Darrell Hougen

Damn, I never heard of that phrase. Thanks A... I agree that the term is inappropriately labeled. In classical economics --- think Adam Smith --- rent actually referred to rent, not government favors. Darrell

Damn, I never heard of that phrase. Thanks A... Thanks Adam

"Rent seekers"? Darrell http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/RentSeeking.html For me to follow the link at work, I have to manually type it into another browser window. Or, you could just clarify your meaning. Darrell

Well, some have moved a little to the right, like Sweden. To paraphrase Mark Steyn, they've move from left of left of center to left of right of left of center, but they're still left of center. Darrell

"Rent seekers"? Darrell

Absolutely. Darrell

Good question. There may be even more flotsam that needs to be accounted for. Darrell

This is from their site: Anybody have links to other tests? The authors of the chart have apparently defined the center far to the left of what could reasonably be defined as the center on economic issues. Moreover, it is hard to see how the U.S. has been moving to the right on economic issues. The size of the government as been growing steadily since it was dramatically scaled back after the end of WWII with the exception of the Reagan era. The passage of Obamacare, Obama's signature piece of legislation is enormously damaging to the economic freedom of ordinary Americans. Obama's rhetoric and calls for higher taxes put him clearly on the left. Don't forget the "stimulus". Thousands of pages of new regulations have been written. Ordinary Americans are being harassed for attempting to make use of their legally acquired property and on and on. Obama has been more hostile to property rights and economic freedom than any President in recent memory. The fact that he hasn't been able to pass anti-freedom legislation has everything to do with the TEA Party and nothing to do with Obama's views. Darrell

Here is a nice article by Thomas Sowell on the topic of the shooting, the riots and the media.

As far as the numbers of people on various welfare program go, they would be shocking, but the we've seen it coming for a long time. Here's the scary part, if "there were 103,087,000 full-time year-round workers in the United States (including 16,606,000 full-time year-round government workers)" in 2012, that means there were only 86,481,000 full-time employees not counting government employees. Government employees don't really produce very much and aren't really supporting the economy. It is private sector employees that produce most of the wealth that everyone consumes. It would be nice to know how many part-time employees there were and their average percent employment before jumping to conclusions, but it looks like most of the work in this country is done by a fairly small percentage of the population. Dividing 86,481,000 by a population of 309,467,000 in 2012 yields 27.9%. Darrell

So I won't forget them, here are my scores: Economic Left/Right: 5.38 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.95 I have to say that the results are comical at best. The fact that Obama is considered right-wing on economic issues --- not just right of center but far right of center --- makes absolutely no sense. The old Nolan Chart (and quiz) has problems, but it is still much better than the "Political Compass." Darrell

Instead of defining freedom and justice in terms of a double negative such as the non-initiation of force principle with force being the second negative, I prefer to give freedom and justice positive definitions. Freedom is the state in which all human interactions are voluntary. Justice is the state in which any person that violates the freedom of another is punished. An interaction is voluntary so long as all of the parties consent. In order to attain freedom, two other concepts or principles are necessary: The concept of property and the principle that the first person has priority (or, first come, first served). The concept of property is the concept that whatever a person creates or acquires from another through trade or as a gift belongs to him and he controls it. Some human interactions involve the exchange of property. When a piece of property changes hands, control over it passes from one person to another. In a state of freedom, all changes in the ownership of property are voluntary. The notion that the first person has priority explains what happens when one encounters an unowned object. The first person to encounter such an object may claim it as his property. Freedom and justice as defined above are ideals. They are the goal of a proper political system. Such goals are probably impossible to realize in practice. Wolf, George, FF, and the other readers of this forum undoubtedly know a great deal about such systems and their limitations. Wolf seems to know a tremendous amount about existing legal systems, but seems unclear about the goal of such systems. Sorry, Wolf, if that is an unfair characterization. I am simply going on the above discussion. The fact that such systems are idealizations does not make a clear understanding of the ideals a merely academic exercise. Without a clear understanding of the goal towards which such systems should be directed, it is impossible to judge their success or failure or to suggest ways to improve them or to know whether they are getting better or worse. The question is, better or worse with respect to what standard (or goal or end)? Darrell

This is a Zener Diode characteristic plot (flipped): This is the stock chart for International Rectifier Corp. today (2014/08/20): Darrell

