I have no problem with unions existing; freedom of association is an important right and one that should never be taken away from us. The problem I have is with unions always seeming to be on the wrong side of every damn issue. And so it goes with patent reform. Way not to break precedent, guys.
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Well, the Fed has cut the cost of borrowing to avert what many see as a financial crisis. There are several ways to view this move, I guess. One view, as expressed here, is that central banks created the current asset price bubble and appetite for dubious credit products like collateralised debt obligations – bundles of bonds and loans – by cheap interest rates. Central banks caused this state of affairs, so they should let hedge funds and other institutions go bankrupt as part of the natural, if painful Darwinian process of the market. It sounds harsh, but a few casualties, while not much fun for the immediate investors, are a useful warning about how investments can go awry. On the other hand, the fall in stock market prices since late July has been so fast that it threatens to cause a wider, systemic economic problem, and the rate cut was justified. I take the former view, by and large. The underlying state of the UK economy, for example, is reasonable, if not great (thanks to the taxes and regulations of our current prime minister, Gordon Brown). But corporate earnings have been strong, consumer spending is okay – it has weakened a bit but hardly fallen off a cliff – and the cost of equities, when set against expected corporate earnings, are pretty cheap by long term standards. (The FTSE 100 index is priced on a multiple of about 12 times earnings, the cheapest since the early 1990s). The Fed, by cutting rates in this way, is more or less saying that stock market bears cannot make money, that the only way to bet is for stocks to rise. This ultimately creates a serious moral hazard by encouraging risky borrowing and lending behaviour. I think we’ll regret what the Fed did today. Whoever said August was dull? August 17th, 2007 | 20 comments - (Comments are closed)
Seriously, can we get this promise in writing? Then again, I am pretty familiar with what politicians consider “leaving [us] alone”. It is akin to saying, “Well, I am still going to bugger you senseless, and I am still going to do it without your consent, but from now on I will not force you to grab your ankles and beg for more.” August 17th, 2007 | 19 comments - (Comments are closed)
Many intelligent things were said at the Republican debate broadcast by the American Broadcasting System the other week. But, being of a negative cast of mind, I was more interested in the stupid things that were said. Ron Paul listed “Korea” as one of the wars that American should not have fought and “lost” (well there goes the Korean American vote). Mitt Romney said that government should back “universal healthcare”, as he had introduced in Massachusetts, because otherwise “people turn up to Emergency Rooms and this is expensive” – of course people are still turning up to Emergency Rooms and demanding free treatment in Massachusetts – in spite of Mitt Romney’s expensive new government scheme (which will get more and more expensive over time). However, I believe that the most stupid thing said at the debate was from Mike Huckabee (a big tax increaser from Arkansas) who said that health care would be fixed if “everyone in America had the same healthcare as the members of Congress were given”. There are 100 members of the United States Senate, and there are 435 members of the House of Representatives. And there are about 300 million Americans. Paying the health costs costs of 535 politicians is a rather smaller burden than paying the health care costs of 300, 000,000 people. Yet this piece of populist bullshit (for that is what it was) was cheered and applauded. August 11th, 2007 | 51 comments - (Comments are closed)
There is a strange furore brewing over pharmaceuticals giant Johnson & Johnson suing the American Red Cross over their use of… the Red Cross… on certain commercial products. My first reaction was “What the…? Have J&J gone completely nuts?” But then I actually read the background to the story from someone who works at J&J, and also got some background from someone I know who works with them, whereupon I realised actually it is the American Red Cross who have gone nuts. In fact they are worse than nuts, they are acting both unreasonably and quite dishonourably. Clearly J&J must be aghast by the PR mess that taking legal action against a venerable institution like the Red Cross is going to stir up… and the Red Cross knows that. And so it is very clear to me that when you read the Red Cross press release, what is going on here is a cynical bit of capitalist bashing so that the Red Cross can use their sainted reputation to tear up an agreement they reached over the appropriate use of that Red Cross symbol in… 1895. Now you might think that how can J&J claim to own the rights to the Red Cross symbol in the USA? Sure, that seems weird, but the fact is the American Red Cross did agree that J&J did indeed own it all the way back in 1895, so that is an indisputable fact, and in return for J&J’s forbearance for the Red Cross using that symbol (not to mention a century of monetary and product donations… but then as we all know, no good deed goes unpunished), the Red Cross undertook not to use the symbol as a logo on products in the USA that directly compete with J&J products that also use that symbol. And so it was for one hundred years. Until one day the Red Cross decide it no longer suits them, no doubt on the advise of some overpaid shister. It is a shameful think that an institution that people take to represent charity and honour can quite literally trade on that perception in order to act dishonourably. Sometimes big companies act appallingly, but sometimes they are just big targets for other who act dishonourably. J&J have no choice but to defend their trademark but the only winner in all of this will be a bunch of crapulous American lawyers. Such stupidity. Update: some more background here. August 10th, 2007 | 31 comments - (Comments are closed)
