FEE Summer 2008 Reunion at the SEAs

Pete Boettke holds court

SEAs

Pete Leeson is pleased by the proceedings:

At the SEAs

Mario Rizzo listens to Gerry O'Driscoll presnt:


Chris Coyne, Peter Lewin, and others listen to Steve Horwitz present:


Roger Koppl enjoys lunch:

Keep Your Customers Happy

I've heard that "the customer is always right," but I've never had customer service like I had today in the dentist's office. I went in for a cleaning and got 32 hits of hydrocodone (big 10s) for my trouble. The dentist said I need to come back every three months for a cleaning. I have insurance, and he has a deal!

Adam and I arrive in DC

For the Southern Economic Association conference:

Bubblicious thinking

My wife (who works in finance) and I were discussing the terrible arrogance on display in the video I posted below, where the opponents of Peter Schiff's views just laughed in his face for claiming a crash was coming, and we decided that, perhaps that attitude is an integral part of bubbles. Those comitted to the view that "the good times will last forever" begin to sense that the rising market is like Tinkerbell--it will cease to exist if we don't believe in enough. Thus, someone like Schiff is not merely wrong, he is a traitor, and a danger to the people of faith (in the bubble).

Thoughts on Islam: I

For my course on Death and Dying, I have been undertaking an energetic effort to better understand the tenets and histories of the world's major religions, since the course is intended to offer a cross-cultural survey of attempts to comprehend the reality of our mortal condition. My most recent explorations have been directed towards bettering my knowledge of Islam, and I want to share some of my musings on the subject with Crash Landing readers.

The first surprise from my studies, given the frequency with which Islam is charged with oppressing women, was to learn that Mohammed, for his time and place, was somewhat of a radical feminist. His contemporary Arabian society regarded women as property; a husband owned his wive(s). Mohammed insisted that marriage be regarded as a contractual rather than proprietary relationship. He made it easier for women to divorce, and demanded that their right to own property be respected. He banned the (apparently common) practice of female infanticide. He said, at one point, "The best among you are those who treat your wives the best." And he held that, in a Godly society, men and women ought to live together in compassion and equity.

Now, none of the above negates a charge that contemporary Muslims (when and why did 'Moslem' get replaced with 'Muslim,' by the way?) ought to have kept going along the course that Mohammed charted, and that they are properly criticized for not having done so. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that, at its inception, Islam represented a significant advance in the status of women.

Reincarnation

All of Gene's mysticism has opened my mind to the possibility of reincarnation. And while doing some research I came across a photo of a famous Italian dictator. Is it just me, or does he look awfully familiar?

EIB

(That's Evil in Broadcasting, by the way.) For a few months now I have taken to the extremely unhealthy* habit of eating my lunch in my car, listening to Rush Limbaugh. I do find him entertaining, but it's also "work," because I give a bunch of interviews myself to the vast right-wing conspiracy and so I need to stay on the cutting edge of societal evolution.

Anyway, the other day Rush was talking about plans to close Gitmo, and how incredibly stupid it would be. And I kid you not, his entire argument was, "OK we bring these people to the States and give them trials with lawyers and the whole nine yards. What is the prosecution gonna do, call in the CIA and ask them, 'Can you please explain why you arrested these people?' Can you possibly imagine the CIA coming in and testifying? So these people are going to be acquitted, and then what are we supposed to do with them? Turn them loose? You can't ship them back to their countries, they don't want a bunch of murderous thugs either."

I kept waiting for Rush to at least give a nod to the issue of whether these people were actually guilty. And I don't think he ever even discussed that aspect of it. He took it for granted that (a) if the CIA/military grabs people and throws them into Guantanamo Bay, they must be bad guys and (b) we can't trust our normal legal system to keep obvious killers behind bars.

Now for point (b), in fairness to Rush, he touched on the issue about the CIA not being willing to divulge the reasons for these guys' guilt. But even here, I am filling in the blanks for Rush; he was talking about the CIA just to illustrate the (ostensible) absurdity of the notion of a trial in the first place; I don't think he was bringing it up to show why our system of justice--which has a chance of finding killers guilty and acquitting the innocent when it comes to US citizens with Constitutional rights--wouldn't work when it comes to accused terrorists with funny names.

