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Easy read

Voodoojock reviews RGD on Amazon:

The first thing that stands out about this book is the delivery. It’s fluid, conversational, and devoid of economic jargon that permeates most books on the subject. The book also exhibits none of the haughty arrogance displayed in books more suited for overworked graduate students of economics than public consumption. The graphs illustrate and illuminate rather than confound and confuse. There are ample anecdotes used to illustrate Day’s points. Having read von Mises’ “Theory of Money and Credit”, “The Anti-Capitalist Mentality”, “Socialism”, and Rothbard’s “America’s Great Depression”, “Return of the Great Depression” is about as easy to read and understand as Hazlitt’s “Economics in One Lesson”.

As far as the book’s content goes, it’s thoroughly researched and uses cites numerous sources to illustrate his points. Though Day is a student of the Austrian School of economics, the manner in which he methodically examines the historical events and the personalities involved displays no trace of any personal bias.

In tangentially related news, Ben Bernanke decides that perhaps it is possible for a central bank to do what his predecessor declared impossible after all by detecting a financial bubble in the process of expanding.

“On the heels of a burst housing-and-credit bubble, Mr. Bernanke now calls financial booms “perhaps the most difficult problem for monetary policy this decade.” With Asian property prices soaring and gold prices busting records almost daily, the debate comes at a critical time. Mr. Bernanke wants to use his powers as a bank regulator to stamp out bubbles, but the Senate Banking Committee, which will grill him later this week, is considering stripping the Fed of its regulatory power.”

This is extraordinarily disingenuous rhetoric from the Fed chairman. Mr. Bernanke can stamp out the bubbles without having any regulatory power over the banks at all. Raise interest rates, reduce the money supply and the bubbles will pop in minutes, if not seconds.

Predictable consequences

Carbon dioxide is “a dangerous pollutant“:

Officials gather in Copenhagen this week for an international climate summit, but business leaders are focusing even more on Washington, where the Obama administration is expected as early as Monday to formally declare carbon dioxide a dangerous pollutant.

Consider the following chain of logic:

1) Environmentalists and progressives believe there are too many people on the planet, having frequently declared this to be the case.

2) The U.S. government is reportedly going to declare carbon dioxide to be a dangerous pollutant.

3) Carbon dioxide is emitted by people who happen to breathe oxygen.

Now, are you really going to be surprised when progressives begin pushing for governments to forcibly reduce the number of mobile planet-threatening, pollution-producing factories known as “human beings”? After all, this hardly promises to be the first time it has been determined that slaughtering large quantities of people would be a necessary step in the construction of a desired societal vision.

Of course, most will deem this to be paranoia or a logical extreme. The problem is that history is very clear on the fact that the logical extreme is not infrequently an accurate predictor.

UPDATE – The Wall Street Journal on peer-review:

The Guardian even solicits “reader leaders” (to go with the extraterritorial editorial–ha ha, what wits), although if you scroll down on the page, you will see that a good many of the submissions have been “removed by a moderator.” That is what scientists call peer review.

Peer review is nothing more or less than editing. It’s not objective. It’s not even science. In fact, it’s almost the complete opposite of science, because it is entirely subjective.

Recovery!

The 0.2% decline in U3 unemployment isn’t necessarily the good thing it is commonly assumed to be:

Mara Proctor used to design limestone hearths and columns for luxury homes near Kansas City, drawing on her college education and six years of training. These days, she’s leading customers around a store that sells sculptured snowmen and Santa figurines. It isn’t by choice. Until a few weeks ago, Proctor was among the record 5.9 million Americans who have been jobless for at least six months. Now she belongs to a subset of that group: Out-of-work professionals and managers, engineers and teachers who have turned, in desperation, to holiday-season jobs as sales clerks.

Retailers report a surge in applications this year from professionals who had never applied for such jobs before.

As Pat Buchanan points out, it is insane to import 1.5 million immigrants when tens of millions of citizens are already out of work. Or rather, it is insane to do so if you have any interest at all in the well-being of the citizenry. On the other hand, since education is deemed to be so important, it’s obviously beneficial to the buyers of sculptured snowmen to have such a highly trained saleswoman at their service.

This is also the result of the higher education bubble. I don’t remember who said it, but he was correct in pointing out that expanding higher education to the masses doesn’t mean that you won’t have sales clerks any more, it simply means that you’ll have sales clerks with PhDs. As always, it’s about the supply and demand, and impoverished immigrants will always win out over middle class Americans for the simple reason that they will accept a lower wage. One thing the Ricardians always fail to recognize is that the benefit to the overall economic system from free trade does NOT accrue to those parties who were previously at an overwhelming advantage.

