Ed Snider, American sports entrepreneur and philanthropist, from an interview with Stephen Hicks. This quote, I hope, gives some flavour of the zest and energy of a great, principled businessman who does not seek government handouts or favours. The interview is long but worth a read.

Amusing comments.

So I decided to give the Economist a chance and read their article ("editorial") on American health care. After drinking a bottle of cider to recover (what a nice new bottle shape Henry Westons have produced) these on my thoughts upon that article:

It starts with a lie - Barack Obama was elected in part because of his plans to "fix American health care".

In reality it was Hillary Clinton who stressed her health care plan during the Democrat primary campaign (Barack Obama just attacked her plan and made vague noises about his own). And during the general election campaign it was John McCain who came out with a specific health care plan, allowing people to buy health cover over State lines and switching the tax deductibility of buying health care cover from employers to individuals, whereas Barack Obama just (dishonestly) attacked the McCain plan and was vague about his own.

Barack Obama was elected President of the United States for several reasons (white guilt about mistreatment of black people, the total ideological devotion of the education system and the mainstream media, the insane judgement by John McCain to back the bank bailouts...), but stressing some specific plan to "fix American health care" was not one of them.

Still the Economist does not let the truth stand in the way of its articles, so it then outlines its position.

"Starting from scratch their would be a good case for a mostly publicly funded system" even for a magazine "as economically liberal as this one".

This is a standard Economist trick - propose some form of statism and defend it by saying even we, the free market ones (the European meaning of "economically liberal"), are in favour of this statism. Of course the Economist never actually produces any evidence that it is pro-free market - but it is at trick it has been using since Walter Bagehot (the second editor, the first editor actually was a free market man) so I suppose it is a lie hollowed by history.

However, we are not "starting from scratch" so the Economist reluctantly concedes that some little freedom (about half of American health care is already government funded and the rest is tied up in regulations - facts that the Economist avoids, see later) must remain for awhile - it suggests five years.

Of course, says the Economist, insurance companies must not be allowed to exploit government subsides for the poor. They must provide "affordable" plans (no prices are suggested - it is all left vague), and must not be allowed to exclude the old or the already sick from their plans.

In short - lower prices and covering high cost groups. As (contrary to the propaganda) American health insurance is already not a high profit margin industry, these "reforms" should be enough to bankrupt the insurance companies - even before the five year period comes to an end and the government plan the Economist suggests takes over.

However, just in case the private health companies are not bankrupted, the Economist also suggests that "anti trust" be introduced into the area. As the late Ayn Rand (and so many others) have pointed out, there are no clear principles (things that can be clearly defined in advance) in "anti trust" or "competition policy" in fact the whole thing is an excuse for arbitrary power for the government working with the politically connected. But the Economist either does not know, or does not care, about this point - and loves "anti trust".

Almost needless to say the Economist does not mean getting rid of regulation (such as the licensing regulations for doctors - exposed as a racket by Milton Friedman 60 years ago,. or the F.D.A. and its price inflating and new medical adavance preventing "health and safety" regulations). On the contrary the Economist means yet more regulations on top of all the ones that exist already.

Of course the Economist does not mention the real problems of American health care. Neither the ones I have mentioned already or the others. It does not mention how Medicare and Medicaid and SCHIP have vastly inflated prices (just as the subsidies for higher education have had the effect of inflating tuition fees over the decades) or how the vast web of Federal and State regulations prevent much of a real "market" in health care at all, or how American hospitals are forced to provide free ER cover in spite of the fact that an expensive (although terrible - rather like some British NHS hospitals in fact)) network of government "county hospitals" already exists, or... But of course it does not - because it wishes to add subsidy schemes and regulations, not get rid of them.

Lastly I must mention one other policy suggestion of the Economist.

It suggests abolishing the tax deductibility of employer health care provision - not to switch the tax deductibility to individuals to buy health cover themselves, but because the lower taxes "cost the government" lots of money (all money belongs to the government it seems - although it should kindly allow people to buy toys, not important things like health care).

This massive tax increase is something that even Barack Obama is wary about talking about (although it would only pay for a fraction of the costs of his plans), but have no fear the Economist will hold his hand - it is all about "The Renewal of America" to quote one of the most vile magazine front covers I have ever seen.

As for the Obama plan of one and half TRILLION Dollars (according the Congressional budget office in reality it will grow to far more than that, entitlement programs always do) that will only cover a fraction of the people he says it will. Well if the Economist is truly "economically liberal" it will help lead the fight against this evil - but judging by this article...

Of course it could be claimed that I am being unfair - that the American coverage of the Economist is the worst element in the magazine. Although I have not noticed the Economist denouncing the move to income support schemes and government health cover in India (in spite of the ever growing fiscal deficit) in India - or indeed in any country.

Be that as it may, it is the United States where the alternative of a free market current affairs magazine is most needed - an alternative to the statism of Time and Newsweek and the rest of the mainstream media. And the Economist utterly fails to provide this alternative.

So, friend (again you know who you are), do not ask me to give the Economist a chance again - to do so is not good for my liver.

From a philosophical point of view, I am not sure whether such a sentence has much of an effect in deterring future fraudsters; the trouble with the notion of restituting victims of crimes, however, is that what on earth can a convict like Madoff do to pay back his victims tens of billions of dollars? If he did some kind of work until he dropped dead, it would be unlikely that he could generate a fraction of the wealth that has been taken from people. In some cases, folks lost their entire life savings. Now the snarkier folk out there might say, well, his victims were all incredibly rich so they will not suffer, but that is nonsense. Theft is theft; if you have honestly built a fortune and some shyster takes the lot, that's a crime, period.