It never ceases to amaze me how people who are very suspicious of government in certain respects, can be so confident that US officials would never detain an innocent person.

Also, isn't it odd that the same conservative pundits who think our legal system is a joke, are also the ones who want to spread "our way of life" to the rest of the world via bombs? If our culture is so screwed up that our "justice" system can't even be trusted to correctly identify trained killers who want to maim American civilians, then what the heck are we so proud about?


* I think the correct term is unhealthful habit; i.e. it's not like my habit will die young because it is so unhealthy. But I can't bring myself to use the term unhealthful. It is snootiness up with which I will not put.

Abstract Art

Below are photos of some artwork outside my office (done by students at NCC). What is interesting about them, to me, is that they indicate where modern, abstract art has been going. At first, its job was just to break out of the realist box, and you'd get things like paint splotches on a canvas. But eventually, free of realist constraints, it acquired the task of creating new aesthetic forms of its own. And even at the student level, it is doing so:

The Inventor of LSD

dies at 102.

I Know a Terrible Argument When I See One

And C.S. Lewis's argument for why it is impossible to consider Christ "just a great teacher" is a terrible argument.

Lewis says, basically, that it's coherent to consider Christ either divine, or a psycho nutjob, but nothing in between. Why? Here's Lewis:

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."

This is just pitiful. It ignores a variety of alternatives, such as:
1) Jesus claimed "to be God," but meant this in the way a Hindu would, where, if the acolyte says "I am God," the sage says, "You've finally figured this out, hey?"
2) Jesus did not say some of the things attributed to Him in the Bible. Perhaps his followers , who were writing the New Testament two generations after his death, had a distorted view of what he had been preaching.
3) Even in the New Testament, as we have it, Jesus does not claim to be God. And, in fact, #3 is the view of most modern Biblical scholars!

You may like Lewis's conclusion. But if we are truth seekers, we must reject bad arguments, even if they reach a conclusion we like.

UPDATE: Just to clarify, I'm not saying any or all of alternatives 1-3 above are true. I'm just saying Lewis's list of "the only alternatives" is far from complete.

What have the Romans ever done for us?

Some Quick Quickbooks Questions

I think that is the first phrase I have ever written involving three consecutive Q-words....

OK I recently decided that my PhD and Excel were no match for the accounting and regulatory demands of running a top-flight consultancy. At the advice of my CPA I broke down and bought Quickbooks (Pro 2009, if it matters).

I know some of you are also instigators of creative destruction, and so I turn to you entrepreneurial, computer savvy geeks to rescue me from my overeager key stroking:

I came back from a business trip and first entered in all of my receipts as Bills like a good little boy. Then I went to Pay Bills and selected all of them, then hit Pay (or whatever). I thought it was going to take me to another screen, but instead it processed all of them as if I wanted to pay by printed check, and now is waiting for me to print them.

However, a few of these "bills" were actually my taxi fares, for which I used cash that had been withdrawn from my personal checking account. And the other ones were meals, for which I used my business debit card. So two questions:

(1) How do I reverse the Paid Bills, so that Quickbooks isn't waiting to print these checks out?

(2) What's the best way for me to handle the fact that I paid a business expense with cash from my personal checking account? I can think of at least two solutions:

(a) Enter an influx of cash into the business as Starting Equity (or whatever the term is). Then count the taxi Bills as paid for with business petty cash.

(b) Withdraw the exact amount of cash from the business checking account as I spent on taxi fares, then put that cash into my wallet. Then tell Quickbooks I paid those bills with business petty cash.

I would appreciate any suggestions. Note that I am trying to obey the dictates of both GAAP and the laws of Tennessee.

Tyler Cowen Wonders How We Can Limit Corporatism...

...four posts after he explains that he doesn't regret his endorsement of the Paulson bailout. As I said over at my blog:

Over at MR, Tyler Cowen refers to the latest issue of Cato Unbound, where Matt Yglesias chides libertarians for claiming to oppose corporatism while not taking real practical steps to limit it. Tyler says:

In my view at the margin it would be better to have both less corporate privilege and less labor union privilege. Maybe we have no good theory (much less a strategy) for how to get there, but surely some marginal improvements are possible and who knows maybe more.

