Wednesday, November 4. 2015
 I ate your candy! Jimmy Kimmel Pulls Off Halloween Candy Prank for 5th Straight Year, Brings America’s Kids to Tears
Lighten up, people.
Susan Williams spoke to Good Morning America about Robin's struggles with Lewy Body Dementia
The Big, Bad Breastfeeding Industry
Baby formula never hurt me.
Colleges should allow students to take smart drugs
I used them a few times. Very effective
Diversity compels society give up its traditions, its sacred rights, and even its basic decency
Diversity is not diverse
Six-Step Guide for Dealing with a Friend Who Dressed Up as an ‘Indian’ for Halloween
The DOE threatened to cut off funding if the transgender student was not given locker room privileges. Enjoy the new rules, girls.
Boys will enjoy
And if he self identified as a cat, would the school district have to supply him with a litter box?
As a dog-identifier, I just want to pee on the floor
Climate alarm #23,456: You Can’t Make Love When It’s Warm Out
German Church Removes Symbols of Christianity To Make Migrants ‘Comfortable’
Are the Christians comfortable now? Or should they ban Bach too? And - obviously - Mendelssohn.
The Causes of Income Inequality
Tax the prosperous at 99%. Crisis solved.
Z Man:
It’s possible that the looming custodial state, where the Cloud People rule over the Ground People like game wardens, is going to be wonderful. The Ground People will embrace being cared for like children and accept being pushed around by the authorities when necessary. The sense of looming catastrophe that animates much of the alternative right will turn out to be completely misplaced. Instead, it will be viewed as a great leap forward for humanity.
Presidential Candidates Should End Daylight Saving Time
Darn right. It's stupid.
State Department emails conflict with Clinton’s Benghazi testimony
Everybody knows she lied. She's a liar. That's old news
With Its Bathroom Ordinance, Houston Takes Leave of Its Municipal Senses
Asians are the wealthiest demographic in the US. Why Asian Americans Don't Vote Republican
In the US, the wealthy tend Democrat. The working class and middle class tend Conservative.
Ooops! New NASA study: Antarctica isn’t losing ice mass after all !
Bill Gates says that capitalism cannot save us from climate change
Good grief, what a jerk
Climate Change Parasites Scholars Rev Up Rhetoric, Draconian Policies
The hilarious legacy of ‘last chances’ for climate, exposed
Doom is always just around the corner
Sorry, kids, the 1st Amendment does protect 'hate speech'
I'm thinking of starting a demolition company in China ...... the next boom
WEAPONS CACHE Found Hidden at Swedish Migrant Center
Why Palestinians Do Not Want Cameras on the Temple Mount
Tuesday, November 3. 2015
Just as with migrants to the US, the overwhelming numbers of those in Europe are economic migrants.
And in the US as in Europe, they are also coming by government invitation. They are offered homes, money, food, and welcoming groups of young women handing out blankets, language lessons, etc. Free stuff. In Germany and Sweden, though, there is really no honest work for a Somali immigrant if they even wanted it.
That's why you see them running scams and stealing luggage all across Europe these days.
George Bush was right when he talked about jobs that poor and unskilled Americans did not want to do, even though he was mocked for it. America has and had plenty of need for unskilled and semi-skilled labor, but Americans passed on that low-paid work while the Guatemalans and Mexicans jumped on those jobs with pleasure. Now they own those jobs - and those small businesses - while the native poor Americans who supposedly have learned American values and the American Constitution remain on food stamps. Bill Clinton, to his credit, tried to deal with that but illegal immigration won.
When I wonder out loud why these hundreds of thousands of fit young men with their iPhones hiking into Europe don't apply themselves to building futures in their own homes, I am termed a racist. But isn't it racist to assume that young, strong and clearly well-fed young men with iPhones are helpless in their own homelands?
Now Merkel Says Germany Must Step Up World Role in Refugee Crisis
Merkel said European Union initiatives hadn’t gotten far enough and that she will push for a permanent distribution of refugees across the 28-member bloc.
Good luck with that, Angela. You and Sweden, stupidly, created the crisis, and you and Sweden alone will bear the consequences.
