Author: Isaac

Categories
culture economics

Ads on Google and Facebook

I keep seeing ads online about how I can get my part of the bailout money that is coming. I’ve also heard some tongue in cheek ads on local radio alluding to the upcoming “stimulus” and how those companies wishe that their bailout money would come. It all reminds me of a certain economist from the 1800’s.

‘Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims. Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the profit of those who make the law, all the plundered classes try somehow to enter — by peaceful or revolutionary means — into the making of laws. According to their degree of enlightenment, these plundered classes may propose one of two entirely different purposes when they attempt to attain political power: Either they may wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish to share in it.”

It saddens me to think that the US is devolving into a place where the government is where money comes from. It is the predominant view in Yemen and other places like it, is the US like that?

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Categories
economics free market freedom

Isaac, why is it always about the money?

There is, among some of my friends, the belief that I am all about money. I do talk about it quite a bit on this blog and most of my economics posts seem to center around money. I guess I only have myself to blame for not making things clearer.

Most of us do not value money for its own sake, but for the possibilities that it represents. When you have x amount of dollars, you can turn that amount into a computer, a hamburger, a charitable donation, a trip, education, or any number of other things. Naturally, we all prefer having more things/experiences, or at least higher quality things/experiences than less.

What people seem to discount (no pun intended) is how we get it. The bottom line is that we can only get money by doing something that other people want. The potential for making money is directly related to how great a want we satisfy. Working, and profiting from that work, is a benefit to society. As you profit, you employ others for your wants. Other people can make your lunch, drive you to work, clean your suit, educate your children, or whatever comes into your mind.

This is the real definition of a wealthy society. People use dollars to satisfy their wants and they can only get them by satisfying the wants of others. The more people that do this, the wealthier we are. Not because of the dollars, but because of the services and products we make for others.

Too many people make an artificial distinction between monetary freedom and “personal” freedom. They are the same thing, this is what economics is all about. Somehow people have gotten it into their heads that things like taxation and education are not related. They think that we can discuss health care and civil liberties as separate topics. No one seems to see the connection.

If you restrict things on the monetary side of things, you will eventually impact things on the freedom side of things. Imagine that taxes have to go up in order to pay for some things. The money you pay in taxes is diffused throughout the country so you will inevitably not see the direct effect of your money paid to the government. So you end up getting less money for the same amount of work, or you work more for the same amount of money. Monetary issues have taken away some of your time, liberty has been lost to a monetary measure. The same thing happens with any regulation that increases the cost of a product or service. We must work more for the same benefit…

If you curtail liberties, it will eventually impact the wealth of the nation. Remember, wealth is determined by people satisfying wants and needs of other people. For people to achieve their potential, they must be free to pursue what is important to them. Remember, there are always two people behind every transaction. They must be free to pursue what is important to them, and be free to pursue what is important to others. Doing both of those things is the very definition of wealth, you can’t have wealth without freedom.

In order for society to function, there needs to be some limits, I’ll admit that. But I tend to lean more towards things like prohibiting murder and leaving things like marriage, food, recreational chemical usage, etc. up to the individual.

So the thing that I have as my primary subject in my posts is not money, but freedom. Money is usually a good short hand method for talking about freedom and liberties in general. Most people tend to only look at liberty OR money, I want people to reconnect those concepts…

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culture politics

People hear what they want to hear (Obama is a Muslim, etc.)

I had dinner with a friend of mine last night and she recounted a conversation she had with someone that was working on her car. He wasn’t real happy about Obama being elected and she asked him why. He told her of some of his fears like, “He is going to release all the people in Gitmo and let them out on the street, he’s going to give away all of our money and raise taxes, etc.” But the kicker was that Obama is a muslim! Now, my friend is an ordained Episcopal priest and lived, for a while, very close to where Obama went to church in Chicago. She asked the car guy to take her word for it when she said that Obama was a Christian. He just looked at her like she was nuts and said, “But he said he was during the inauguration!”

As you all know, I have some problems with Obama, but I like to think that any criticisms I level against him are based on his actions and agenda. I don’t make things up out of thin air… It was pretty obvious that this guy had heard rumors of Obama being muslim (his middle name is Husain, hello, how much more obvious can you get?) and then listened for something to confirm it for him. I have no idea what to do about people like that… All you can do is keep telling him no…

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religion

Language in worship, who needs it?