Mike, Gold may not have been illegal, but it was certainly very limited. According to what you wrote above, the average person couldn't have more than five gold eagles --- five ounces of gold. And, I doubt the numismatic loophole was as big as you seem to think it was. Although it would allow a numismatist to hold a great deal of gold, I doubt the Treasury would have bought the argument that a person suddenly became one a few months before the order went into effect. Also, if one wasn't already a numismatist, he might have a lot of gold coins of one type with one mint date and very few of other types with other dates and would have had to scramble to trade with others in order to try to hold on to as much gold as possible. Another thing that is being overlooked is the lack of any currency for conducting commerce. People in some parts of the country were so desperate that they invented their own currencies or resorted to barter in order to trade. If gold coins had been readily available, such desperate measures wouldn't have been necessary. At any rate, executive order 6102 was a massive violation of individual rights. If it wasn't backup up by legislation (and I'm a little fuzzy on the history), it was also an unlawful and unconstitutional order, similar in character to some of Obama's unlawful orders, though arguably worse in some respects. Darrell

Matt, If you're feeling drained, that's not a good thing. That indicates that you need more time away from the man you mentioned. You can tell him if you have some areas of disagreement with him, though that might just start an argument. Sometimes, you just have to wait for a person to come to his senses. It can take years and might never happen, but the last thing you want is to let him suffocate you with his dogmatism. Good luck. Darrell

Happy Birthday!!!

I also thought he always had sort of sad eyes and am not that surprised to hear he committed suicide even though I hadn't heard that he was battling depression. For some, it seems like humor is a way to hide or battle mental anguish but the effort is ultimately futile. Acting silly when seriousness is required trivializes that which is important to the self and ultimately trivializes the self. Don't get me wrong; I like humor; I used to watch Jay Leno; but, I usually found it painful to watch Robin Williams. Darrell

Lol. That's because unconscious mind persuasion doesn't work on Objectivists. Actually, I'm just speaking for myself. I'm not sure that unconscious persuasion has no effect, but I probably pay less attention to advertising than most people. Starting when I was a young child, long before I became an Objectivist, I taught myself to actively ignore TV ads. So, for the most part, I do. The downside is that I have a hard time understanding why other people are influenced by ads. So, I'd probably be lousy at creating effective advertising. Still, now that I'm getting older, I have to admit that I like to engage in a little self deception when I'm with a woman and the lights are turned down low. The ad was a hoot. What was it for again? Oh right Centrum Silver. Been watching their ads for 20-30 years and still don't buy multivitamins of any variety. Darrell

Happy Birthday Peter!!! Darrell

Says you. Uh, huh. Sure. Whatever. Darrell

Happy Birthday Roger!!! Darrell

Doesn't that statement contradict itself? If it is possible to [choose to] ignore what is actually going on, then choice is possible. But if choice is possible, then things are non deterministic. Darrell That depends on how you define "choice". For me, there is no conflict whatsoever between the possibility of choice and determinism, as long as by "choice" we mean a decision arising from the beliefs, preferences, values, and deliberations of an individual. But, if your choice is not non deterministic, then your choice to ignore what is actually going on was deterministic. But, that implies that the appearance of non determinism was deterministic which implies that things really are non deterministic (or "indeterministic"). Reality in and of itself is neither deterministic nor indeterministic. I think I've said that already. Rationalism, in the O'ist sense, is when you try to figure out the facts of reality from a priori reasoning alone. However, such reasoning is not by itself rationalism. For example, mathematics is entirely a priori reasoning, but it does not make any claims about the real world, so it's not rationalism. What is the third way between deterministic and non deterministic (or "indeterministic")? Darrell

Reagan told a joke that he had heard from about Eastern Europe that went something like this: An American dog, a Polish dog and a Russian dog were visiting the U.S. and the American dog was telling the other dogs that if you bark long enough, someone will come along and give you some meat. The Polish dog said, "What's meat?" And, The Russian dog said, "What's bark?" Darrell

This is rationalism, i.e., what is in the mind trumps observed reality. This is not law of identity, which weds observation to what is in the mind. Rationalism is a form of dogma. Michael No it isn't. Michael is right. It is true that explanations are (typically) deterministic, because only deterministic aspects of reality can be explained (and predicted). But, that doesn't mean that reality is deterministic. If you're only arguing about explanations and not reality, then you're being rationalistic. You're not looking outward at reality. You're only looking inward at explanations of reality. Darrell

Doesn't that statement contradict itself? If it is possible to choose to ignore what is actually going on, then choice is possible. But if choice is possible, then things are non deterministic. Darrell