 Images via American Digest and Theo,
Building a Park Underground - New York's LowLine park has the power to transform the Lower East Side neighborhood. Is that a good thing?
Dumbest idea ever. Plus the Lower East Side needs no transformation
A group of middle-aged whites in the U.S. is dying at a startling rate
Via Insty, a book: How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free: Retirement Wisdom That You Won't Get from Your Financial Advisor
If I retired, I think I would decay. I'd have plenty to do, but no real purpose.
How can you combat climate change without a private jet?
NASA Study: Mass Gains of Antarctic Ice Sheet Greater than Losses
Here’s why China’s one-child policy was a good thing
The transformation of David Brooks
He has gone Full Twit
“Progressive remedies have condemned millions of poor black and Hispanic children to lives of poverty and hopelessness and damaged the lives of countless others.”
Here’s the speech students at Williams College were too outraged and offended to hear
Sorry, Social Justice Warriors: Political Correctness Has Peaked
Sweden: Sex Change for Children
At Hayek:
‘Can you imagine a worse incentive system than one that rewards failure with higher budgets and punishes success with lower budgets?’ I can’t – yet that’s pretty much the prevailing incentive system for governments around the world.
Scarborough: No Republican Has Hosted Network Sunday Show or Newscast in 50 Years
Changing the “Macho” Male Culture of the US Military
A Mass Migration Crisis, and It May Yet Get Worse
Soros Admits Involvement In Migrant Crisis: ‘National Borders Are The Obstacle’
Billionaire investor George Soros has confirmed he wants to bring down Europe’s borders, following the accusation made last week by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Last week, Mr Orban accused Mr Soros – who was born in Hungary – of deliberately encouraging the migrant crisis.
Soros is a Hungarian Jewish immigrant, was Nazi collaborator, got rich manipulating currency markets. What's his issue?
Arctic Attracting New Military Scrutiny
Obama's Corrupt and Immoral Abuse of the Military
Gen. Breedlove: Intelligence Community Changing How it Handles Russia
COVERING TERRORISM AGAINST ISRAELIS:AN IDIOT’S GUIDE
A Failure of Strategic Thinking in the Middle East
Scarborough:
No Republican Has Hosted Network Sunday Show or Newscast in 50 Years -
See more at:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/mark-finkelstein/2015/11/02/scarborough-no-republican-has-hosted-network-sunday-show-or#sthash.0BpWQZrW.dpuf
Monday, November 2. 2015
Yale associate master defends Halloween free expression; hilarity outrage ensues.
Free expression is a power trip of the white cisgender patriarchy.
 America’s Forgotten Missionaries
Cats Are Neurotic, and Yes, They Want to Kill You
Are any foods "safe" to eat anymore?
No. Herbal teas cause cancer too.
Kids aren’t spending enough time just going outside
Fred Thompson dead at 73
Only 73? Man, that guy packed a lot into his life
Z-man: Living in America is Babel
"I’m asked occasionally: “why do you use gendered pronouns for your son?”"
San Francisco neighbor says don't call thieves 'criminals'
Jewish Professor Hounded at California Riverside Campus For Holding Pro-Israel Views
Christian Pastor, Liberal Author, and Atheist Professor Agree on This Ridiculous College Trend - We've gone from academic inquiry to cultural inquisition.
Ithaca College a hotbed of institutional racism
Journalism School Dean Dorothy Bland Joins Hate Hoax List
Oooops! Black Man Arrested For Setting Fire to 2 Black Churches
Just like climate change, the horrors must be invented to keep the activists funded
Top boffin Freeman Dyson on climate change
Ted Cruz: Climate Change Is A Religion, Not Science
National Lampoon could not be published today
Yes it could - and it should
The Media’s Potemkin Village Starts to Topple - But whining about liberal bias means nothing if you don't back it up with some action of your own.
