The following is a personal vignette from yesteryear. I have told this story to my grandchildren as it illustrates what I believe is a useful moral or two:
In 1966 after being transferred to the Geophysical Services Laboratory in Dallas, TX from my initial Mobil Oil assignment in Libya, North Africa I joined a group doing geophysical testing and research. The other members of this small group had either PhD’s or Master Degrees in science and since I had only an undergraduate degree in geological engineering, I reasoned that I would benefit from expanding my formal mathematics education. Therefore I enrolled in night school at Southern Methodist University. Even though I had been out of school for 10 years I was impatience to immediately take advanced mathematics courses, so instead of taking a review course in calculus, I started with a course called Advanced Calculus.
There was a problem from the outset. I was studying from not only the course textbook, but also from two calculus books, an algebra book, and a trigonometry book. Mathematical theories, formulae, and principles easily slip from one’s memory. On the first test I received an F. And this was not just a run-of-the-mill F. It was a low F; call it an F-. My next test score was better – it was an F+; the third was a D. Naturally my mid-term grade was an F. At this point, after recovering from the shock (I was an A student in mathematics in high school and B student in college which was not bad in an engineering school), I figured it was time to talk to the professor.
In the next class after the mid-term grades came out, the professor, anticipating our concerns, told us he knew many of us had been out of school for 10 to 15 years and were struggling. He said if we kept getting better scores on the tests he would discount the earlier scores, but if we were up and down on each test, he would have no choice other than to weight each test equally. I and the rest of the students thought that was fair.
Mobil Oil would pay for the course tuition, but only if I passed, and much more importantly my final grade would be sent to my supervisor. It would certainly not help my career if I did not receive a respectable grade. However, I was reasonably confident that I could keep getting better test scores and indeed I did. On the next three tests I received a C, C+, and B. On the final test I received a C+ and so my final grade was a solid C.
Intrepidly, I took the next semester continuation of Advanced Calculus from the same professor and received a B-. My third mathematics course at SMU was called Probability and Statistics taught by a graduate student. There was something about this subject that I found much easier to comprehend than the arcane principles of advanced calculus. Queuing Theory and the Rule of Bayes-Laplace, or as it is also called the inverse probability theorem, are logical and easier to follow than trying to grasp the advanced calculus concept of poles in a complex plane. C’est pas?
Not only did I get an A in the course, but of the circa 30 people in the class I received the top grade. A fellow Mobil Oil employee I knew, although had never worked with, received a B. He told me now he knew why I was a supervisor and he was not.
The graduate student instructor was not only an outstanding teacher, but a great guy as well. He had done consulting work for an oil exploration company and he explained to us that lease block bids fit nicely on a log-log plot – valuable information for any oil exploration company interested in oil/gas lease blocks.
There is a saying, aphorism, cliché, or whatever you want to call it, that you should quit when you are ahead. I did not follow that sound advice. For a fourth course I took linear algebra. My luck ran out in getting good teachers. This SMU professor apparently had psychological problems. At any rate he seemed determined to make the course material and tests as abstract and difficult as he could. I actually did not know what final grade I would get beyond knowing it would be somewhere between a D and a B. Most of the students were as mystified as I was. We only knew that he marked on a curve so one’s final grade depended upon its relative to the other scores in the class.
Late in the course one of the students told the professor, in front of the class, that he was a poor teacher. The professor responded incredulously, “I am a poor teacher?” I never knew what the motive was of that student, whom I had talked to a few times. He may have given up getting a passing grade by then or perhaps he was just the type of impulsive person who says what he thinks - the consequences be damned. After that I cowardly or wisely, depending upon your perspective, refrained from being seen talking to him in view of the professor. I received a C in the course.
What are the moral precepts of this story? (1.) It may sound trite, but whatever endeavor you are engaged in, always give it your best effort and do not get discouraged if you initially fail. There is no guarantee that you will eventually succeed, but if you quit you will always fail. (2.) When someone tells you of their successes, be it in financial investing, job achievements, academics, or whatever, ask them about their failures. If they can not come up with any tell them you just remembered that you have something important to do – you have to watch the grass on your lawn grow. Unless they are stone-stupid they will get it.
