Saturday, December 27. 2008
Eartha Kitt died of colon cancer this week. We posted on her performance on April 13 of this year, when she was in fine fettle. Here is our post: I had the remarkable pleasure and privilege of being invited to a small fund-raiser gathering last night at which Eartha Kitt performed a dynamite set. At 81, she is in great shape, a wonderful and sexy performer, and she still can sing ferociously - and in Japanese or Turkish when she wants to. She has a gift for languages. She surely gives the impression of enjoying the whole thing. Got my photo taken with her. She lives in Westport, CT and will be doing her usual gig at the Cafe Carlisle again this year, after a two-week stint in Paris - God bless her. This is C'est si bon from 1961:
Wednesday, December 24. 2008
 My Chipmunks seem to be doing their sleep thing (they do not hibernate, they just curl up and snooze when it's cold out) because I have not seen them for a while.
Long Vs of Canada Geese have been honking high overhead all week, heading south, fleeing the snow cover in search of open fields for grazing. It's a sight and sound to lift anybody's spirits. All we have at the bird feeders now are White Throated Sparrows, Juncoes, Mourning Doves, Cardinals, Black-capped Chickadees, and Blue Jays. Kinda dull at the bird welfare office here, but we are always glad to help out at Christmastime. I did see one shivering Mockingbird. Where are the Goldfinches and all of the interesting sparrows? Even our semi-tough Carolina Wrens seem to have taken a hike south. I think they are all fleeing global cooling and sitting on lawn chairs in patios in Key West, sipping Rum Punches. If they weren't bird-brains, they would stay there.
Tuesday, December 23. 2008
 Dennis Prager. A quote:
...women need to recognize how a man understands a wife's refusal to have sex with him: A husband knows that his wife loves him first and foremost by her willingness to give her body to him. This is rarely the case for women. Few women know their husband loves them because he gives her his body (the idea sounds almost funny). This is, therefore, usually a revelation to a woman. Many women think mens' natures are similar to theirs, and this is so different from a womans nature that few women know this about men unless told about it.
Apparently some, or many, women do not always fully appreciate what a special, deeply emotional (yet also physical) gift we sensitive fellows are offering to share with them when we seek their attention. Photo: Scientificalistic research experts indicate the female Elf in the photo has an 65.6% chance of being in the mood at the time of this research photo, and a 34.4% chance that she is faking it. Computer models say that global warming, if consistent with IPCC heat predictions and mathematically scientificalistic computer models, would almost instantly melt the ice and snow and increase those odds to a heart-warming 92.3%, which explains the cars and trucks men chose to drive. It's only natural to want to warm things up in this cold world.
Monday, December 22. 2008
Freedom is always in peril.  Regular readers know that, here at Maggie's, we hold individual freedom from the power of the State as the highest political value.
We figger that's why we had a revolution. Other countries seem to rate other values more highly, and seem more willing to put their lives in the oily, arrogant, and mediocrity-ridden hands of the political and power classes - as plenty of Americans seem to be willing to do these days. That's fine for those other nations if that's what they want, but we are meant to be special in the freedom way - and an example for others to follow if they can. Two quotes from Freedom Imperilled at The New Criterion: How is freedom faring in the United States today? Peter Robinson, a scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, provided a melancholy précis in “The Loss of Individual Liberty,” a column that appeared in Forbes last month. Mr. Robinson recalled a dinner he shared with Milton Friedman several years ago. He complimented the venerable economist on his role in transforming the intellectual landscape, especially in fostering widespread appreciation of the inextricable connection between free markets and individual liberty. Friedman refused the compliment. “We may have won the intellectual battle,” he said, “but in practical politics, it’s difficult to see that we’ve had any effect at all.” Even a few years ago, it would have been easy to react as did Mr. Robinson at the time: to think that Friedman was responding with false modesty. After all, had not the power of the free market been demonstrated beyond cavil in America’s triumph over the Soviet Union, its unparalleled prosperity, its culture of political freedom?
and As Hume saw, it is generally not lost all at once, but step by step: government program by government program, regulation by regulation, entitlement by entitlement, until finally, as Tocqueville put it, we find ourselves “nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals of which the government is the shepherd.”
Friday, December 19. 2008
 We were long overdue for a bit of driveway repair, and finally got it done yesterday. The guys did an excellent and careful job.