Geriatric Democrats should fear Marco Rubio and the Republican youth wing
Government needs to be more than crass extortion:
The problem for the U.S. political class is that the provision of actual public goods is nowhere near large enough of an enterprise to justify all of the clients they want to pay on the public payroll or all of the large, complex, lavishly funded agencies that they want to establish for the purpose of putting themselves in charge of them. So they have to return to the old protection-racket model: Much of American government today exists simply to stand between you and your own goals to collect a fee.
The Death of the American Welfare State:
The "modern" system that we have adopted with its low birth rates, late marriages, working parents, high social spending and retirement benefits is at odds with itself. We can have low birth rates, deficit spending or Social Security; but there is no possible way that we can have all three.
German Village of 102 Braces for 750 Asylum Seekers
How Long Can Europe’s Welfare States Welcome Refugees and Migrants?
Saturday, October 31. 2015
 Why leaves change color (video)
Coy-dog-wolves in the Northeast
The World’s Driest Desert Is in Breathtaking Bloom
Happy P.C. Halloween!
Trigger or Treat: Halloween Is Filled With Uncomfortable Images
Good grief
Why People Pay to Feel Scared - A sociologist studies the allure of haunted houses.
Love and sex at Yale
Scary: Predatory females
Victory for Kentucky 'Drone Slayer' who took out
aircraft flying over his home with a SHOTGUN as case against him thrown
out of court
Drones are natural targets
Nearly EVERY Eighth-Grader in Detroit Public Schools Not Proficient in Math, Reading
Why Family Structure Is So Important
The Poverty Cure: Get Married - Black children bear the brunt of single parenthood’s harms.
Central planning fail: Beijing’s Red Bosses Get Desperate——Even Ban Too Much Drinking And Golf
Ace to debate moderators:
Who the F- do you imagine yourselves to be?
Where are your credentials, you stupid nothings?
Debate: Well now. We actually got our money’s worth last night
... call this condition Bubble Blindness. It’s a contagious ideological disease that afflicts the entire corridor from Wall Street to Washington, and CNBC is the infected host that propagates it.
Jeb Bush's Loss Is Democracy's Gain
Rose to Rubio: What were you thinking when saying Hillary lied about Benghazi?
Young Voters: Marco Rubio Most Relatable Candidate
Via Q&O:
Hundreds of immigrant families caught illegally crossing the Mexican border told U.S. immigration agents they made the dangerous journey in part because they believed they would be permitted to stay in the United States and collect public benefits, according to internal intelligence files from the Homeland Security Department.”
Swedish Female Journalist STONED by Muslims In Stockholm
The Islamic Conquest of Europe: View From the Ground
Friday, October 30. 2015
 Hitchhiking in the Land of the Dead
A Tactical Assault Camera That Isn’t Good for Street Photography
How Dirt Makes You Happy
An Uber for truckers
The turmoil in the trucking industry is a window into the social and economic changes sweeping the country; expect to see more industries faced with similar challenges as the blue economy fades away.
Taking on The Teamsters. Teamsters don't like that.
2014 Health Care Cost and Utilization Report
Americans Are Stupid, New Study of Millennials Uncovers Educational Shortcomings
Campus Feminazis Demand Censorship of Social Media
I demand censorship of these irritating bullies
NOAA Attempts To Hide The Pause In Global Warming: The Most Disgraceful Cover-Up Since Climategate
French Mathematicians Blast UN’s ‘Costly & Pointless Crusade’ Against Global Warming
Time Magazine Names Ahmed The Clock Boy to List of Most Influential Teens of 2015
So inspiring
Even Salon Thinks Trigger Warnings Have Ruined College
A moderating panel of Hannity, Mark Levin, and Rush Limbaugh would be far more appropriate for a GOP debate.
Of course. Why not?
BofA Looks At Europe's Record €2.6 Trillion In Negative-Yielding Debt, Is Shocked At What It Finds
I still do not comprehend a market for NIRP bonds
This Map Shows How Large Europe's Refugee Crisis Really Is - Data visualization company Lucify used U.N. stats to show the recent mass movement of people to the continent.