In the comments I offered this helpful remark:

Here's a suggestion on strategy: When the former CEO of Goldman Sachs asks for $700 billion to dish out as he pleases, in light of an alleged disaster that he had no idea was coming just two months prior to the request, then all libertarians say "HECK NO!"

Seriously, I guess I can understand why some libertarians--especially those with "respectable" positions where they can't come off as cranks--didn't raise a ruckus when Paulson first asked for the money. But now that he has almost literally admitted he was lying through his teeth at the time, what's the holdup, fellas? At the very least, please spare us all this faux hand-wringing over 'how oh how can we limit corporatism?'

What Holds Back Tyrants?

The fear that they may wind up looking like George Bush!

Did You Know?

About .5% of the world's population is descended from Genghis Khan?

This Is Unbelievable

Some chump over at some "advice" blog links to video of a series of "esteemed" commentators basically laughing in Peter Schiff's face as he predicts the financial future to a tee! I think everyone who reads this should write Ben Stein a letter and ask what he thinks of his call that Merrill Lynch was being "given away" at $76 now that the stock is at $14. The man should never comment on anything other than eye drops again in his life.

Dramatic Announcement Below

I warned you this was coming. For some damned reason, I'm being allowed to participate in the best blog in economics.

A Gaffe?

I went to a "publishing party" at my youngest son's school this morning. The idea is that the kids put out a piece of writing on their desks along with a comment sheet, and the parents circulate through the room, reading stories and writing comments. The teacher instructed us to restrict ourselves to positive comments. At that time, I thought I had done OK, but, in retrospect, I grow worried that "What the fvck was that all about?" may not qualify as a positive comment.

Thoughts?

I Offer to Rep You!

A fascinating idea for representative government.

Drug Facts

Before they drug you!

Glenn Greenwald Dishes Out Blame for the Last 8 Years

GG is getting a bit shrill lately for my taste, but he still manages to hit the nail on the head in this recent column:

As the Bush administration comes to a close, one overarching question is this: how were the transgressions and abuses of the last eight years allowed to be unleashed with so little backlash and resistance? Just consider -- with no hyperbole -- what our Government, our country, has done. We systematically tortured people in our custody using techniques approved at the highest levels, many of whom died as a result. We created secret prisons -- "black site" gulags -- beyond the reach of international monitoring groups. We abducted and imprisoned even U.S. citizens and legal residents without any trial, holding them incommunicado and without even the right to access lawyers for years, while we tortured them to the point of insanity. We disappeared innocent people off the streets, sent them to countries where we knew they'd be tortured, and then closed off our courts to them once it was clear they had done nothing wrong. We adopted the very policies and techniques long considered to be the very definition of "war crimes".

Our Government turned the NSA apparatus inward -- something that was never supposed to happen -- spying on our conversations in secret and without warrants or oversight, all in violation of the law, and then, once revealed, acted to immunize the private-sector lawbreakers. And that's to say nothing about the hundreds of thousands of people we killed and the millions more we displaced with a war launched on false pretense. And on and on and on.

Prime responsibility for those actions may lie with the administration which implemented them and with the Congress that thereafter acquiesced to and even endorsed much of it, but it also lies with much of our opinion-making elite and expert class. Even when they politely disagreed, they treated most of this -- and still do -- as though it were reasonable and customary, eschewing strong language and emphatic condemnation and moral outrage, while perversely and self-servingly construing their constraint as some sort of a virtue -- a hallmark of dignified Seriousness. That created the impression that these were just garden-variety political conflicts to be batted about in pretty conference rooms by mutually regarding elites on both sides of these "debates." Meanwhile, those who objected too strongly and in disrespectful tones, who described the extremism and lawlessness taking place, were dismissed by these same elites as overheated, fringe hysterics.

A Setback in Race Relations?

It just occurred to me that the American people did not pick the first black president. Rather, they picked the first black president-elect.

Consumers Don't Cause Recessions

I explain over at Mises.org. Incidentally, this is an article of medium length, but I really tried to bury the notion that we just need to boost "spending" to fix recessions. Free market geeks should thoroughly enjoy.

What's Become of Obama Supporters?

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

Song in Honor Of Obama's Victory

We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgment of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again

The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the foe, that's all
And the world looks just the same
And history ain't changed
'Cause the banners, they all flown in the next war

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
No, no!