But can concrete cure in the cold temps we're having in New England these days? (We have a big snow today.) No, not very well. I forgot to ask them whether they used the "antifreeze" mortar, but they seemed like they knew what they were doing. I have always found cement and concrete to be an interesting topic. We posted about it here. For some FAQs about cement and concrete, try this.
Thursday, December 18. 2008
 There's an immense difference between a Christmas gift that you'd like very much but hesitate to ask for because it's expensive or hard to obtain — and a gift you can't ask for at all because of the time and effort involved.
Between hanging out at the tiki hut with the locals and going to the Sunday BBQ at the nearby park, I tend to intermingle with 'regular' people a fair amount; meaning, people who aren't computer whizzes and/or savvy blog participants. And it's not surprising that a huge number of people out there would love to get a little blog site going where they could post their daily thoughts ("You wouldn't believe what happened to me just now at the supermarket!") and pics and videos for family and friends to enjoy, yet most of them never even attempt it. In pursuing the issue, the answer, unsurprisingly, is that people simply don't think they have the ability to put one together. And, admittedly, it probably sounds a little daunting to hear you have to "construct" a blog site when you're not even sure what an "icon" or "menu" is.
So, do something really special this year and give them a ready-to-go site. It'll cost about a hundred clams for the web hosting service for a year, and if you use the company I recommend they'll throw in the cost of the domain name, which can go for upward of $35 at other places.
Setting up the site is a snap. You download a free FTP program and use that to upload the files for the blogging program. There's a 'Settings' page where you'll make a few tweaks and you're ready to roll. The easy-to-follow instructions that will walk you through the whole process are on my Easy-Blogsite. If you run into a snag, just ask here in one of my posts and I'll email you back and we'll get the rascal ironed out.
As far as the actual present goes, it might be fun to simply give them a nice Xmas card with three mysterious lines of information on it: a recognizable web site address like "ThePattersonFamily.com" or "BobsBlogSite.com"
name: (their account name)
pass: (their account password)
Then be with them the first time they go to the site. You'd have a few 'Welcome!' posts on the home page, interesting links in the sidebar, and maybe some family pics or even videos on display. It should be a great moment when they suddenly 'get it' and ask, "You mean this is all mine??" Then go to the main editor and show them how easy it is to make a post. Just type merrily away and hit the 'Publish' button. Show them how easy it is to import a picture from their computer, and how they can change the entire look of their new site with one click of the mouse using the fabulous 'themes' you've pre-installed. Their feelings will range from "stunned" to "beyond thrilled."
On my end, I'm giving one to a 68-year-old lady whom I've never met, but have been conversing with via email for over a decade. Her three best friends have blog sites but, no matter how often I tell her how easy it is to set up, she just won't do it. Yet I know she's dying to join in the fun. The sweet old gal will probably break down in tears on Christmas morning when she sees it. She loves bunny rabbits and I found an Easter theme that's just loaded with cute bunnies. I replaced all the 'Easter' stuff with her own name and it looks terrific.
I hope she likes pink and blue.
So, would you rather give Grandma her 25th set of bathroom towels and Grandpa his 17th pipe rack, or something that'll put some zest back in their lives? Once they get nested into a blogring of similar interests (golfing, macramé, my pet's latest funny antics, etc), they'll have a ball.
Or how about that old person next door who spends all day long watching TV? I don't have to tell you, of all people, the meaning the blogosphere can have on one's life. A spouse, a girlfriend, a boyfriend, your best friend, your kids — can you think of a more appreciated gift than a gift one cannot ask for? This Christmas, give that someone special a gift like no other. Give them a door to the world.
I feel badly for this young Psychiatric resident at Baylor, who discussed a mutual romantic attraction to a patient with a supervisor (my bolds): “I think you need to take this one to Dr Gabbard. I have never seen a resident with this problem before.” “Never!?” I thought, “I’m the only one!?” I worried incessantly about what was wrong with me to feel so incapacitated, unable to feel in control of the therapy in this particular case. I kept thinking in circular fashion, “I should not have this problem. I must stop it. I can’t stop it. I should not have this problem”—and on and on.
 Well, I am glad she finally got to Dr. Gabbard, because he is one smart guy. Still, I found her supervisor's reponse deeply disheartening and soulless - if not neutered.