WND column

Never Enough

In his book, “Liberal Fascism,” Jonah Goldberg explains that the primary mechanism utilized by progressives in restructuring society to their liking is to disassociate every step in the program from the preceding and following ones. “It’s just this one little brick,” they explain to the conservative who is opposed to the idea of the proposed wall. “Don’t be so paranoid … you didn’t mean to take it seriously when we said we intended to build an entire wall. What’s the matter with this one brick?”

Of course, the minute that the conservative foolishly accedes to progressive blandishments and allows the brick to be placed, the progressive immediately declares the pressing need to move on to the next brick in the wall. Climategate notwithstanding, Al Gore must feel that the present brick is being satisfactorily laid at Copenhagen, because he has already moved on to declaring the need to further handicap the global economy by reducing the carbon emissions 25 percent more than the climate agreement that will be announced next week.

Two RGD reviews

CM reviews RGD on Amazon:

If you’ve been a reader of Vox Day, you know his dry humor, and you also know his intellectual rigor – both are present in spades in RGD. If you haven’t read his stuff before now, you’re in for a treat. Did articles on the subprime mortgage crisis leave you thinking you had listened to people speaking in tongues? This will explain the process of how banks were enticed to jump off the cliff and the underlying political/economic assumptions of our time that led up to the jump. Furthermore, you’ll have the big picture, too, for Day is a fan of history as well as economics.

Ron Anderson reviews RGD at This Is Reno:

For the more politically minded, anyone still wondering what all the fuss over Ron Paul was about last year, this book provides the answers. It includes the best argument from the right against Reagan era monetarism that I’ve ever read. Like Keynesianism, monetarism requires government intervention and top-down management of the economy. For those on the left, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich comes through looking fairly reasonable, while Paul Krugman’s critique of Austrian theory is mercilessly dismembered point by point. There is also a nice section on the early development of Austrian theory, it being a response to the German scientific method that was being adopted by 20th Century fascists.

In fairness, I’m not sure my sense of humor can reasonably be described as “dry”. My friends usually refer to it as either “morbid” or “a deeper shade of black”.

VPFL week 12

97 Judean Front (10-2)
25 Valders Valkyries (5-7)

48 Alamo City Spartans (9-3)
44 Burns Redbeards (3-9)

79 Mounds View Meerkats (7-5)
64 Masonville Marauders (5-7)

79 Winston Reverends (6-6)
69 Bane Silvers (6-6)

59 Black Mouth Curs (5-7)
50 Greenfield Grizzlies (4-8)

VP-AFL

98.85 South Plains Storm (5-6)
81.80 Lesbian Dorito Night (8-3)

112.55 Lambs (3-8)
79.25 Brave Sir Robins (7-4)

145.30 COS Paper Tigers (4-7)
101.10 Village Valkyries (6-5)

115.85 Ocean Sprayer (6-5)
113.50 Cranberry Bogs (5-6)

116.45 Supernaut’s Jihad (5-6)
114.45 The Choking Thunder (6-5)

Joyful music

I used to listen to this CD nearly non-stop for a while 10 years ago. This is my favorite song on it; it has an excellent groove combined with a lovely melody. I’m not normally a big fan of world music, but if you like Enigma or Deep Forest, then this bagpipe music should hold more than a little appeal for you.

Letter to Common Sense Atheism VI

Dear Luke,

I am sorry it took me so long to respond to your previous letter. As you know, I recently published a book and have been more than a little occupied with the various interviews that were requested as a result. And, to be honest, the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 hasn’t exactly helped my daily productivity although I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that I’ve mastered both the UMP-45 and the SCAR-H. However, I also found myself at a bit of a loss regarding the best way to respond to your most recent letter, because I was not entirely sure which aspects of your previous letters remain operable and which have been negated by the “reboot”. But, I will attempt to make some reasonable assumptions and I have no doubt you will be willing to correct me if I prove to be mistaken.

Now, you noted yourself the inherent contradiction between your original willingness to postulate that the theistic case is true and your subsequent return to a defense of metaphysical naturalism in order to assert that the theistic case is false. This is not any sort of problem in itself, since we both understood that you were merely postulating the truth of the theistic case for the sake of argument. Well and good. But, if you are “ill-prepared to defend the explanatory virtues of supernatural worldviews” you do not actually defend, as you stated in your most recent letter, this raises the question of whether you are capable of ascertaining which of the competing theistic explanations of (S) “Humans often take pleasure in the involuntary and undeserved suffering of others” is the one best supported by the observable evidence. Are you conceding the other theistic explanations now in a willingness to stand or fall on the relative merits of the case for metaphysical naturalism vis-a-vis Christianity? That is, after all, what you appear to be implying here.