Culture Clash: How ISIS Could Send Europe Over the Edge
Turkish Government Seizes Opposition TV Stations
Turkey: Kurds Threatened Before Election
As Predicted, the Iran Deal Has Begun to Wreck Global Nuclear Non-Proliferation Efforts
DHS, White House Tout Ability to Screen Syrian Refugees. But Under Oath, FBI Says Opposite
What Just Happened in Syria?
Russia flying Iranian weapons shipments into Syria, sources say
North Korea's slave labor force is growing, U.N. special rapporteur says
It's for the greater good.
Highlights from the 2016 US Military Strength Index
Thursday, October 29. 2015
Celebrity and Politics. Obama is the classic celeb in politics, but it expands beyond electoral politics, even into urban planning and architecture. Williamson
Wednesday, October 28. 2015
Tuesday, October 27. 2015
 Has Feminism Killed Chivalry?
Rick Moranis isn't retired
Take a Bow, Human Species
Windows 10 shares your files with the internet... here's how to turn it off
Alice Bows-Larkin’s plan for Green Economic Ruin
"No one is forcing anyone to accept 'one wife, many husbands!'" said the Chinese economics professor, proposing a solution...
Texas’ subpoena of Medicaid records from Planned Parenthood shows why government shouldn’t be involved in health care.
Popular liberal policies in NYC pay off benefits in form of more rapes, murders
Harris-Perry: Be ‘Super-Careful’ About Using Term ‘Hard Worker’ Because of Poor Moms
Hating Free Markets Means Hating Freedom
Classic Liberalism
PC Mayhem at Wesleyan
Gee, Do You Think Democrats Will Use Dr. Carson’s Plan to ‘End Medicare’ Against GOP in a 2016 Election?
Turning Alinsky On His Head With Rules For Republicans
Z-man:
The modern GOP pol is one step from groveling to these people on camera. It’s unmanly and disgusting and that’s why no one takes Rubio seriously. He looks and sounds like a little boy being corrected by his teacher. But he is the modern GOP. The only thing they are missing are guys with neck beards and ear gauges, perhaps a few trannies thrown in to make the pathetic freak show complete.
Streisand Effect – Cornell shuts down Jesse Watters on air during student interviews
Refugees will freeze to death, warn EU heads - Leaders warn the continent was "falling apart" trying to deal with
the migrant crisis
Airbus Chief: Germany Must Open Labor Markets to Help Immigrants
The myth at the heart of Palestinians’ dilemma
Monday, October 26. 2015
Politically correct culture presents four problems for writers and artists...
The solution is to be unintimidated.
Here's Why Most Neuroscientists Are Wrong About the Brain]
Homeless in Hawaii
Why are young feminists so clueless about sex?
There’s no such thing as ‘artistic nudity’ — Hollywood is conning you, ladies
When God Goes Away, Superstition Takes His Place
Bradley University Promotes Fat Acceptance
Overweight is not exactly a minority. Last I read, Mexico leads the world in fatties, USA is #2. Most Western countries feel fat is aesthetically gross and unwholesome, but many prefer food anyway.
Feminism flourishes in the West because the patriarchy is dead, but don't count on it staying that way.
"a lot of women are female impersonators."
Hmmmm.
Women Cry Foul as Glamour Magazine Names Bruce Jenner ‘Woman of the Year’
Who Will Driverless Cars Decide To Kill? A question that will plague the autonomous car industry
Sand Causes Cancer, Say British Fracktivists
It’s Undeniable: Climate Change Made Hurricane Patricia Worse
Slate wrote that too soon - the thing petered out
Religious studies professor: Ignoring climate change akin to sin
A video Tribute to Vietnam Veterans Featuring the Voice of Mr. Sam Elliott
PETA: verbal abuse of sheep
IBM: The Big Blue Canary In Armonk
What the Washington Post Gets Wrong about Free Markets
Does America need to have a purpose?
Yes. Its purpose is to secure the blessings of liberty from overbearing government power, for its people.
Do Voters Really Care Whether Politicians Are Honest?
Benghazi hearings show that Clinton lives in a bubble of deniability
On the march to western Europe: Shocking pictures show thousands of determined men, women and children trudging across the Balkans as
politicians warn EU could collapse in weeks
Migrants and the Fall of European Civilization
Had dinner with a Swedish friend this weekend. Just back from Sweden. H told me the Swedes have no problem, on the whole, with mass immigration. He said "Our view is, they are just people. We don't judge them by a few bad apples."