Fact is, as everybody knows, humans are prone to affection, attraction and attachment and there is nothing necessarily different about whether that occurs in a shrink's office, or between a businessman and his secretary, teacher and student, clergyman and congregant, trainer and client, doctor and nurse, lawyer and client, classmates, or business associates and office colleagues. Romantic feelings in offices (like many other emotions) are ubiquitous. Sometimes it's mutual. The proximity and intimacy of some associations naturally builds more closeness than the usual and more contentless (but sometimes powerful) chemistry of strangers in bars. When you put people together, things of all sorts happen. Analysts and psychotherapists have the peculiar and challenging task of figuring those things out rather than acting on them. So rather than viewing this resident's issue as a "problem," I see it as a healthy sign of vitality. Humans are, among many other things, relentlessly sexual machines and attachment machines, and no PC baloney, laws, psychoanalytic exploration, or rules could or should ever change that. Obviously, acting on such feelings can destroy the doctor's role, potentially ruin a doctor's life, and end a patient's hope for real internal improvement. That's why analytically-oriented therapists maintain various sorts of rules and boundaries. The doc's gratification is meant to come from doing a job and from getting paid for it, but it's impossible and undesirable to remove the human elements - emotions, fantasies, etc. People fall for each other all the time: it's basic biology. Mr. Spock would not make a good shrink. I would go so far as to say that a shrink who never has such emotional experiences with patients is too robotic to practice in the field of intense and confusing human emotion. Of course, one must ask oneself about transference and countertransference and transference resistance and acting out and patient seductive manipulations and the state of one's own psychology and all that stuff we analytically-oriented shrinks get paid the big bucks to think about - but sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. The world is full of charming and appealing people. Can a shrink effectively treat a patient they have lasting romantic feelings about, whether it's mutual or not? Probably not, if a chat with a colleague and a little introspection can't deal with it. Refer them out, same as one would with a patient you strongly disliked or distrusted so you can get back to doing your job. (If any resourceful reader can figure out how to forward this post to the honest Baylor Psychiatry resident, Dr. Raymer, who wrote the linked piece, I think she might appreciate it.)
Wednesday, December 17. 2008
Good news from DU HQ this week: Despite a global economic downturn, DU supporters rallied to raise the largest revenue in DU history: $261 million. Of that, Ducks Unlimited spent a record $231 million on its conservation mission. That’s an 88 percent efficiency rating, which sets another record for Ducks Unlimited and exceeds our long-term goal to spend 80 cents of every dollar on DU’s conservation mission. And that’s the bottom line – habitat conservation.
Last year, in the United States alone, Ducks Unlimited conserved nearly 300,000 acres of the country’s most critical breeding, migration and wintering habitats. This annual report highlights several of those habitats and key donors who helped make DU’s work possible. We tip our hats to the people highlighted here and to all the DU members, volunteers and partners across the continent. We’ve come a long way together.
It is gratifying and enjoyable to support this fine organization. Many of us at Maggie's are happy to be part of it.
Monday, December 15. 2008
From Bill Gross in Fortune: While 2008 will probably be best known as the year that global stock markets had their values cut in half, it was really much, much more. It was a year in which every major asset class - stocks, real estate, commodities, even high-yield bonds - suffered significant double-digit percentage losses, resulting in the destruction of over $30 trillion of paper wealth. To blame this on subprime mortgages alone would be to dismiss an era of leveraging that encompassed derivative structures of all types, embodying a belief that economic growth was always and everywhere a certainty and that asset prices never go down.
another quote: The outcome essentially depends on the ability of the Obama administration to rejuvenate capitalism's "animal spirits" by substituting the benevolent fist of government for the now invisible hand of Adam Smith. Federal spending and guarantees in the trillions of dollars will be required to fill the gap created by the deleveraging of private balance sheets. In turn, lenders and investors alike must begin to assume risk as opposed to stuffing money in modern-day investment mattresses. The process will take time. Twelve months of the Obama Nation will not be sufficient to heal the damage ...
Hmm. I thought the "hand" was meant to be invisible. I think it's working now, slowly grinding away and doing what it needs to do to adjust and correct for excesses. I tend to be skeptical every time I hear people say "This time it's different..." We're in a corrective recession, and we'll emerge eventually. And America will emerge first, because we have the most dynamic and creative economy in the world. The fantasy that somehow the government can spend the US out of a global recession is, I think absurd. But they have to appear to be doing something. To put it all in context, I borrowed this 20 yr. chart from My Trader's Journal, up through Oct 3. Today the S&P closed around 870, so we have been below the trend line for a while. Whatever that means. To my eyes, this chart shows a double bubble, and when the next one happens, I'm getting off at the top. 
