The
Rational Argumentator
Issue CCLII
June 19-20, 2010
Abstract Orderism Fractal XXI:
G. Stolyarov II
June 19, 2010
This fractal by Mr. Stolyarov is comprised of multiple layers of intricate geometric objects, several of which resemble ornamental vases.
Abstract Orderism Fractal XXII:
G. Stolyarov II
June 19, 2010
This bright fractal by Mr. Stolyarov has a multitude of semi-transparent surfaces stacked on top of one another. The colors and constituent shapes convey an impression of activity.
Economics
Reform of the Health Care System Requires Liberalization, Not Bureaucratic Cost Containment:
Molinari Economic Institute
June 20, 2010
With public finances continuing to deteriorate, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on 20 May he wants tighter curbs on health insurance expenditures. Cleaning up France’s public finances is absolutely necessary. However, the path taken by the government leads to a dead end and hides serious perverse effects on patients. Without prior liberalization of the health care system, cost containment leads inexorably to bureaucratic rationing of care and, over time, to long waiting lists for French patients. “The French government should draw upon the lessons of the reform carried out in the Netherlands in 2006,” the Institut économique Molinari (IEM) states in a new study analysing the content of this reform.
Don't Go With the Flow:
Douglas French
June 20, 2010
Anyone who follows financial markets has to wonder at times, "What are people thinking? How did they come to make those decisions?" And clearly in a boom people go crazy. Another term for bubble is mania, and according the Webster's, "mania" is defined in an individual as an "excitement of psychotic proportions manifested by mental and physical hyperactivity, disorganization of behavior, and elevation of mood." Douglas French writes that, in economies dominated by central banking and fiat currency, such manias are recurrent and inevitable. The best advice for a person who wishes to hold onto his wealth and sanity is not to go with the flow. A free audio recording of this essay, read by G. Stolyarov II, is available here.
History
Lessons from Successful Free-Trade Activism: The Arguments and Methods of Richard Cobden's Anti-Corn Law League:
G. Stolyarov II
June 19, 2010
The activities of the Anti-Corn Law League in Great Britain from 1838 to 1846 are to this day among the most prominent examples of successful movements for trade liberalization in human history. This movement was led and coordinated by Richard Cobden (1804-1865), a manufacturer, orator, and economic thinker whose success in repealing the Corn Laws inaugurated an era of unprecedented worldwide prosperity and peace that lasted, with minor interruptions, until 1914. In this paper by Mr. Stolyarov, a brief overview of the Corn Laws, their history, the main figures in the movement for repeal, and the activities of the movement itself is offered. Subsequently, the principal arguments offered by Cobden for repeal are examined, and the reasons for their effectiveness are analyzed. The strategic approaches used by Cobden and the Anti-Corn Law League to elicit support from the British populace are also explored.
Literature
How Civilization Deals With Torture States:
David Gordon
June 20, 2010
Elaine Scarry, a distinguished English professor at Harvard, attracted great acclaim early in her academic career for her study The Body in Pain (1985). It is hardly surprising, then, that the use of torture in the Iraq War has attracted her attention. In Rule of Law, Misrule of Men, her searing indictment of the Bush administration, Scarry argues that the absolute prohibition of torture lies at the basis of the rule of law. David Gordon reviews this excellent and provocative book.
Rationality and the Market Economy:
Douglas French
June 20, 2010
People seem to do the craziest things when it comes to money. Whether it's chasing stock-market bubbles or paying good money after bad on a home that's hopelessly underwater, the idea of individuals acting as homo economicus seems far-fetched. Only in the ivory-tower world of rational-expectations theory does one find perfectly rational humans making judgments using all available information to satisfy their subjective ends. ichael Shermer explains in The Mind of The Market: Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans, and Other Tales From Evolutionary Economics that behavior that is irrational today may have been perfectly rational a hundred years ago and that the work of evolutionary psychologists is needed to explain human decision making. The rational being practicing rational-expectations theory only makes behavioral economists laugh. Douglas French reviews Shermer's thought-provoking book, which connects evolutionary theory with free-market economics.
Politics
BP and the Unmitigated Disaster:
Alan Caruba
June 19, 2010
The Gulf of Mexico could turn into a giant dead zone if some means cannot be found to staunch the flow of oil and toxic gases emerging from the damaged well beneath the Deepwater Horizon. Industry insiders who understand the engineering of wells are beginning to speak openly among themselves of an unmitigated disaster. Alan Caruba writes that everything that could go wrong following the Deepwater Horizon explosion has gone wrong. The oil industry has never been faced with an engineering failure of this magnitude.
Obama's House of Cards:
Alan Caruba
June 19, 2010
Ever since polls have been taken, there have been presidents who encountered disapproval during their terms in office. Usually history exonerates them to some degree. This, writes Alan Caruba, is not likely to happen with Barack Obama. Mr. Caruba believes that Obama is the living example of the Peter Principle, in which a person is finally promoted to a job for which he has no qualifications.
Energy Policy? What Energy Policy?:
Alan Caruba
June 19, 2010
Alan Caruba writes that the Obama administration’s energy policy is to have as little as possible.
"I see in the free-trade principle that which will act on the moral world as the principle of gravitation in the universe—drawing men together, thrusting aside the antagonisms of race, and creeds and language, and uniting us in the bonds of eternal peace..."
~ Richard Cobden