I'll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky
For I know that the hypnotized never lie

Do ya?

There's nothing in the street
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Is now the parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

IIB

(That's idiocy in broadcasting, by the way.) So, on my drive to class, I sometimes put on talk radio. And there, I hear Rush "Stupidity on Loan from God" Limbaugh telling listeners "If only the Democrats had passed the tax cut Bush had recommended last spring, this whole financial crisis could have been avoided."

I see. In the midst of record government deficits, and a bursting bubble caused by too much debt, the fix was... more debt!

Yes, Rush, and if only the Democrats had stuck their heads as far up GWB's rectum as you have yours, then the current economic situation wouldn't stink!

Sweet Home Alabama

To those that say race played a small role in this presidential election, put it here.

"Here in Alabama, where Mr. McCain won 60.4 percent of the vote in his best Southern showing, he had the support of nearly 9 in 10 whites, according to exit polls, a figure comparable to other Southern states."

I live in what is considered the deep south, and I'm keeping my Obama stickers on the car. This is my answer to those who kept their W or Bush/Cheney stickers adorning pickup trucks down here. I still see them every day.

Rednecks suck.

The Day's Snap Question

Hi there! What search string receives 2,730,000,000 hits on Google?

I'll bet...

...that you didn't know that there is a chemical compound called melon.

Use In A Dishwasher?

I haven't paid much attention to the inner parts of my coffee maker, until today when I made a mess because I failed to close the door to the fiter basket during operation. After owning this machine for nearly six months I noticed that one of the fixed parts warns: "NOT INTENDED FOR USE IN DISHWASHER." (My apologies for the glare in the photo.)

Has anyone here tried preparing coffee in a dishwasher? Is there an advantage to preparing coffee this way?

Robin Hanson Shakes Me to My Very Core

In a post praised by Tyler Cowen, Robin Hanson argues that

We feel a deep pleasure from realizing that we believe something in common with our friends, and different from most people. We feel an even deeper pleasure letting everyone know of this fact. This feeling is EVIL. Learn to see it in yourself, and then learn to be horrified by how thoroughly it can poison your mind. Yes evidence may at times force you to disagree with a majority, and your friends may have correlated exposure to that evidence, but take no pleasure when you and your associates disagree with others; that is the road to rationality ruin.

Besides him telling me that one of my secret pleasures is "EVIL," Hanson's post disturbed me because I think it is totally wrong. Isn't the whole point of John Stuart Mill's On Liberty that we should nurture dissent, so as not to become slaves to our own prejudices? I go out of my way to disagree when there is a "consensus" on something, and I think that serves a useful purpose besides relieving me of the chore of maintaining a bunch of friendships.

You Know Who Is Really, Really Annoying...

and not very funny? Jon Stewart. Just carefully study the contrived little hand-over-the-mouth gesture in this skit -- it's a classic example of the "Hey, I don't think it's funny, but it seems to work with these dopes I pander to" school of comedy.

We Go Now to Our Pakistani Correspondent...

I saw the most effed-up news story Friday morning. The network anchor (I think it was CNN) explained that there were reports of CIA missile attacks in Pakistan. They interviewed some Pakistani people talking about it, and then they interviewed the guy who coined the term "shock and awe." Some thoughts:

(1) Does it freak out anybody else that American media have to interview the alleged recipients of US firepower to try to determine whether our government is in the process of bombing foreigners? I kid you not, I don't think CNN even said, "The US government declined to comment on this story." I didn't hear them even mention what the US government had to say about all this, though I was in a hotel food area eating my continental breakfast, so maybe I just missed it.

(2) Does it freak out anybody else that it is the CIA who is allegedly launching missile strikes on terrorists? Isn't the CIA supposed to gather intelligence? What is the purpose of this? "Well sir, we wanted to see what would happen if you sent a missile into a guy's chest. Apparently he dies. We'll have a full report in the morning."

(3) If you are so intertwined with the Iraqi debacle that you coined the term "shock and awe," why the heck is the media even calling you anymore?

One Good Thing About the Election

is that the conservative pundits are likely to get better. (Well, nothing could make gasbags like Hannity or Limbaugh bearable, but some will get better...) Note how critical Steyn is of McCain in this piece.