Friday, September 28, 2007
MOURNING DOVE TALES 36
So far this spring and summer (2007) we have had four nests of mourning doves (Zenaidura macroura) in three different hanging flower baskets in our patio. The hanging basket which was occupied twice was the one nearest (and very near) the patio door. It would appear to me that in the trade off between being wary of humans versus the protection of their eggs and hatchlings from predators by having their nests near humans, the mourning doves have chosen the latter. Are their little “bird brains” capable of making such intelligent decisions? Whether by instinct or conscious choice, it would appear these avian folks are sufficiently sophisticated to effectuate the proper course of action.
What I can say by virtue of observation is the following: Building the nest is a cooperative effort between the male and female mourning doves. The one bird (presumably the male) brings small sticks, twigs, and what other building material he can find to the female who, mostly using her beak, weaves these into a nest. Of course these nests were in hanging baskets so they did not have to be outstandingly structurally sound. Still they were constructed with interlaced materials without the use of proper five fingered hands – remarkable. I don’t know where the male got his material, but it must have not been far away because he made round trips in just a couple of minutes or less. The whole nest building activity was completed in a couple of hours. A short time later the female sat in the nest and must have laid her eggs soon after.
In the last mourning dove brood there were two eggs (as there were in the other three) which took 15 days to hatch. This is a bit tricky to determine as the parent birds not only sit on the eggs, but sit on and conceal the squabs, as they are called after they are hatched. I detected when the two eggs were hatched by getting so close to the nest that the parent bird flew away. Not to worry. After I moved away from the nest the adult bird returned in less than one minute.
The encyclopedia states that the male bird incubates the eggs from the morning to the afternoon; the female at night and the rest of the day. I observed that the first change occurs an hour so after sunrise, again circa an hour after noon, and an hour or less before sundown. The timing was so consistent from day to day that I almost suspected they both possessed Rolex timepieces. The changing of places on the nest contained a bit of variability. Sometimes the bird on the nest would fly away a second before the other came to the nest. More frequently the incoming bird would land on a ledge above the patio door and wait for the nesting bird to depart – usually in less than one minute. Only rarely did the incoming bird land directly in the nest before the other departed. Perhaps how soon the bird on the nest left was a function of how cramped he/she felt. I listened carefully, but could not hear any recriminations about “Where have you been all this time?” But that may have been because I don’t understand mourning dove talk.
The chicks are fed by both of the adults with what is called pigeon’s milk (dove milk) which is partially digested food (the diet of mourning doves is normally 99% seeds) in the adult bird’s crop. This food which has the consistency of cottage cheese, is regurgitated (Medieval Latin regurgitatus meaning to engulf) into the beaks of the chicks, ugh! It makes the human mammary system of feeding babies downright civilized and sanitary by comparison.
Mourning dove chicks are altricial (from Latin altric meaning nourish) at birth as opposed to precocial (from Latin praecoci, the same root as the word precocious); that is to say they are born blind and helpless instead of being capable of defending themselves or fleeing. The parents do not voluntarily leave the chicks alone for one minute until they are eight or nine days old. During this rapid growth period the chicks become too big to be concealed by the adult bird sitting on the nest and also the chicks appear to be curious about their immediate environment so they want to see what is going on. As the chicks mature they are left alone for an hour, then for a couple of hours and an increasing number of times per day until they are two weeks old. At that point the chicks were left alone all night for the first time after being on their own almost all that day. The next day (the 15th day after being hatched) first one, then several hours later, the other chick left the nest. An adult mourning dove (probably the mother) was perched nearby watching and seemingly encouraging the chicks as they left the nest. Even a couple of days later the mother was with the chicks as they appeared to be hanging around our enclosed backyard although they were fully capable of flying.
It takes a certain amount of courage for the chicks to attempt to fly out of the nest after being confined there during their maturing stage. In the first brood the chick stood on the edge of the hanging basket for several minutes before trying out his wings all the while the adult bird was perched on the backyard fence as if to say “come on youngling, you can make it.” The second chick in the last brood actually flew up to the ledge above the patio door before flying down to the patio floor. The mother mourning dove was on our house roof where the chick soon joined her. With seemingly simple minded mourning doves being so solicitous and protective of their offspring, what is the excuse for a few humans who carelessly or deliberately endanger their children?
What I can say by virtue of observation is the following: Building the nest is a cooperative effort between the male and female mourning doves. The one bird (presumably the male) brings small sticks, twigs, and what other building material he can find to the female who, mostly using her beak, weaves these into a nest. Of course these nests were in hanging baskets so they did not have to be outstandingly structurally sound. Still they were constructed with interlaced materials without the use of proper five fingered hands – remarkable. I don’t know where the male got his material, but it must have not been far away because he made round trips in just a couple of minutes or less. The whole nest building activity was completed in a couple of hours. A short time later the female sat in the nest and must have laid her eggs soon after.