One of the problems that has appeared during your continuing pursuit of clarification is that in this process, you appear to have inadvertently conceded the legitimacy of the basis for my personal belief in the truth of Christianity despite your rejection of the concept of objective evil upon which it is founded. I realize that was far from your intent, of course, and your post facto rejection of the theistic case negates it, but let me point out what has developed in order to prevent it from happening again as we consider whether Christianity, metaphysical naturalism, or some other religion best explains the existence of (S), which for me is simply one of many of the various forms of observable, objective evil.

1.You postulated that the theistic arguments succeed and the atheistic arguments fail.

2.I explained that my belief in Christianity is based primarily on observing objective evil that I find to be best predicted and explained by the Christian worldview as expressed in the Bible and mainstream Christian theology.

3.You pointed out that there are a wide variety of competing theistic explanations for evil.

4.I agreed and noted that due to my academic background in history and East Asian Studies, I have even studied a few of those competing religions. In fact, familiarity with those religions was one of the things that led me to believe the Christian explanation for the observable existence of evil was the correct one.

5.You asserted that you are not prepared to defend the explanatory virtues of the various supernatural worldviews, implying that you are not sufficiently prepared to adjudicate between them either.

6. Ergo, there is no competition for the foundation of my belief in the truth of Christianity.

This doesn’t prove that my beliefs are correct, of course, merely that you had no rational basis for questioning the legitimacy of my belief in the truth of Christianity without reopening the matter of metaphysical naturalism. Which you have now done. So, unless you would like to reopen the matter of competing theistic explanations, I shall focus on addressing only the competing explanations of Christianity and metaphysical naturalism.

The metaphysical naturalism perspective dictates that Man is merely an animal, possessed of almost exactly the same substance as any other highly evolved mammal, constituted of DNA that is more similar to the great apes than the apes are to the monkeys, let alone dogs or cats. Since we are so little different from other mammals, we cannot possess any attributes that are materially and substantively different from those possessed by them, we can only possess quantitative differences. A man may pilot a fighter jet over enemy territory while a chimpanzee only hits a rival with a stick, but both mammals are doing essentially the same thing in using a tool for the purposes of harming another. A woman may become the president of a world-reknowned university while a female gorilla may only become the dominant female in its troop, but again, both mammals are doing essentially the same thing in jockeying for primate primacy. And what blogger can be unaware of the human proclivity for flinging metaphorical feces in the electronic form of ritual primate combat?

However, I think there is a definite substantive and non-quantitative distinction between the human and the animal when it comes to (S). While the animal is capable of distinguishing between pleasure and pain, is able to experience pleasure, inflict pain, and can perceive the existence of pain in others, in my experience, I have never seen an animal derive direct personal pleasure solely from the pain of another animal. Any pain that is involved in the interaction, whether it is a dog asserting its alpha status in the local neighborhood or a cat tormenting a mouse, appears to be nothing more than a consequence of the animal’s primary purpose rather than the purpose itself. Unfortunately, humans, all too often inflict pain primarily for the sake of the pleasure it brings them. This can be observed at a very early age; young children learn the pleasure of cruelty long before they are capable of understanding how to use the infliction of emotional and physical pain as a means of protecting and enhancing their social status. This is the first hurdle that metaphysical naturalism must surmount.

The second hurdle that the naturalistic perspective must address is the divided nature of the human mind. Leaving the larger question of the nature of human consciousness aside for the mystery it remains for priests and scientists alike, it is an observable and experiential fact as well as longstanding theory that the human mind does not function in the same unified way in which we understand animal minds to operate, driven solely by instinct, experience, and desire. I am no great fan of Sigmund Freud’s or what I believe to be the profoundly unscientific pseudoscience of psychology that he created, but even I am willing to recognize that his development of the tripartite concept of the id, the ego, and the superego was driven by observational exigencies; it was his attempt to articulate and explain what he was observing in his patients.

Why do we wish to do what we are absolutely determined not to do? Why do we refuse to do what we are absolutely convinced that we must do? From where do these competing desires stem? The Christian explanation is an elegant one; even those who do not believe in it will readily admit that the explanation of the continuous competition of a man’s unregenerate fallen nature and his redeemable spiritual nature provides a rational and reasonable explanation for the rival forces that exist within a single human mind.