When people start blaming Big Evil Capitalists for the latest SNAFU in the global capital markets – the collapse of many debt products linked to what are called sub-prime mortgages in the US – remember that the problem stems in part from how lenders have been positively encouraged by some states to lend money to risky borrowers and people with a history of debt defaults and late payments (thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link). Of course, ultra-low interest rates in many nations, such as Japan, have also fuelled a vast rise in the levels of global monetary growth, which in the near-term encouraged people to invest in any asset class offering a decent return regardless of risk of assets held, like bundles of sub-prime mortgages repackaged into exotica called collateralised debt obligations (please do not ask me to define these, it is too early in the morning and I have only had one coffee). Low interest rates have cut the price that investors typically demand for shouldering risk; now that rates have risen to curb inflation, the price for that risk has gone up. Milton Friedman and Robert Heinlein may be dead, but the truths they espoused are very much alive. As they said, there is not, and never has been, such thing as a free lunch. August 10th, 2007 | 21 comments - (Comments are closed)
Fresh from his humbling at the hands of Hillary Clinton and following on from a statement indicating his willingness to invade Pakistan, Barack Obama ladles on credence to the increasingly ubiquitous assertion that he’s inexperienced:
Desperately wrong answer to (what should be) a deal-breaking question, Mr Obama. Sure, waving the threat of one’s nuclear weapons capacity around like a pair of chopsticks in a cheap Chinese restaurant is not sensible, because it ultimately reduces that capacity’s deterrent value – which is the only practical reason why a sane nation would field a nuclear arsenal in this world of other nations who also possess The Bomb. A wise leader does not even refer to his country’s nuclear weapons capacity, because the widespread knowledge of that capacity speaks for itself more effectively than any politician could ever hope to. Conversely, it is sheer lunacy for a US President (or hopeful) to declare that he will never press the button, because such statements completely undermine the deterrent value of these weapons. Mr Obama, if you are not running on a platform of nuclear disarmament, you never take the nuclear option off the table. Ever. You made a most elementary strategic blunder – you are not a suitable candidate for the role of U.S. Commander-in-Chief. August 3rd, 2007 | 16 comments - (Comments are closed)
Andrew Sullivan is a rum character. Columnists are not supposed to maintain an iron consistency in their views and I do not hold it against Sullivan that he has switched from being a rather embarrassingly full-on cheerleader for George W. Bush, for example, to an equally full-on despiser of said. I actually believe Sullivan when he claims that his anger at some of Bush’s policies is not primarily motivated by Bush’s stance on gay marriage, but more by Bush’s very un-conservative heavy public spending, abuse of certain powers, and above all, the bungling in Iraq. But Sullivan likes to act as a sort of arbiter of what a true “conservative” is, but I wonder about his credentials on this score. This post leaves a nasty taste, even though Sullivan does his utmost, quite rightly, to divorce himself from condoning acts of violence:
“We have to create a social stigma”. That is really nice, Andrew. Several decades ago, certain people thought that it was right to “create a social stigma”, involving lots of nasty expressions and social ostracism, against people who wanted to have sex with people of their own gender. People once thought about sexual morality in much the same way that some people think about those who delight in driving gas guzzling cars. I do not know: maybe driving a large car is morally worse than two men bonking one another, but many people might take a different view. Sullivan is a man who has benefited from the liberties afforded to him by the United States, and has written eloquently about the plight of gay people and their struggle to be accepted as normal. It is particularly disappointing to see him joining what amounts to the moral bullying tactics of the Greens and their hysterical invocations of global doom. Perhaps Dubya has unhinged the man. I wish Sullivan would cheer up: he used to be a great writer. Perhaps he should come back home to Britain for a few years and rediscover his English sense of humour. July 19th, 2007 | 31 comments - (Comments are closed)
There is an interesting article on New West by Christian Probasco, called California Looms.
