On Friday, September 8, 2023, the governor of New Mexico, Michelle Lujan Grisham, unilaterally and unconstitutionally ordered that open and licensed concealed carry of firearms was banned in all counties above a certain threshold of violent crime. A U.S. District Court judge quickly blocked her order with a temporary restraining order, but the safe money is on the governor getting away with this attempt to curtail the liberties of the people of New Mexico with no personal consequences.
Category: Essay
Posts with this tag contain an extended text essay of the topic in question.
I watched a great video from Michael Boldin over at the Tenth Amendment Center the other day. Even though it was one of their shorter “Fast Friday” episodes, Michael touched on a very interesting topic: happiness and freedom. He argued that the Founders placed extreme value on freedom, to the point where several of them said things to the effect of: “You cannot be truly happy unless you are free.” That simple but profound statement got me thinking.
The structure and details of investing is one place pop “economists” seem to love to be ignorant. For example, we have the eminent Thomas Piketty, who says the return on investment in capital exceeds the overall rate of growth of the economy. We’ll get into that in more detail in a minute, but first let’s start with a great example of what he’s missing: the potential downsides of investment.
First off, I cannot recommend highly enough this recent episode of the Scott Horton Show. Scott talks to Matt Taibbi about the recent court order (released on July 4, 2023) that prevented the Feds from asking social media websites to censor you.
One clear-as-day indicator that the state is out of control is its desire for censorship.
Now, a “good” state (if such a thing is possible) is not interested in forcing the people to think a certain way about any particular issue. If it does anything, it provides facts or arranges for round-tables where a variety of perspectives are discussed.
The state loves to regulate the market. They often couch their regulations in words like “efficiency,” “savings,” and “choice,” but the fact is that all their regulations can do is impede the efficiency of the market, force savings where consumers want better solutions, and eliminate choices.
Check out my latest at the Mises Wire. It’s about how the Modern Monetary Theory clowns use something like the Motte and Bailey fallacy to gain influence with politicians and feed them really bad ideas. The negative consequences of those ideas are well known to MMTers, but they can omit them and pretend they’re “unintended.”
Here’s a little bonus bit that I wrote about it:
My focus was how MMT’s use of odd definitions, convenient tautologies, and strategic vagueness leads to politicians thinking they be more aggressive parasites without negative consequences.
Court intellectuals remain so by justifying the actions of their state masters. MMT is just another place for would-be court intellectuals to do this. It’s as easy as omitting secondary consequences (“unintended” consequences) from their writing.
The modern capital structure is vast and complex but can quickly and easily be destroyed by an overzealous state. The USSR’s policies turned Ukraine from a breadbasket into a valley of death in just a few years, and it can happen again.
Good economists stand in the way of idiots demanding our seed corn. Bad economists cheer the thugs on. They omit vital caveats and let the state’s greed take its course.
I read Menger’s Principles of Economics a few months ago, and I’m currently re-reading Mises’s Human Action, and I’ve noticed both of them introduce the concept of the “order” of goods, that is, the number of production steps a good is from consumption.
For example, if the path to making bread is: seed -> wheat -> flour -> bread, then flour is a second-order good, wheat is a third-order good, etc.
Both Menger and Mises introduce this concept, but both dismiss it as effectively meaningless. Their reason, I suppose, is that in complicated production pathways, one good might be fourth-order in one pathway, and fifth-order in another.
But I think they might have missed something–something where understanding the order of goods allows us to make a clear example of the usefulness of a medium of exchange or money.
(Also available on Bitchute.)
There is a tendency for thinkers to use metaphor and allegory to reframe a problem or issue in a way that clarifies or simplifies it. The problem with metaphor and allegory is that they necessarily change or obscure details. Therefore, the solutions you propose from looking at a metaphor might be way off.
Even worse, the retreat into metaphor can be so deep that no concrete solutions even appear, and you end up with long periods of idle musing.
The Mises Wire was kind enough to publish my critique of George Orwell’s book The Road to Wigan Pier!
Honestly, I was really proud of this review and critique. I had heard so many good things about this particular book, and was amazed to find how shallow its analysis was.
I would love if you would go give it a read.