EU Agrees To Tighten Border Controls And Slow Migrant Arrival
Merkel and Sweden invited them. No way to uninvite somebody.
Austrians are arming themselves
Saturday, October 24. 2015
Hunting, or defending the ranch? Photo via Gwynnie
Can You Get Smarter?
How Friendships Change in Adulthood - “We need to catch up soon!”
Doctors Agree: Obama’s Electronic Medical Records Mandate Sucks!
The Myth of Growth
Prosperity Is Good for Marriage, and Vice Versa
Mona Charen comments on the above
Campus Whiners Keep Winning
At her inauguration as Cornell’s new president, Elizabeth Garrett said, “We must heed the call to be radical and progressive.”
Why?
Another Climate Alarmist Lets It Slip: Why They Want To Scare You
Will Bureaucrats Save You From Predatory Capitalists?
Crock Boy: When the Media Gets Owned by a 14-year-old
Can a Venture Capitalist Jumpstart Illinois?
Free college tuition for everyone?
Clintons lie. It's their brand. It is assumed.
Free college tuition for everyone?
How To Stamp Out Cultural Marxism In A Single Generation
Good stuff there
European social democracy reduces society to a giant insurance plan in which money is pooled together:
Why should 23-year-old Mohammed work for four decades so that Hans or Fritz across the way can retire at 61 and lie on a beach in Mallorca? The idea that Mohammed would ever want to do such a thing out of love for Europe was a silly fantasy that European governments fed their worried citizens.
...
Muslims have a high birth rate because their approach to the future is fundamentally different than the European one. Europeans have chosen to have few children and many government agencies to take care of them. Muslims choose to have many children and few government agencies. The European values so admired by American leftists have no future.
Germany: Asylum Seekers Make Demands:
Asylum seekers are increasingly using tactics such as hunger strikes, lawsuits and threats of violence in efforts to force German authorities to comply with an ever-growing list of demands.
Friday, October 23. 2015
From all over:
 Misery loves company. I hope to inspire readers towards my exercise program so you can share the pain with us.
My Fridays are just for calisthenics (it's never the same things, but it's always some form of "kick the sh-t out of you morning" at 5 am):
- 3 minutes Elliptical wake-up warm-up
- 3 sets of medium-weight bench press, third dropped set to muscle failure, alternating with 3 types of high step-ups (this is to weaken me for the rest of the hour)
- 3 sets of heavy ball smashes alternating with squats
- 3 sets of hand/arm step-ups in plank position (not sure what they are called but my damaged shoulder can't do ordinary push-ups) alternating with heavy ball burpees (like Burners)
- 2 sets of lunges with light weights alternating with 2 sets of one-sided kettlebell walks
That's it. One hour. I felt a little faint a few times, and out of breath often. Good stuff. The goal of calisthenics is to use your body with max intensity, not to build strength but to improve endurance, posture, agility, and cardio. If that sounds like a warm-up, then you don't know how many reps I do in each set.
After that, coffee, sausage, toast, and eggs at the diner with my Bible pals. Stress and challenge in all areas of life build American strength. That's Life in America, where all citizens strive constantly for physical, moral, spiritual, intellectual, relational, artistic, and financial improvement and uplift! What else is there to do?
Tomorrow is my 3 day/wk cardio-fat-burner day, first thing in the morning. That will be this simple routine, under 60 mins:
10 min intervals on elliptical
70 calf-lifts
1 1/2 min elbow plank
5 min stair machine
50 calf lift
1 min straight-arm plank
20 min inclined treadmill intervals - fast walk intervals
50 calf lift
1 min straight-arm plank
5 min stair machine fast
That's it. No breaks. I will shorten the calf thing with weights. The stair is a killer for me. Can't do 10 min on it at one shot. (As I explained before, Mon and Weds are for upper, back, and lower body heavy weight work plus pull-ups, pull-downs, dips, rows, one-arm and dumbell presses, etc) I am almost 6 months into this darn program now and showing some progress. Thank God for Sunday - day of rest and recovery before dead lift Monday.