I have been going to a book church book club (despite not belonging to that church) and we got onto an interesting topic. One of the ladies there mentioned that she was looking for a church but every time she went to one she became uncomfortable with what was being said. I feel exactly the same way about being in a church, so I don’t go. Unlike her, I don’t feel any particular urge to be with other people for stuff like that.

But what do you do if you are drawn to that but keep getting put off by what is said? I suppose you could keep looking, but there is no perfect fit for someone like that unless she started her own church. I had what I thought was a pretty stupid idea at first, but I’ve warmed up to it now.

I enjoy some operas. The music is powerful, the singing is amazing, and a story os told by the music and the actions on stage even when I don’t understand the words. I absolutely hate musical theatre like your typical broadway show. What’s the difference? I can understand the words in the broadway show and they drive me nuts. They are emotionally overwrought, sappy, and just plain stupid. It turns out the same thing is true in opera if you translate the lyrics. So if I knew German, Italian, or French well enough to follow the operas, I’d probably hate them too.

My point is that sometimes some vagueness around the edges will enhance the experience. If you feel a presence in a church because of the architecture, the actions of the parishioners, the music, the decorations, etc. but are put off by the idiot up in the pulpit, perhaps opera is the answer. I suggested that she go to a service in a different language, one in which she will understand very little. Let the spirit of the occasion sink in without the details and see what happens.

Surprisingly enough, she said that her most powerful spiritual experience occurred in a situation when she was chanting with other people in a language she didn’t understand. So now maybe she’ll go to a Greek Orthodox service or something. Maybe the Catholics had something with the Latin mass after all…

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Categories
sports

No hockey for a week!

I effing hate the all star break. Both of my favorite sports have them, and they drive me nuts. I think that I’d actually be happier if they would just drop the pretense of the game and just say that all the people involved need a week off.

At least the game itself can be interesting in baseball. Double play combinations notwithstanding, there really isn’t a lot of teamwork involved so guys can play their normal game. More importantly, there isn’t that much physical impact in baseball, so they can play all out in the all star game without much downside (although Ray fosse might disagree). They have also put a small stake in the outcome of the game, whichever league wins gets the home field advantage in the world series.

It’s very different in hockey. Hockey requires lots of contact, sometimes violent contact to be what it can be. Any given play into the boards can result in an injury of a varying degree. Since there is nothing at stake during the all star game, there really isn’t any reason to risk injury by playing normally. In other words, there is every possibility of getting hurt and no reason for it. The result is a game that resembles hockey, but without a lot of defense or teamwork. In other words, it isn’t much of a game…

I do watch at least some of the baseball all star games, but I never bother with the hockey one. All it does is remind me that I can’t watch the real thing for 3 or 4 more days…

Categories
politics

Worried about where our money is going in the bailout?

So is Russ Roberts over at Cafe Hayek. Like a true Hayekian, he understands the real information comes from the bottom up, not from the top down. This bailout bill is massive, there is no way any one person, or even a group can keep tabs on this and actually track where the money goes. So there is both a Wiki and a blog set up in order to take advantage of the wisdom of crowds. Ultimately, they will try to use these tools to keep track of the money that is disbursed by letting all people participate.

It’s an ambitious project, but it’s really the only hope we have of keeping track of things. This is also a non-partisan thing. Even though the democrats are the ones advancing this, I’m sure there will be many bones thrown the republicans’ way to grease the political wheels. Pork is an affliction shared by both parties…

So feel free to keep tabs on them, and if you know anything, or know anyone that would know something, please participate!!!

Categories
culture freedom

My top ten historical events in my lifetime

I’ve heard some people talking about history today, and I was wondering where today fits into my idea of historical events. Obama makes my top ten, but there are some other things that take precedence. I’m limiting myself to things that happened in my lifetime but not to things that I recognized their importance at the time.