 Watt's Up notes:
This is almost enough to make me turn in my Skeptic union card, but increased CO2 warming the earth makes some sense to me, the magnitude is in question. The fact that polar sea ice not melting is not an insignificant point. It is also important to realize that the changes are too small to fit with IPCC statements about the trend. Unlike trees, ice does make a good thermometer. I can’t say this strongly enough— This is a strong indication of substantial errors in the computer models and temperature data which needs to be addressed before we throw what’s left of our global economy to the wind. How would Earth’s total sea ice ignore such substantial warming? It’s a good question which deserves an answer.
Computer models aren't facts: far from it. Despite Al Gore's recent hysteria, there has been no loss of Arctic ice. I agree with others who observe that, as climate data fail to conform to computer models, the fearmongers become more shrill and desperate. This over-the-top AP story contains so many inaccuracies that it hardly counts as a news story. It's shameful climate propaganda, and satirizes itself by concluding that any global cooling is due to global warming. John at Powerline does a good job with it. Our position is that we are open to facts, but that the topic of climate has become politicized - which is never helpful to scientific endeavors. Furthermore, we suspect that some warming would be good for mankind, but unfortunately the data show that we have experienced ten years of climate cooling, with 30 years more of cooling predicted. So I think everybody should just chill. Photo: Last week's New Hampshire ice storm from No Looking Backwards
Sunday, December 14. 2008
We had the pleasure of attending a private showing of the Holiday Train show at the New York Botanical Garden yesterday, followed by a fine group brunch at the Cafe. As the Daily News says, You want to get bowled over? You want to see something spectacular? Get to the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, where an only-in-New York holiday show opens..."
The highlight of the annual show isn't the trains - although they are set up wonderfully. It's the 140 architectural constructions of NY landmark buildings, past and present, constructed entirely from plant material collected in the woods by Kentucky artist/designer Paul Busse. Even the windows are made of plant resins and saps. The rustic nature of the structures makes it more of a fairyland than slicker models would do. Yankee Stadium of course: 
The Apollo Theater. See the acorn caps in the molding?: 
More below the fold -
Continue reading "The Holiday Train Show in The Bronx"
Saturday, December 13. 2008
I tend to avoid the f-word in polite company, but that is what this celebratory season of the birth of our Savior can bring out in anybody if we aren't careful. Shopping, when one should be hunting. I journeyed forth out into the cold with the puppy in the front seat (dog driving, natch) to fetch a special antique item, finally found after 5 years of searching. A 5' long, shallow-depth gen-u-ine Queen Anne hunt table. A Christmas season addition to the Farm pile of heirlooms. They sold the thing yesterday. I thought times were tough. Maybe not. Wasn't cheap but not expensive either: $1450. A fine but phony-looking repro could cost triple the real deal. Got a nice happy tree on the way back, but I am still still f-ing right now, which I do not wish to be doing today. I tried to teach my kids that life's opportunities are an endless, but non-repeating, conveyor belt of chances. Life keeps reminding me of that fact. To tell the truth, I really did like that table, dings, sags, cracks and all, but not quite worn-out yet. It contained many stories of Olde England. Of course, it's not really important...just a bunch of black 1690 oak which some barbarian might start a fire with. But perfect for the open spot, and perfect for pre-hunt rows of sherry glasses and a hearty toast to our huntsman, the stalwart Col. Reggie Smythe. Lady at the antique consignment store said biz is great. But why the f- didn't Mrs. BD take the plunge and just buy it when she first saw it? She must know by now that I like anything Queen Anne. F-.
