If you are returning from vacation today, don't miss a couple of our good recent essays - they are up on the left column. Also, our piece on the Roger Scruton essay - scroll down.
Breaking news. Teens don't like the Nanny State. They rebel against that sort of thing, naturally.
Do you take Vit C? It's made in China.
Aid to poor nations does no good at all. Mankiw. Of course it doesn't - it's just a feel-good thing.
Brave police work in the UK. Blair. How can you catch a guy if you can't say what he looks like? On the same theme, Captain Ed, like me, is also confused about why the Dems seem to want to protect possible terrorists. Is it just PC gone psychotic?
The Call of the Entrepreneur. It's a new movie, which celebrates freedom. Kling discusses at TCS.
Even the WaPo finally gets it about Iraq. Jules. And John at Powerline on the surge's success:
Currently, there are two tides running in opposite directions: a trend toward success on the ground in Iraq, and a seemingly inexorable drive toward defeat, or will to lose, in Congress.
The inequality obsession. Libertarian Leanings. Also, the piece by Arthur Brooks in City Journal, What Really Buys Happiness? A quote illustrating true insanity:
Cornell economist Robert Frank, a major critic of income inequality, adds that such a move might not make the rich as unhappy as you’d think, since they tend to use their income on things they don’t really want or need. “We could spend roughly one-third less on consumption,” Frank writes, “and suffer no significant reduction in satisfaction.” Some egalitarians even make the astounding argument that we should tax the economically successful in order to discourage them from working, since their work will only make them richer and thus sadden the less successful. According to British economist Richard Layard, “If we make taxes commensurate to the damage that an individual does to others when he earns more”—the damage to others’ happiness, that is—“then he will only work harder if there is a true net benefit to society as a whole. It is efficient to discourage work effort that makes society worse off.” Work, according to this postmodern argument—contrary to millennia of moral teaching—is no different from a destructive vice like tobacco, which governments sometimes tax in order to discourage people from smoking.
These inequality mavens seem to believe that the sin of envy is the most important source of unhappiness. It may apply to them, but not to most. I feel every sort of emotion on occasion, including envy, but it doesn't ruin my life. Plus I know that I could do something entrepreneurial any time I want. Right now, finding a nice girlfriend is all I need to be fully happy.