We are blessed with a smart, savvy, knowledgeable, attentive trainer who really knows his physiology. Without him and accountability to him, this would not work at all. And I have a "partner" - Mrs. BD.
 Dylan does Sinatra his way on hallowed London stage
Feminist Blog Suggests "Empowering" Halloween Costumes for Girls,
Including Astronaut, Doctor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Billie Jean King,
and... Lena Dunham
Why You Can’t Afford to Retire - And why expanding Social Security isn't enough to help the middle class.
Does Privatizing Higher Education Undermine the Public Good?
VDH:CAN CALIFORNIA BE SAVED?
TNR: The Free Market Preys on Your Every Weakness
Sheesh
Krauthammer: "We're Living In An Age Where What You Say And Its Relation With The Facts Is Completely Irrelevant"
Democrats Are Godless Heathen Tyrant Maniacs Because That’s What Voters Want:
Economic freedom is so unpopular among liberals that Bernie Sanders openly disavowed it to the sound of roaring applause. Clinton was hesitant (for now) to fully label herself a socialist, so instead she said she’s a sorta-capitalist who thinks “capitalism has to be saved from itself.” This is another way of calling American people children who need to be rescued by benevolent bureaucrats, but that’s OK because Democrat voters fervently wish to be treated like children.
Klavan: Waiting on the GOP - Americans are waiting for the grownups in the room to start acting like, well, grownups.
Netanyahu is so good
Thursday, October 22. 2015
Image via Moonbattery
Kitchen Design Isn't Sexist. It Liberated Women.
Hamilton Takes Broadway - A Founding Father gets his due—in a hip-hop musical.
My kids loved it. Tough to get tix.
A movie about Birmingham, Alabama: In Silent Defense of a Fragile God
New York is dazzled by its first luxury hotel
5 Things to Consider Before Venting your anger
No One Agrees on Mammography Guidelines
Polyamory Is Bad For Kids, Polyamorists, And Society
So are lots of things
Speaker Disinvited from Williams Because Students Got Angry
Lunatics running asylum. Where are the grown-ups?
Why Won’t Liberals Talk About the Most Important Kind of ‘Privilege’ in America? — It’s Marriage
Bourgeois and Christian values are bad
Californians on Insane Water Policy: ‘Whatever’
Is Big Government Holding Us Back…From the Future? “Back to the Future” Day reminds us how far we haven’t come.
Do They Understand That Their Tax Increases Do Not Apply To The Billionaires?
Unrealized gains cannot be taxed - except for when real property is reappraised
How Trump is Filling The Void
And having fun doing it. Is he a Harry Truman?
Trump’s 9/11 Play Beats the Political Insiders at Their Own Game -- Brilliantly
Why Hillary Will Likely Win the White House
The thing is, nobody expects integrity from the Clintons so it's a non-issue
Canada: He can't drink in the pubs anymore
Wednesday, October 21. 2015
'Politically correct' is no longer politically correct.
I guess we can no longer say "thought Nazis" either. It's sick and getting sicker, as Bob Grant used to say.
Coming to terms with autism
Principal holds up student election results because winners not diverse enough
Conservative female author of ‘The War on Men’ disinvited to speak at Williams College after protests
Can't let the kids get ideas
Where Did Colleges Go Wrong? From 'puppy days' to trigger warnings, higher ed needs a course correction.
Sears goes dhimmi
The confused carbon profile of a massive solar power plant
Rising oceans? A Common-Sense Solution to Combating Impending Damage from Climate Change - Which is one of the reasons it will be shot down by both liberals and conservatives.
Donald Trump is doing America a service
Brazil’s Pension Crisis Is Like America’s on Steroids - Unsustainable and yet seemingly unstoppable
His Piety, Your Neighbourhood
I always liked Schama
Trump-ism wins big in Switzerland: Is It Possible to Speak about Culture?
The Death of Europe - How the Mohammed retirement plan will kill Europe.