Tuesday, December 9. 2008
This from our guest poster Bruce Kesler, who has a long history of writing about Vietnam: The election of Vietnamese refugee Joseph Cao as a Republican in the most heavily Democrat congressional district in America (11% Republican), drawn to elect a Black (2/3rds Black population), comes as a surprise to some. Reasons given center around his community service record in post-Katrina New Orleans, the utter corruption of incumbent William Jefferson, and the reduced turnout of Blacks in this ballot postponed because of Hurricane Gustav. Various lessons are being proposed: Republican leadership call it an example of the results of a broader ethnic base and better ethics, calling for more. BlackVoices blog says a new generation of Black politicians cannot just count on racial solidarity but must demonstrate better ethics and effectiveness. Democrats expect a better candidate to reclaim the district in 2010, but expect a fight. While probably just a temporary balm to bashed Republican egos, this election of the first Vietnamese to Congress is notably ignored in all the state-run Vietnam news agencies which usually never miss an opportunity to herald the many accomplishments of refugee Vietnamese as if its own. Like refugees from communist oppression in Cuba or Russia, the Vietnamese in the US lean heavily Republican, the Vietnamese by 2-1. The lesson they’ve learned is that American ideals and policies are more to be valued than among many US natives who take them for granted or, even, denigrate the US compared to tyrannical regimes and ideologies. I’m probably unique among bloggers in writing many dozens of detailed, well-documented blog posts over the past few years about the ongoing political and religious repression in Vietnam and its ethnic cleansing brutality toward its minorities. And, probably nothing else I’ve written about has generated less interest. I won’t belabor the reader here with a repetition, but point those interested to a few good, brief introductory sources: Human Rights Watch “Speaking Up for Vietnam,” (many, many reports and analyses at HRW’s website); Former USAID worker and POW in Vietnam, tireless human rights advocate Mike Benge’s latest summary; the Montagnard Foundation’s report on ethnic cleansing (and ongoing tracking of it); and denuding of its and neighboring Laos and Cambodia’s rainforests.
The Bush administration, focused on the Middle East imbroglio, has been relatively weak in challenging Vietnam’s oppression, while encouraging the import trade from Vietnam that generates a $10+ billion deficit but enriches some US firms and entrenches the political rulers of Vietnam by creating a more prosperous, mostly quiescent urban class. Still, some in Vietnam are not so easily bought off, leading to labor strikes against more exploitive wages and conditions than even in China and the majority Buddhists and the Catholics refusing to buckle under to the state churches that are allowed. Tensions will increase as the international economic tanking slows Vietnam’s export-driven growth.
Returning to Joseph Cao, he has been heavily involved in Boat People SOS, founded to help Vietnam’s refugees. One would expect him to be a voice in Congress for Vietnam’s oppressed. But, one should expect him to concentrate more upon his district’s domestic concerns, especially if he is serious about an uphill re-election in 2010.
The new Obama administration, looking to relax US pressure on another communist relic in Cuba, is not likely to take up Vietnamese human rights more strongly. If Cao’s voice on Vietnam’s suffering population is to be magnified, it will require more Americans and Congressmen taking an interest in Vietnam’s oppression. The Vietnam Human Rights Network has easy links to most every international report on Vietnam, including from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, Reporters Without Borders, and many more, all condemning Vietnam’s continuing oppression.
Another worthy cause is the Vietnam Healing Foundation run by my good friend R.J. DelVecchio, former Marine combat photographer in Vietnam and frequent visitor since. It is the only one that tries to aid severely wounded and destitute former South Vietnamese soldiers who continue to be denied basic food or medicine by Vietnam’s regime.
Whether Joseph Cao’s election promises any lasting relief to the US from more ethical Republicans or Black politicians is open to serious question. More important to Americans’ ethical relief would be more support for Vietnam’s long-suffering people.
Monday, December 8. 2008
A comment from an active-duty SEAL in our comments section, on our post about Jason Redman's Sign on the Door last week: For those of you who don't know Jason Redman, he was shot twice in the face and once in the arm while serving in western Iraq. He is making an amazing recovery undergoing his 4th surgery for facial reconstruction. His arm is slowly returning to full functionality. My name is Carl Higbie. I am a Navy Seal and had the opportunity to serve with Jason and have him as a close friend for the last 5 years. He is a model of how the teams work, and how we WILL NOT fail the American people. All we ask in return is that you support for what we are doing, and spread the support to those around you for that is what makes it worth it for us to hang our ass on the line for those of you how love this great nation. Thank you.
True American
Carl Higbie IV
Thanks for writing, Carl. And God Bless you and your buddies.
Regular readers know that Maggie's Farm is a big supporter of Ducks Unlimited, one of the major conservation organizations in North America. The 1,000,000 members of DU now protect over 12 million acres of wildlife habitat. That is a heck of a good cause. We like to have fun, too, while raising $ to protect habitat. I took some photos of our annual event (which is mainly a boy's-night-out). Our raffle girls (with their scary boss on the left who insisted on joining the photo):  More photos on continuation page -
Continue reading "Our Ducks Unlimited Event"
Saturday, December 6. 2008
Does the average person really lie three times per ten minutes of conversation? If so, I may too trusting, or too gullible, for this world. Psychologist Paul Ekman studies emotions and deception, and has Evaluating Truth training seminars. He is the expert on micro-expression of emotion. Some of his online training programs are here. Cool stuff. Useful, too. A new FOX TV show based on Ekman's work, Lie to Me, will begin airing in January. From the clip below, it looks to be darn interesting:
Friday, December 5. 2008
 One of my personal rules since my formal education ended has been to make sure I learn a minimum of ten interesting things per day.
