Monday, August 05, 2002

The Stock Market, Profits, and Credit Expansion. The great majority of today's intellectuals--from newspaper and television commentators to university professors, including most professors of economics, not to mention today's politicians and government officials--regard the failure of socialism and success of capitalism as mere "brute facts," that is, facts without intelligible basis; indeed, facts defying and contradicting all understanding. To know otherwise, they would have had to read and study the works of Ludwig von Mises and the other leading theorists of the Austrian and British classical schools of economics. But this they have not done. As a result of this fundamental intellectual and moral failure on their part, according to all that they still believe, socialism, with its alleged concern for the well-being of all and its alleged rational planning, should have succeeded, and capitalism, with its concern only for personal profit and its alleged anarchy of production, should have failed. In the minds of today's intellectuals, the opposite outcome in the real world, must call into doubt the reliability of reason itself--a result, I believe, that goes a long way in explaining the rise in openly professed irrationalism in recent decades, such as the assaults on science and technology emanating from the environmental movement. The intellectuals seize upon today's events in connection with the stock market because they appear to offer a reprieve from the overthrow of their intellectual universe. They believe, for the moment, that they are once again in a position to say that their view of capitalism is confirmed by reality. The major directly relevant aspects of the intellectuals' ignorance must be countered with a scientific explanation of the actual nature and consequences of the profit motive in a free market, followed by an explanation of how profits are profoundly distorted by forcible government interference in the form of inflation and credit expansion, in ways that directly explain both the stock market boom of recent years and today's stock market bust. In the light of this knowledge, current proposals allegedly aimed at remedying the present situation and preventing its recurrence--but in fact aimed at the further undermining of capitalism--must be exposed and criticized. [Ludwig von Mises Institute] comment () trackback ()  12:18:16 PM     Unnecessary roughness? Elderly man claims excessive force by police officer. Paul Kirby at The Daily Freeman - Unnecessary roughness? Elderly man claims excessive force by police officer - more evidence that the best way to deal with a cop at your door is to shoot first and ask questions later. [kaba] [End the War on Freedom] "I open the door, and there is a police officer with a gun sticking in my face. And he sees I got a gun, and he asked me to put it down, and I put in on the stand alongside my door," said LaGrange, a father of four. "I figured he was going to tell me I got an emergency in the family or there had been an accident." Instead, LaGrange says, Ryan "grabbed me and slammed me down on the concrete patio. He jumped on top of me. ... I think he hit me a couple of times in the kidney. I am not sure, but it sure felt like it. He had his knee in the middle of my back and he handcuffed me." The local police claim that Ryan acted appropriately. Sadly, this is probably true by the standards of the police state that has taken over America. Poor Mr. LaGrange is just behind the times, thinking that obeying the law and exercising good judgement will save him from being assaulted and subjected to false arrest. Personally, I always answer the door with a pistol in hand--this is a basic, sensible precaution. I make sure to keep it out of sight of whoever's there, though. Note that in Mr. LaGrange's case, the cop already had his weapon out and aimed at Mr. LaGrange when he opened the door--before he could have known LaGrange was armed. I think it would have been reasonable for LaGrange to think the cop was actually a home invasion robber wearing a rented uniform, and just shot him in self defense. comment () trackback ()  10:00:17 AM     Martin Schwimmer: "I'm sorry there have been no blog items since Thursday but I was involved in something very important. Musa al-Mustapha of Nigeria emailed me.."  [Scripting News] I can't tell if Mr. Schwimmer is joking, or if he's actually dumb enough to fall for such an obvious and well-known scam. I'll keep an eye on his weblog for the next few days, to see if I can figure out which it is. comment () trackback ()  9:32:06 AM

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