In the last mourning dove brood there were two eggs (as there were in the other three) which took 15 days to hatch. This is a bit tricky to determine as the parent birds not only sit on the eggs, but sit on and conceal the squabs, as they are called after they are hatched. I detected when the two eggs were hatched by getting so close to the nest that the parent bird flew away. Not to worry. After I moved away from the nest the adult bird returned in less than one minute.
The encyclopedia states that the male bird incubates the eggs from the morning to the afternoon; the female at night and the rest of the day. I observed that the first change occurs an hour so after sunrise, again circa an hour after noon, and an hour or less before sundown. The timing was so consistent from day to day that I almost suspected they both possessed Rolex timepieces. The changing of places on the nest contained a bit of variability. Sometimes the bird on the nest would fly away a second before the other came to the nest. More frequently the incoming bird would land on a ledge above the patio door and wait for the nesting bird to depart – usually in less than one minute. Only rarely did the incoming bird land directly in the nest before the other departed. Perhaps how soon the bird on the nest left was a function of how cramped he/she felt. I listened carefully, but could not hear any recriminations about “Where have you been all this time?” But that may have been because I don’t understand mourning dove talk.
The chicks are fed by both of the adults with what is called pigeon’s milk (dove milk) which is partially digested food (the diet of mourning doves is normally 99% seeds) in the adult bird’s crop. This food which has the consistency of cottage cheese, is regurgitated (Medieval Latin regurgitatus meaning to engulf) into the beaks of the chicks, ugh! It makes the human mammary system of feeding babies downright civilized and sanitary by comparison.
Mourning dove chicks are altricial (from Latin altric meaning nourish) at birth as opposed to precocial (from Latin praecoci, the same root as the word precocious); that is to say they are born blind and helpless instead of being capable of defending themselves or fleeing. The parents do not voluntarily leave the chicks alone for one minute until they are eight or nine days old. During this rapid growth period the chicks become too big to be concealed by the adult bird sitting on the nest and also the chicks appear to be curious about their immediate environment so they want to see what is going on. As the chicks mature they are left alone for an hour, then for a couple of hours and an increasing number of times per day until they are two weeks old. At that point the chicks were left alone all night for the first time after being on their own almost all that day. The next day (the 15th day after being hatched) first one, then several hours later, the other chick left the nest. An adult mourning dove (probably the mother) was perched nearby watching and seemingly encouraging the chicks as they left the nest. Even a couple of days later the mother was with the chicks as they appeared to be hanging around our enclosed backyard although they were fully capable of flying.
It takes a certain amount of courage for the chicks to attempt to fly out of the nest after being confined there during their maturing stage. In the first brood the chick stood on the edge of the hanging basket for several minutes before trying out his wings all the while the adult bird was perched on the backyard fence as if to say “come on youngling, you can make it.” The second chick in the last brood actually flew up to the ledge above the patio door before flying down to the patio floor. The mother mourning dove was on our house roof where the chick soon joined her. With seemingly simple minded mourning doves being so solicitous and protective of their offspring, what is the excuse for a few humans who carelessly or deliberately endanger their children?
Friday, September 21, 2007
FREE ENTERPRISE VS. BIG GOVERNMENT 35
Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush said don’t blame FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) for the delays in getting relief supplies to victims of Hurricane Wilma, blame me. Why should any government official at the local, state, or federal level be blamed for not anticipating or responding with complete efficiency to natural disasters such as hurricanes which are by their nature capricious and unpredictable? For that matter why, quo jure, should the survival or deliverance from these disasters not devolve as the prime responsibility to the individuals and families of the people affected? This is not to say that succor, from governments and from private charities, should not be provided to the unfortunate people who find themselves in those circumstances, but where is individual responsibility? People were told prior to the arrival of Hurricane Wilma, as well as the other hurricanes, by federal/state/local officials to lay in at least a three days supply of nonperishable food and potable water, but many did not. It should not have been necessary to so instruct people, say nothing of them ignoring sound advice and for the ones who would choose to leave the area there was sufficient time to plan that. Free to Choose – that’s the ticket. The Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson from Chicago wrote eloquently on the subject of personal responsibility including for the people caught up in hurricane disasters this season.