I learned about CD rot today. Indeed nothing is permanent except (we, or some of us, believe) God. The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that our whole universe gizmo-thingy is set up that way. As it happened, last night, at a dinner out, a hunting buddy mentioned re-reading St. Augustine's chapter in The Confessions about time. My confession was that I did not remember that chapter at all. I do recall learning that God is a timeless entity and that God's time is not our time - but not in Augustine. And I also confess that the entire subject of time is a mystery to me. Anyway, here's a short essay on Augustine on the subject of time: Time as a Psalm.
Thursday, December 4. 2008
 Ceviche/Seviche/Cebiche. I used to make it with sliced sea scallops; lime juice, olive oil and salt, marinate it for an hour or so, and serve with thin-sliced onion and red pepper, and a little fresh Cilantro.
Now Ceviche has gone global, and now it only "cooks" in the juice for a minute or two. You have to go to Peru to find the best, says this author.
Is "success" luck or pluck? Volokh considers Gladwell's book. Luck or pluck? Well, we all know that we make our own luck...but bad luck is never our fault. I think it's one of those black-and-white pseudo questions, like Nature vs. Nurture. Life is more complicated than that, and everybody has his own definition of success in a free country. And everybody fails, to some degree, in meeting his life goals whatever they may be. (My life goals happen to be to have a relationship with God, to be honest and honest with myself, to be close with my family and to give them a hand when needed, to read lots of books, to pay my hefty bills, to have some pals I can count on, to have a pleasant and civilized environment to live in, to make some efforts for the things I care about, and to have some good recreation - which includes guns, horses, golf, Scotch whiskey, ceegars, and posting on Maggie's - among other things. That's about it. I am a happy and frequently unhappy product of my culture. Saving the world is above my pay grade narcissism quotient.) Some people equate being rich (defined how? Some would term me prosperous, and some not) as success. I do not. Anyway, Wilkinson also takes a look at Gladwell and income inequality. One quote: If you understand that prices convey information about supply and demand, and that a wage is a price, then you understand that differences in wages for different kinds of labor convey information about the supply of different kinds of labor relative to demand. Wage inequalities are how people can know what’s a “high-value profession” and what isn’t. It guides our choices about the kinds of skills to seek. We need that guidance because effort isn’t enough. You can work as hard as you like in a low-wage job, and you’ll still be in a low-wage job.
From guest writer Bruce Kesler, who seems to have found a comfortable new place to pitch his tent at Maggie's -  Economics fails us in the current economic travails, because of its inherent limitations and because it doesn’t deal with a root distortion of the factors considered.
Traditional economic theory has advanced over the past two hundred years, from simpler unifocal causation to multicausal, usually seen to operate mechanistically, which lends itself to mathematic modeling. In various ways, the emphasis is on rational decision making. Time lags are introduced to approximate learning and reaction curves. Neoclassical microeconomics has been aggregated in Keynsian macroeconomics, both lending themselves to feelings of efficacy in prescribing governmental actions. More recent behavioral economics adds that the process, at the individual or societal level, is less than perfectly rational measured choices, and often irrational. Stated, real or perceived self-interests are imperfectly or not pursued, and experiential feedback is imperfectly or not heeded. Experiments, data manipulation and controlled observations of inputs and results extend the testing and understanding of the many various approaches to economics. But, they still result in confusion, both by their battling contentions and lack of adequate predictability. Still, governments and their advisors continue to argue for one course or another, largely based on these theories, and all of us are affected. This isn’t to argue that such efforts at understanding and guidance are misplaced or unnecessary. It is to argue that more humility is needed in charting such courses. It is also to argue, now even more importantly, that a major element is missing from current economic thought: some segments of society have grown so large or powerful they are treated as too big to either challenge or fail, which grossly distorts the operations of the economy and results in grossly excess costs that create greater lasting harms.
