Duck Hunting can be deadly.

This was apparently at Pamlico Point during one of our Global Warming events.

This is so very correct.

Economist Donald Boudreaux in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Dec. 25:

Suppose that Jones chooses a career as a poet. Jones treasures the time he spends walking in the woods and strolling city streets in leisurely reflection; his reflections lead him to write poetry critical of capitalist materialism. Working as a poet, Jones earns $20,000 annually.

Smith chooses a career as an emergency-room physician. She works an average of 60 hours weekly and seldom takes a vacation. Her annual salary is $400,000. Is this "distribution" of income unfair? Is Smith responsible for Jones' relatively low salary? Does Smith owe Jones money? If so, how much? And what is the formula you use to determine Smith's debt to Jones?

While Dr. Smith earns more money than does poet Jones, poet Jones earns more leisure than does Dr. Smith. Do you believe leisure has value to those who possess it? If so, are you disturbed by the inequality of leisure that separates leisure-rich Jones from leisure-poor Smith? Do you advocate policies to "redistribute" leisure from Jones to Smith—say, by forcing Jones to wash Smith's dinner dishes or to chauffeur Smith to and from work? If not, why not?

Financial Crises and Innovation...not here. Why not?

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/robert-j--shiller-asks-why-innovative-ideas-to-prevent-another-financial-crisis-have-gained-no-political-or-media-traction?alcmpid=view

This is a very good read. Housing Partnerships makes great sense and yet no one is listening. With the complete cronyism that is now dominating this country it is not hard to understand why...but it is pathetic.

Now...economic mobility does matter. And Elizabeth Warren is Bat Guano Insane.

http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304887104579306722424378000?mobile=y

From back in 2005...true then and true today...and true in 1964.

We have spent $20.7 trillion on poverty and income redistribution since then.
How's that working out for us?

Hallmark of the underclass: Self-destructive behavior.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB112795305361255317

Five Myths of Income Inequality.

What percentage of being poor is driven by out-of-wedlock births, drug and alcohol abuse, dropping out of high school, and Casey Mulligan's government policy "glue trap" where the poor can face 100% marginal tax rates for their gainful employment?

When is the last time you heard the president or Harry Reid say anything even remotely close to this?





http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=4844

Fun with Blogging.....

Hello again. I am back after a much needed break. I am sorry for the interregnum but pounding the Blog day after day, even though many have given me the business for being a "cut and paster", can get old after four straight years.

Anyway, I got this in a comment to my posting on the absurdity of the distribution of income as the main problem of our economy. This is too good not to post. 

This shows the joy and the pain of blogging. It can be very rewarding at times. At other times when morons make nasty comments about you that can't be published, well that is the negative price of being in the Blogsphere. But sometimes people will write and vent and you just let them go off. I get the feeling this guy just FELT BETTER after saying what he said below. Mind you, I am not knocking this dude and what is said. I'm a free speech guy here on my Blog as long as it is respectful. But I can't help but smile at the end after all that has been laid to waste in six tidy paragraphs.

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Enjoy!

From a comment:



Funny thing is that wealth distribution IS currently a wreck if you look at whether or not people actually earn what they have. The problem is that most left wing solutions would only make the problem worse, and most right wing solutions do little to nothing to improve things either.

The real heart of the problem lies in our monetary system and the way the governing bodies are funded. Both are built on involuntary funding or theft, so everyone gets a lot of what they don't want.

Endless aggressive wars overseas, or on drugs or poverty or any other horrible domestic program would simply not be possible in the presence of a sound monetary system. The amount of economic misallocation caused by the current destruction of money is literally immeasurable, and so vast that essentially the entire US financial sector depends on it along with all other heavily subsidized organizations whether it's via government contracts or more direct funding.

The way I see it, the US is in about the same position as the USSR was before collapse, only we have laundered everything in the name of capitalism and "the land of the free." The most telling of any statistic, to me, is that we have a higher % of people in prison than any other tyrannical government ever before. If the % of people, specifically non violent people, in cages isn't an indicator of an unsustainable system, I don't know what is. It doesn't really matter if you can vote for a new head of the mafia, so long as the underlying social/legal structure that forces everyone to fund the mafia remains.

In other words the only difference between democrats (sic.) and republicans (sic.) is what they want to do with your money after they steal it.

Unfortunately the American experiment was a catastrophic failure. It created the mess we have today, because a piece of paper obviously isn't enough to restrain the growth of an organization funded involuntarily. Either the US constitution sanctions every bad government policy today, or it is unable to prevent a single one. But that is okay, we have learned quite a bit. The effort to decentralize government was correct, we just didn't go far enough. We know that voluntary funding of every aspect of society is absolutely essential if peace and prosperity and ultimately governance "by the people" are the end goals. And the new "founders" are already well on their way to creating a new free world with crypto currencies and crowd sourced projects and open sourced software. I am quite sure that all "public policy" will one day be entirely obsolete, and that is the only way to win. You don't oppose criminals via the channels they set up for you to oppose them, you undermine their entire system.

Glad to see you mention Austrian economics btw :)

Happy New Year!...And God Help Us!

Even the Little Sisters of the Poor have to be covered for birth control.