His description of California reminded me of… Blair’s ever more authoritarian Britain. Another example of creeping democratic totalitarianism? June 15th, 2007 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
I am an avid reader of science fiction, and the use of futuristic fiction as a source of ideas is a welcome development. The best science fiction is that which explores the boundaries of our concepts whether in the mind, the computer or how we relate to each other. This is one of the advantages of defending the freedom of the mind, the expression of which is usually described as freedom of speech
Whilst DARPA is a useful channel for futuristic ideas, ten percent of a research budget handed over to any project is not such a good idea. Once the institutional apparatus is set up, with a secretariat to flesh out the innovative ideas, and the bureaucratic accretions which turn gold to mud, what will be left. A few nuggets from the civil service quicksand. More useful is the Sigma organisation set up by Andrew Arlen some years ago, if it survives the seductive sirenic call of the public sector:
How unusual that CSI, paraded as an authentic and naturalistic program, can be classified as science fiction, on the grounds that the technology deployed is probably three or five years ahead of our current capabilities. Yet, the same confusion may dazzle the Department of Homeland Security. The politicians will reach for science fictional solutions when actual success probably stems from incremental graft on current processes and clear procurement and privatisation. Research is often touted as a PR solution for public sector problems. Treat this with scepticism. June 10th, 2007 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
I have been watching as the assortment of bad, worse and sickening candidates continues to grow in this premature election campaign. Amongst them are candidates (or at least a candiidate) who would make me vote for the other party: John McCain. There are candidates I find a little less bad on one issue or another. There are my own party contenders who cannot win, will not get much national coverage and will have an anti-war stance I do not support. But finally, from out of the blue of the Texas sky comes: RON PAUL! Ron is no stranger to me. I worked with his 1988 campaign manager a bit and wrote some policy papers for his Libertarian campaign. I also introduced him to a crowd at an ISDC (International Space Development Conference) in Denver after giving him a briefing on the audience. I found him thoroughly likable both politically and personally. True, Ron carries the same anti-war stance as others, but I could ignore that in someone who may actually make a difference. Unlike my party’s candidate he will be unignorable. He could conceivably pull off a Republican nomination. If that were to happen it might cause multiple suicides amongst the kinder, gentler crowd… but no one would miss them anyway. If he were to win the election, admittedly a very long shot, Statism’s monopoly hold on our political system would be irreparably damaged. I am willing to take my risks on enemy forces using a weak foreign policy to attack us here because the policies of a President Paul would so liberate Americans and the American economy that we would be accelerating away from the unfree world at a rate they could not possibly match. Ron would make us freer than we have been since Abe Lincoln mucked things up for limited government. Increased individual liberty would translate into wealth and national strength. There will never be a perfect candidate for me, but at least in Ron Paul I see an overall set of policies that does not make me want to lose my lunch. Go here to find out how to support him. May 30th, 2007 | 76 comments - (Comments are closed)
I just saw Barack Obama on television saying that he would introduce Universal Socialist Medical Care in the USA and for people who already have insurance policies, the only difference would be such people would pay less in premiums… everything else would be just as good. Yes, you too in the USA can have something as ‘wonderful’ as our decrepit National Health Service. You lucky, lucky people. And presumably this conjuring act of creating wealth out of nothing with government impositions will come to pass purely via the Triumph of Barack Obama’s will. Talk about delusional. May 29th, 2007 | 44 comments - (Comments are closed)
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