This leads to the third hurdle that metaphysical naturalism must eventually address, which is why (S) should be viewed any differently from any other sort of pleasure. The Disturbed song Divide asks the question in a characteristically confrontational manner:

I am a little more provocative than you might be,
It’s your shock and then your horror on which I feed
So can you tell me what exactly does freedom mean,
If I’m not free to be as twisted as I wanna be?

This is not an argument from consequence here, merely an observation that (S) is almost uninformly considered to be undesirable even by those who happen to be inclined towards it from time to time, so the strength and ubiquity of what must be logically be considered a nonsensical view from a naturalistic perspective requires explaining. Obviously the Christian worldview has little problem in explaining its declaration of (S) being unequivocally evil; contra the fevered visions of the Christian God as a deity with a torture fetish that one occasionally encounters among atheists and Christians alike, there is no evidence that God takes any particular pleasure in the destruction of the wicked except in that the necessary justice is done. Actually, the various parables of the wheat and the chaff and the sheep and the goats tend to indicate that God has no more sadistic interest in the Hellbound soul than the average human does in the trash he is taking out to await the weekly garbage pickup.

As for the latter part of your letter, I have no objection to your suggestions regarding “explanation”, “hypothesis” and “theory”, I will await your response to these three (S)-related hurdles with interest.

Best regards,
Vox

This was written in response to the 6th Letter to Vox Day

Tiger and Foxy Knoxy: the explosive truth!

It’s a more explosive story than Climategate! Why did Elin Woods go after her husband’s car with “a golf club”? Look, the Official Story is ludicrous. The former Swedish model obviously knew about her husband’s various women from the start; it’s not as if Scandinavians even bother with marriage anymore. By the time the final count of Tiger’s affairs is complete, he’ll probably be confirmed to have more mistresses than major tropies. More importantly, the photos of the car showed unmistakable signs of residue from an outdated chemical compound manufactured only in Germany from 1936 to 1944.

What really happened is that Elin discovered text messages between Tiger and Amanda Knox proving that he had been involved with Knox, who killed Kercher in a fit of jealousy over Kercher’s parallel affair with Woods. Tiger’s secret plan to pay off the judge with a $1 million bribe, thus securing Knox’s silence, had failed because Knox made the mistake of bringing in Sollecito, a well-known knifeman of the Napolese Gomorra, instead of lending Kercher the Buick Enclave with the sabotaged brakes which Tiger gave her for that purpose. Sollecito’s involvement backfired on Knox after the judge declined the bribe due to the assassination of his brother, a Mafia prosecutor for the city of Salerno, during the Mani Pulite affair of the mid-1990s.

But now that Knox has been convicted she has no reason to keep quiet any longer, which is why Tiger’s lawyers are presently waging a desperate battle to prevent him from being extradited to Italy. And the failure of the judicial bribe was the real reason why Tiger was attempting to flee his house and seek asylum in Cuba; Elin, knowing that his arrest and conviction would provide her with a more favorable divorce settlement, prevented his escape by using a “golf club” that was actually a functioning Panzerfaust borrowed from the collection of their nearby neighbor, World War II enthusiast Curt Schilling.

In other, much less important news, six more U.S. banks with $13.5 billion in assets were seized yesterday as the world’s leaders prepare to gather in Copenhagen in order to decide what percentage of the global serfdom will be permitted to continue exhaling carbon dioxide.

I can’t wait

To see what the Sports Guy has to say about this column arguing for women playing in the NBA one day:

5 reasons to believe a woman will play in the NBA

• David Stern thinks it will happen. On Tuesday in the conference room outside his NBA office in Manhattan, I asked the commissioner whether we’ll see a woman playing in his league someday.

“Sure,” he said matter-of-factly. “I think that’s well within the range of probability.”

Speaking as a former NCAA D1 sprinter and martial artist, my opinion is that the Chicago Bears will start five women on the offensive line at the same time a woman wins a spot in the regular rotation of an NBA team. People understand that women are weaker, but they never seem to grasp that women are incredibly slow compared to men. And it’s not top speed where the difference is greatest, but quickness and acceleration.

Throw in the lack of durability, especially related to the female ACL, and there is no chance of this happening. One can’t rule out a woman making an NBA roster; if the Basketball Godfather elects to go a particularly stupid marketing route then I wouldn’t be surprised to see mandated female players. The truly interesting aspect to this article is the way it reveals the asinine extent to which male public figures are willing to go in order to be politically correct.