Merkel's Muslim Madness
A bit confused about fences?
‘Slaughter the Jews’: ISIS Goes on Incitement Blitz
Tuesday, October 20. 2015
The Barrister's post today on whether aid organizations know what they are doing struck a chord with me. Last week, the non-Nobel Prize (it's not one of the originals, but was funded by Sweden's Central Bank in memory of Alfred) was given to Angus Deaton.
Deaton is well-liked in the community of Economics because he is generally perceived as not having an ideological ax to grind. In other words, he hasn't spent time justifying one school of thought versus another as many economists, such as Krugman, typically do. Deaton has spent his time analyzing the reasons for, and solutions to, extreme poverty in the world. He was not wedded to a school of thought which supported intervention over markets, or vice versa.
What he found, as a result, is broadly accepted by many different schools of thought, because he plumbed the depths of human behavior, particularly the behavior of the very poor.
In seeking solutions, he did not limit himself to the need for individual endeavor, or simply promote ideas supporting government aid and intervention. What he found is that inequality was a great driver of behaviors to improve individual position, and promote general progress, as long as there were structures in place to protect individual rights.
Most overseas development aid, he argues, is a waste and even destructive use of money, and he worries that even some humanitarian aid ends up doing more harm than good.
Deaton is critic of foreign aid, as that line suggests. His primary thrust, however, is that the world is on the whole wealthier and healthier than it's ever been in history and has the potential to continue getting wealthier and healthier. He points out there is not a nation on earth where infant mortality has risen since 1950. The main reason for this, is income growth which is the result of trade and markets. However, Deaton points out that aid is similar to using an engineering approach to solving a problem. Pumping money into the 'problem' doesn't solve it. The solution requires strong institutions to protect rights and activity.
“Innovators need to be free from the risk of expropriation, functioning law courts are needed to settle disputes and protect patents, and tax rates cannot be too high. When all of these conditions come together— as they have in the United States for a century and a half— we get sustained economic growth and higher living standards.”
Deaton is by no means advocating Laissez-Faire Economics. He recognized strong judicial institutions supporting individual drive and effort are necessary, or gains are easily lost. However, he points to the value of trade and markets and the goodwill they spread over a broad swathe of society. He generally disagrees with Piketty's claim that income inequality is a scourge. However, he did worry about centralization of undue influence in the realm of politics, since wealth can be used to derive political power.
In the United States, in one paper with co-author Darren Lubotsky, he showed that—contrary to deeply held views—income inequality in the U.S. was not linked to higher mortality rates.
By focusing on how the poor behave, rather than on seeking institutional solutions that adhere to a particular economic theme, Deaton has found ways to help the poor, and has created the potential to completely eliminate extreme poverty (as opposed to the relative poverty we often see positioned here in the US by politicians as reasons to provide assistance) within our lifetime.
Deaton has done a great service to the realm of Economics. It is a field which often comes under justifiable criticism. One area of criticism has often been the lack of attention paid to poverty, as opposed to wealth accumulation. Deaton, in focusing on poverty, has shown that the two are inextricably linked. Not because wealth accumulation makes others more poor, but because wealth accumulation spreads goodwill to all, if institutions exist to protect individual rights. But he is critical of the use of intrusive aid and handouts, particularly in environments where individual rights are still lacking.
Not really. No doubt these agencies and people hope to do good, but they view "poverty" through Western, materialist eyes. Many people do not know that they are poor and deprived until Westerners tell them that they are because they lack refrigerators and large-screen TVs . (See Eskimos as a case in point.)
I am not talking about famine and the like, just about normal times in subsistence pre-industrial areas with pre-industrial societies. Isn't there a condescending assumption that these brown people cannot figure out their lives by themselves? Why do Westerners wish to intrude on these peoples' lives and cultures? I suppose the Asians and Westerners have done so already through our desire for their natural resources, though, especially in Africa.
What would happen if the aid industry started collecting data on how the people it serves actually feel about their lives?
The classic Heinlein on material poverty:
“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as "bad luck.”
Robert A. Heinlein
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Halloween pic