction to Horror was written by some of these same newcomers. Yikes!

“(1) All sovereign power belongs to the people of Kenya and shall be
exercised only in accordance with this Constitution.
(2) The people may exercise their sovereign power either directly or
through their democratically elected representatives.
(3) Sovereign power under this Constitution is delegated to the
following State organs, which shall perform their functions in
accordance with this Constitution”

Thus sovereignty is placed in a collective context. I do like the idea that power is delegated to the state and not surrendered.

As an example of a contradiction, chapter two article 4 sections 1 and 2 state

“4. (1) Kenya is a sovereign Republic.
(2) The Republic of Kenya shall be a multi-party democratic State
founded on the national values and principles of governance
referred to in Article 10.”

It’s either or: a democracy or a republic. Had they said elections would be held democratically, that would be different which they do in chapter one. And the national values and principles of governance are a mixed bag. Some of these are:

“(a) patriotism, national unity, sharing and devolution of
power, the rule of law, democracy and participation of
the people;
(b) human dignity, equity, social justice, inclusiveness,
equality, human rights, non-discrimination and
protection of the marginalised;
(c) good governance, integrity, transparency and
accountability; and
(d) sustainable development.”

Of course ‘social justice’ is collectivism all the way and ‘sustainable development’ is free reign to interfere in the market place.

Their Constitution does have a bill of rights but which is also a seriously mixed bag. But I was happy to see this:

“(3) The rights and fundamental freedoms in the Bill of Rights—
(a) belong to each individual and are not granted by the
State;”

A major league improvement in thinking suggesting–but only suggesting–the proper source of rights. While the concept individual rights is not mentioned in any thing I’ve read so far, notice the words ‘each individual’ above. Also the words ‘every person’ and ‘a person’ are used often in the document.

After explaining how rights are to be limited only by just cause, article 25 then lists rights that are not to be limited. These are:

“(a) freedom from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment or punishment;
(b) freedom from slavery or servitude;
(c) the right to a fair trial; and
(d) the right to an order of habeas corpus.”

Good ideas all.

Under Article 26 which lists rights it declares “Every person has the right to life” it also says that life begins at conception!! While there are more contradictions and bad ideas, I want to touch on one more before closing pointing out that although there is much likable language about the protection of rights, it is all thrown out the window under Economic and Social Rights:

“43. (1) Every person has the right—
(a) to the highest attainable standard of health, which
includes the right to health care services, including
reproductive health care;
(b) to accessible and adequate housing, and to reasonable
standards of sanitation;
(c) to be free from hunger, and to have adequate food of
acceptable quality;
(d) to clean and safe water in adequate quantities;
(e) to social security; and
(f) to education.
(2) A person shall not be denied emergency medical treatment.
(3) The State shall provide appropriate social security to persons
who are unable to support themselves and their dependants.”

It’s almost like they’re trying to take abstract ideals from capitalism, like ‘rights’-because they seem to work-and combine them with concrete ideals from socialism.

Our constitution has survived this long because the contradictions written into it were few. But this document has many and will not provide Kenyans with either prosperity or justice. But I wish them luck.

“Although Sen. Levin has never been a friend of the free market system in the past, he has suddenly developed a concern for law abiding business owners who lose out when more sizable corporate operations exploit tax shelters, a July report informs readers.”

In other words, because Smith has a way to protect some of his wealth and Jones doesn’t, fairness-not justice-requires that we take more of Smith’s wealth away from him-instead of providing Jones with similar protection.

A tyrant’s greed for power has no end. Like the savage who wants to seize the goods produced by others, Levin sees the profits of offshore corporations and wants to seize them too. Unfortunately, Senator Levin still has 4 years left on his current term. Woe is Michigan, and the Nation for that matter.

“If you go to business conferences, you know that at lunch it is definitely better to be seated next to a prince than a grind. Princes, who can be male or female, are senior executives at major corporations.
They are almost always charming, smart and impressive. They’ve read interesting books. They’ve got well-rehearsed takes on the global situation. They can drop impressive names as they tell you about their visits to the White House, Moscow or Beijing. If you’re having lunch or dinner with a prince, you’re going to have a good time.
Grinds, on the other hand, tend to have started their own company or their own hedge fund. They’re often too awkward to work in a large organization and too intense to work for anybody but themselves.
Over lunch, they can be socially inert. You try to draw them out by probing for one or two subjects of interest to them. But as often as not, you find yourself playing conversational pingpong with a master of the monosyllabic response.”

So CEOs, COOs and CFOs are fun people to be around even though they don’t accomplish much worth talking about and the grinds who go from rags to riches by their own effort are dull, boring and culturally brain dead. But:

“Since the princes are nicer and more impressive,[speak for yourself brother-MN] it is easy to be seduced into the belief that they also are more trustworthy.
This is false.
During the past few years, for example, the princes at Citigroup, Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers behaved with incredible stupidity while the hedge fund loners often behaved with impressive restraint.
As Sebastian Mallaby shows in his superb book, “More Money Than God,” the smooth operators at the big banks were playing with other people’s money, so they borrowed up to 30 times their investors’ capital. The hedge fund guys usually had their own money in their fund, so they typically borrowed only one or two times their capital.
The social butterflies at the banks got swept up in the popular enthusiasms.[Created by whom?-MN) The contrarians at the hedge funds made money betting against them. The well-connected [to what?-MN] bankers knew they’d get bailed out if anything went wrong. The solitary hedge fund guys knew they were on their own and regarded their trades with paranoid anxiety.”

There are lots of equivocations and evasions in the above not the least of which is the notion that successful hedge fund ‘guys’ are driven not by knowledge, expertise, or experience but by “paranoid anxiety.” This article reveals an enormous lack of understanding of capitalism and economics.