10) The take over and taking of hostages in the American embassy in Tehran 1979
9) W’s unjustified and illegal invasion of Iraq
8) Obama is elected president
7) The Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty 1979
6) 9/11/2001
5) China adopts market reforms under Deng Xiaoping starting in 1978
4) Pol Pot giving up power and fleeing into the jungle during the Cambodian-Vietnamese war 1979
3) The end of Apartheid in South Africa 1n 1990
2) The fall of the Berlin Wall 1989
1) The collapse of the Soviet Union 1991

That was tougher than I thought it would be. I had the top three pretty well nailed down, but I thought that the end of the Vietnam war and the assassination of Sadat would make the list. My top 5 had immediate and important effects to millions and millions of people. Number 6 is probably ranked too high on an absolute scale, but it did have quite an impact on me. Hmm, the more I think about it, the less I think Obama’s place on my list will last. Right now we are all a flutter with the departing of Bush and the inauguration of the first black president, but if we take a step back, it really doesn’t compare with the things that come after it on my list…

Well, he’s made history, now let’s see what he can do. For all our sakes, I hope he does a good job.

Categories
books economics

Competition and Predictably Irrational

I’ve picked up another book. It’s called “Predictably Irrational.” The author uses examples from experimental economics to teach us how we differ from how some economic models might suggest or assume we act. So far, there have been some interesting results, his discussion about the concept of “free” in particular is thought provoking.

One chapter is entitled “The fallacy of supply and demand.” Naturally, this caught my eye. He uses some experiments to show how ideas of what things are worth initially can be more or less arbitrarily set by advertising or other clever sales techniques. Ok, so far so good. The results are pretty convincing, but he doesn’t stop there. He then extrapolates these results into the idea that people’s thoughts on value are easily manipulated and therefore we can’t rely on markets and free markets ideas in general to bring about equitable trades since everyone is under the sway of the advertisers.

He’s way off. He left out a very important aspect of supply and demand, perhaps the most important one out there… competition. I am fully willing to believe that when confronted with a new thing, we don’t have a good idea of what it should cost or what value that thing has to us. His experiments show that that concept of value is easily skewed by all sorts of things. But a rational person doesn’t usually buy the first thing he sees, he checks around for prices. It is competition that tells us what we can expect to pay for something. Once we know that, we can figure out how we value that thing.

It isn’t clear to me what supply and demand even means without taking competition into account. So his chapter certainly doesn’t show any “fallacy” with that concept. Rational people check prices, who knew?

Categories
economics

Why I write this blog

A quote from Ludwig von Mises:

“Economics must not be relegated to classrooms and statistical offices and must not be left to esoteric circles. It is the philosophy of human life and action and concerns everybody and everything. It is the pith of civilization and of man’s human existence…

There is no means by which anyone can evade his personal responsibility. Whoever neglects to examine to the best of his abilities all the problems involved voluntarily surrenders his birthright to a self-appointed elite of supermen. In such vital matters blind reliance upon “experts” and uncritical acceptance of popular catchwords and prejudices is tantamount to the abandonment of self-determination and to yielding to other people’s domination. As conditions are today, nothing can be more important to every intelligent man than economics. His own fate and that of his progeny is at stake…

Whether we like it or not, it is a fact that economics cannot remain an esoteric branch of knowledge accessible only to small groups of scholars and specialists. Economics deals with society’s fundamental problems; it concerns everyone and belongs to all. It is the main and proper study of every citizen.”

I got this from the blog at the Mises institute. I recommend it highly.

Categories
food

I made caramel!

With all this popcorn around, what better thing to make than carmel corn? It went pretty smoothly, it’s in the oven right now, I’ll be able to taste it in 20 minutes or so.

I gotta tell you, this was the first thing I ever made that scared me. I had heard many bad stories about burns with candy making and that was what I was doing essentially. Not only was it hot, but it was also sticky. So if some got on me, it would burn and burn… I’ve used industrial deep friers before, and I know they were quite a bit hotter than 250 degrees, but they were never as enticing as this stuff was. It was just calling out to me to taste it as it bubbled away…

I managed to resist it and pour it into the bowl with the popcorn without burning myself. Once I had transferred it into the oven and let the remnants in the mixing bowl cool down I tasted it. MMMMM, what is better than caramel really? This was much better than those ones wrapped in plastic in the store. Of course it was also much stickier as well. This is never, ever coming out of my teeth. I think I ruined a brillo pad cleaning up too…

Anyway, I already consider this a success. Here’s the recipe if you’re interested.

UPDATE!

OK, I took it out of the oven and let it cool a little. That’s important, I panicked a bit when it first came out because it was still all gooey, but just a few minutes later, it got crunchy again… It’s good! I had a few issues where the caramel pooled a bit so those pieces are a little gooey still, but that’s alright. It’s also more buttery than I am used to, but butter on popcorn is a good combo. I’ll definitely do this again!