Continue reading "The Economics of Too Big to Fail"
Wednesday, December 3. 2008
 We use the term "Watermelon" to refer to those who are green on the outside and red on the inside. (We at Maggie's are ardent Conservationists and nature-lovers and studiers, but have never bought into the "Green" thing.)
Jonathan Adler (himself a global cooling denier) takes a look at Gus Speth and his new book. Speth is as green as they come, and Dean of the Yale School of Forestry. The piece in The New Atlantis, Green Bridge to Nowhere, is quite revealing. I'll just offer one quote: Speth’s agenda is not confined to economics and the environment, however. He believes his sustainability agenda is intertwined with broader social concerns. “Sustaining people, sustaining nature—it is one cause, inseparable.” Thus he wants to replace the traditional focus on economic growth, as measured by GDP, with “good growth,” which he defines as “growth with equity, employment, environment, and empowerment.” While ostensibly focused on our environmental crisis, and calling for a “post-growth” society, the bridge he seeks to build is to a far broader and more ambitious progressive agenda: Perhaps the most important prescriptions challenging unbridled growth come from outside the environmental sector...they include measures such as more leisure, including a shorter workweek and longer vacations; greater labor protections, job security and benefits, including retirement and health benefits; restrictions on advertising; new ground rules for corporations; strong social and environmental provisions in trade agreements; rigorous consumer protection; greater income and social equality, including genuinely progressive taxation for the rich and greater income support for the poor; major spending on public sector services and environmental amenities; a huge investment in education, skills, and new technology to promote both ecological modernization and sharply rising labor productivity to offset smaller workforces and shorter hours. People deserve more free time, more security, and more opportunity for companionship and continuing education. They deserve to be free of the growth-at-all-costs paradigm and the ruthless economy [of capitalist societies].
This agenda, Speth claims, is not only the key to sustainability, but also to greater human “well-being.” So too are limits on consumerism and consumption. The measures he outlines are the “hallmarks of a caring community and a good society” and must be imposed by government diktat. The role civil society and non-governmental civic institutions might play in this regard receives not a single mention. Capitalism and its attendant freedoms are not only bad for the environment, in his view, they are bad for people as well, and must therefore be controlled, if not eliminated.
Read the whole piece for full insight into this totalitarian movement. Power grabs used to be "for the children," then they were "for the greater good," and now they are "for the planet." I guess any excuse will do for those who imagine that they know better than us regular benighted people. And as far as my "well-being" goes - if I want advice, I will ask for it.
 Thus far this morning, the bird feeder outside my office window has been dive-bombed by a Red-Tail Hawk - on right - after a squirrel (he missed), and by a Sharp-Shinned Hawk - below - after an English Sparrow (he got it by pursuit, crashing through the shrubs). Not my photos, obviously.
Monday, December 1. 2008
Soros' Move-On is still in business. This is post-election, on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Free medical care seems to be one of their goals, but I think they want lots of free stuff from what others produce. It's quite evident that they do not know how to produce anything themselves. It's hard to see how such feckless people can be effective, but there is no doubt that they now feel individually "empowered" by Obama. How nice for them. (h/t, Moonbattery). These people are "the useful idiots," as Lenin termed them. It's a fund-raising scam. Not that they need it, if Soros is really paying for the thing... The potty-mouth blond is kinda hot:
 During the past couple of months, I have noticed our bunny rabbit (Cottontail Rabbit) population taking a sharp decline.
Then we saw the fox. They must have moved in recently. The diminutive Red Fox is the most widely distributed predator in the world, from Asia through Europe and North America. (Yes, he is a Fox and she is a Vixen.) While our American Red Fox is likely a descendent of foxes imported from England for hunting, there was a pre-existing Red Fox here which inhabited boreal regions of North America. In the US, they are hunted with horses and hounds, but I don't know anyone who shoots them for fun. In the UK, our cousin Mr. Free Market loves to blast them, but he is a deeply disturbed individual (like all Capitalist gun-lovers), and he also tries to protect his pheasants. I tend to feel happy when I see one, which is not often, at dawn, trotting across a meadow. I think I have liked them since Roger and the Fox was a favorite of mine around age 6. They are increasingly semi-suburban, but are basically a rural animal. These nocturnal handsome bushy-tailed guys are mainly mouse, fruit, and bug-eaters, but they have been known to steal a chicken or young pheasant. Both coyotes and wolves will kill foxes. A bit about their range and natural history here. More here.
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