Mr. Brooks treats most things as the given as if they were causeless. What are grinds? What causes them to come into existence? What are their requirements for survival? What conditions create princes?

Mr. Brooks’ choice of the image of ‘prince’ for CEOs is premised on the notion that CEOs don’t earn their fortunes just like princes don’t. Princes are born into their station in life and serve at the pleasure of the king. It is true that some CEOs of today would not survive in a laissez-faire economy. These are of course the James Taggerts and Orrin Boyles of business and it is their image that Mr. Brooks is attaching to all CEOs. In fact, he has all the facts he needs to infer that mixed economies don’t work and should be abolished but he won’t infer it:

“The princes can thrive while the government intervenes in the private sector. They’ve got the lobbyists and the connections. The grinds, needless to say, don’t.
Over the past decade, professionals — lawyers, regulators and legislators — have inserted themselves into more and more economic realms. The princes are perfectly at home amid these tax breaks, low-interest loans and public-private partnerships. The grinds try to stay far away and regard the interlocking network of corporate-government schmoozing with undisguised contempt.”

So why don’t you regard it with contempt and call for the end of such networks Mr. Brooks?

Alas, no matter how much evidence he sees and provides to us, it won’t penetrate this mindset:

“Princes can thrive in a period of slow, steady growth, but grinds need a certain sort of psychological atmosphere. They need a wide-open economy with plenty of creative destruction.[!!) They need an atmosphere of general confidence, so bankers will feel(?) secure enough to lend them money, so big companies will feel(?) brave enough to acquire their startups, so they themselves will feel(?) the time is ripe to take on their world and show their brilliance to all of humanity."

This is plain contempt for the human mind. A 'certain sort of psychological atmosphere' is the knowledge that one is free to think and act on one's thoughts. 'Creative destruction' is a snarky way to refer to invention. That all these grinds and their bankers engage in feelings instead of thought, reason and logic, is a direct slap at intelligence as such. Lastly, that producers produce in order to 'show their brilliance to all of humanity' is a smear of producers as such. It projects an image of an egomaniac gloating over his invention which will show the world how great he is.

In closing, Mr. Brooks offers no suggestions on how to 'nurture' grinds, just pessimism:

"It's just that very few grinds are bringing new ideas to scale and hiring workers to enact their us-against-the-world schemes.[notice the adversarial context and productive effort as 'schemes'-MN]
For jobs to recover, the grinds have to recover(!), but it’s hard to see how that will happen so long as households are still so leveraged, government debt is still so unnerving and the business climate is still so terrible for entrepreneurs.”

Translation: “Atlases, you’ll just have to heal your selves.”

“DISCLOSE would prohibit contractors who do more than $50,000 a year in business with the government or receive federal bailout money from contributing to political campaigns. A fine argument could be made that such spending presents a conflict of interest.
But it’s the same conflict presented by public employee unions contributing to the politicians who will decide their pay, benefits and staffing levels.”

So this means that if unions can be conflicted business should too? Or, since business can’t, neither should unions? The question ‘Are conflicts of interest a natural part of free markets or of government interference?’ is not addressed. It continues later with:

“A bonus provision of the bill would allow political parties to buy advertising at the most favorable rates, forcing media outlets to subsidize campaigns.”

Would these be chickens coming home to roost Mr. editor?

“Republicans will get beat up in blocking this bill as water carriers for Big Business. But they have little choice. If it passes, there will be no evenness on the political playing field.”

Notice the influence of egalitarianism. No violation of rights by this bill is mentioned anywhere in the editorial, just its unevenness. So if every one’s rights were violated equally then presumably that would be fair.

If shining a light is really their goal, the congressional sponsors of this bill should make sure every dollar contributed to influence an election is posted on the Internet, with a name attached.
Do that, and make the disclosure requirements apply equally to all donors, and Congress won’t need to keep trying to find a way to keep money out of politics that doesn’t step on the First Amendment.

Completely evaded is the fact that ‘keeping money out of politics that doesn’t step on the First Amendment’ is not possible in a mixed economy where people are forced to lobby politicians either in self defense or for special favors which are denied to their competitors. In a laissez-faire market where government is not allowed to interfere with peoples’ choices there would be no need for finance reform to curb the corruption caused by influence peddling.

Warming the earth will also reduce the frequency and intensity of violent storms by shrinking the difference between the coldest temperatures at the poles and the warmest at the equator. What this does is narrow the extremes between which weather patterns oscillate.

I will say a thank you to all the explorers and pioneers who discovered the earth’s richness, and to the scientists who discovered the laws of nature which, once understood, allowed man to rearrange nature to serve his survival, and to the inventors who discovered ways to harness the forces of nature vastly raising man’s standard of living. One more salute will go to the businessmen and entrepreneurs who marketed their discoveries thus making them available to the rest of mankind.

Finally, a toast to the political system that made it all possible–capitalism, the social system where people are completely free to to make a buck by serving their own self-interest through voluntary trade to mutual benefit with everyone else. In fact,it’s the only system where one’s interests cannot be served by the forced privations of others. It is a just system. Just wish we were not losing it.

I’ll make a vow also: that any advertisements by merchants boasting how their products are green or eco-friendly will go straight into the trash.

(for more on Exploit the Earth Day see this essay at The Objective Standard)

“Some experts have even suggested Iran should move its capital to a less seismically active location. Tehran straddles scores of fault lines, including one more than 50 miles long, though it has not suffered a major quake since 1830.”

Nevertheless:

“Minister of Welfare and Social Security Sadeq Mahsooli said prayers and pleas for forgiveness were the best “formulas to repel earthquakes.”"