But there is a problem with the idea of compensating victims when the size of a fraud is this huge. I'd be interested in what commenters think might be some practical solutions.

In some ways - these things are not easy to measure - I get the impression that more focused groups such as the Taxpayers' Alliance have been making far more of the running in recent years than the IEA, while the Adam Smith Institute has been doing a lot of outreach work with universities and colleges, which is vital. But the IEA has a tremendous pedigree and it ought to be a coveted position to go for. The only reservation is whether it can command enough of a budget to get in someone at the right level.

I wish the magazine success and it should give publications such as The Spectator, Prospect and The New Statesman a run for their money.

Of course, politicians have always, with varying degrees, told lies or only partial truths, and Brown is hardly an original in this regard. Arguably the greatest lie, or set of lies, told to the UK electorate were told in the period leading up to the UK's entry into the-then EEC, later European Union: namely, that our entry into the Community was in no way a loss of national sovereignty. In fact I am sure that I recall reading - sorry, cannot find the source - such pro-EEC journalists as Hugo Young saying that it was admirable and necessary for the likes of the late Edward Heath (curses be upon him) to bullshit the public.

Even so, Brown's denial of his own budget arithmetic, when it can be so easily checked, is a jaw-dropper. But what is encouraging is that parts of the media, even the fairly lefty bits, are not buying the line that there will be no cuts in spending over the next few years.

Of course, if Brown is refusing to make spending cuts, then I guess that fits with the whole "scortched earth" idea that he has: he knows Labour will lose the next election, probably quite badly, but out of a mixture of low cunning and sheer evil, he wants to bequeath a terrible inheritance upon the next government.

Yes, I said evil. Mr Brown is an evil man. In fact his invocation of his puritanical Scottish religion is part proof of that.

- Jeremy Clarkson, on the over-policing of midsummer at Stonehenge.

In an interview, Mr Byrne said: "We need a power shift from Whitehall ministers and civil servants that currently have the power and move it to citizens.

"We know the argument for public services has got to change so we have been developing a strategy that takes public services away from a target culture to giving people rights and entitlement to core public services."

What will this shift entail? Liam Byrne describes this latest stage of reform, and when did we never have a period of reform, as giving individuals a set of rights and, if they are not met, you get to complain.

Well, as a member of the public, I would like to demonstrate near Parliament, wear a "Bollix to Brown" T shirt and ensure that nephews could read. And I can complain to the people who buggered up in the first place. And what do people want when they complain? They want redress. If they can't get the rights, they get the compensation.

A new way of using your money to puff up Brown's largesse and promote dishonesty. Incentives to lie and cheat by crying that rights are infringed, to be bought off by gold, all helped out by that nice Mr Brown, who understands my needs. This is one last ditch effort to bribe the electorate at the expense of widening compensation culture and increasing something for nothing expectations.

Good thing the money has run out.

- Adriana Lukas, delivered deadpan during luncheon.

I also sympathise with Jonah Goldberg, who is a bit caustic about the whole spectacle of mourning. The weirdness and the allegations of criminality that swirled around Jackson in his life are well chronicled, and should not be brushed under the carpet. And remember that people, who are unknown to all but their family, work colleagues and friends, die of heart attacks every day. The truth is, that unless we take a bet on cryonics and join the Singularity, that the Grim Reaper gets us all eventually.

Fred Siegel, writing on HG Wells. It is fair to say that the Fabian movement of which this man was such a key part deserves to go down in infamy, given the damage it has done in so many ways.

In Britain, 'More than 700 "controlled drinking zones" have been set up across England, giving police sweeping powers to confiscate beer and wine from anyone enjoying a quiet outdoor tipple.'

If you want to keep your freedom to drink what you please on the public street then fight for the freedom to wear what you please on the public street.

But what about public drunkeness, then, and the fear and misery of those whose nights are blighted by drunks fighting at their windows and pissing in their gardens? And what about the cloth-entombed women, projecting an image of both slavery and Islamic aggression, who may or may not have chosen to wear the black bag?

My answer is substantially the same to both social problems: as a society we have chosen to deny ourselves the very tools of private social action (no, that is not a contradiction in terms) that could make things better.

For decades we have denied ourselves disapproval. For decades we have denied ourselves property rights. For decades we have denied ourselves the right to free association, which necessarily includes the right not to associate.

These tools are the ones we have the right to use. They are also the right tools for the job. They, unlike the tools of coercion, will not turn in our hands and cut us.

Bad form to quote oneself, I know. However it saves writing time, so tough. Last time I wrote about this sort of thing I said:

In general, I would say that strong private institutions are a bulwark against the type of creeping Islamification - or capture by other minority groups - that concern many of the commenters to this thread ... Contrast that with the position of state institutions, which includes state laws. These are a much more realistic target for capture by determined minorities. If, say 3% of the population feel really strongly about some issue and 97% are apathetic it is actually quite a realistic proposition for the 3% to get laws passed to steer things their way. Much easier than out-purchasing the other 97%, certainly.

However that brings me back to the main point of the article: the best (perhaps only?) long term defence against unfair treatment by "the authorities" is to keep the authorities out of our daily lives.

- Eamonn Butler, writing in the Daily Telegraph on what I am relieved to discover the Adam Smith Institute has renamed Cost of Government Day.