The implicit assumption among the general population and certainly the mainstream news media now seems to be that it is the primary responsibility and imperative of first, the national, then the state, and finally local government to take care of people caught up in natural disasters. It would make more sense if our form of governance were like the old Soviet Union, although I would not put much faith, so to speak, in an entity like that. It makes absolutely much less sense for people living in a free society to so think. In September 2005 in a repeat of a C-SPAN Book-TV program originally telecasted in 1994 on the 50th anniversary of the publication of the F.A. Hayek book The Road to Serfdom, economist Dr. Milton Friedman explained what it means to function and live in a free society. Hayek, an Austrian economist, won the Nobel Prize for economics in 1974 – Friedman won the Nobel Prize for economics in 1976. Friedman wrote an introduction to the 50th anniversary edition of the 1944 book The Road to Serfdom, a slightly expanded version of the introduction he wrote for the German 25th anniversary edition.
In his 1994 C-SPAN interview, Friedman went on to expound that all over the world socialism had failed and everywhere it was tried, capitalism had succeeded. He said that everyone admitted it (perhaps that was a slight exaggeration – the hard left, in this country and elsewhere, would not admit anything of the kind) and yet free enterprise/capitalism has been losing ground for some time. When Friedman was born in 1912 the percentage of the GDP by the federal government in this country was approximately 15% - 85% was due to private enterprise. In the immediate years after WWII, 1947-50, the government’s portion had grown to 25% and by 1994 it was 45%. And considering the controlling effect of governmental regulation on private business, the percentage realistically was over 50%. The good Dr. Freidman seemed as bemused and perplexed at this illogically continuing trend as any savant or ordinary clear thinking folk would be.
Yet this growth of government, especially at the federal level, seems inexorable, be it under control of Democrats or Republicans. What are we to make of this? If economic history has taught anything it is that economic wellbeing for most people is best served by as free an economic system as it is possible to create and encourage. I am not advocating license for an absolutely laissez-faire system without regard for laws or morality. The brigands of WorldCom, Global Crossing, Arkadelphia, Enron, et.al. were not engaged in free enterprise. They were particularly immoral and destructive thieves who undermined a true free enterprise system with their unconscionable deception and fraud. A possible punishment, although perhaps considered immoderate by a few, would be to subject them to the same extreme treatment that the Sindero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerillas perpetrated in Peru a number of years ago. To prove they could it and to terrorize and intimidate the people, they decorated Lima by hanging half of a dozen black dogs from lampposts around the city. It may prove unsettling to some and I would not recommend it, but the sight of the aforementioned thieves swinging from lampposts in New York, Philadelphia, Houston, etc. should, quod erat demonstrandum, have a deterring and salutary effect on would-be future corporate malefactors.
In his 1962 book Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman states: “Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very foundations of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of a social responsibility other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible. This is a fundamentally subversive doctrine.” He goes on to explain why that is so. It is my observation that many (perhaps most) people think that ExxonMobil is in the business of selling gasoline, motor oils, and elastomers and other petroleum derived packaging materials; Proctor & Gamble is in the business of selling soaps and household cleaners; and General Electric is in the business of selling electrical appliances. They are not. These corporations are in business to make money and the more the better – so long as they play by the rules by engaging in open and free competition, without deception and fraud. These companies and others make money by supplying their customers with goods and services to the best of their ability. If they satisfy their customers they will succeed and make money. If not they will go out of business. Clueless Bill O’Reilly and people of his ilk are in dire need of a course in Economics 101. O’Reilly had repeatedly said on his television show, The O’Reilly Factor, that “greedy” major oil companies should give back a portion of their profits to their customers. His arrogance is exceeded only by his ignorance.
As the price of gasoline kept increasing this year what was the result? After a slow reaction until it was obvious that higher prices were not transient, drivers began changing their habits by driving less and opting, in some cases, for more fuel efficient vehicles. And in the past couple of weeks gasoline prices began to abate. This is exactly what should happen. Price is the most efficient mechanism ever conceived for regulating supply. What if, under public pressure, government intervenes in this price/supply regulating couplet? By the imposition of a price ceiling on gasoline set below the natural market price, shortages would ensue. This is not mere speculation – it has happened with commodities, services, and labor all through history. I remember WWII price and wages controls and concomitant rationing. Of course war time has special exigencies from peace time as the country went into survival mode for the preservation of freedom. Still economic laws were not repealed – shortages or rationing inexorably follow price controls and during non war times there are no survival excuses.
Again quoting Milton Friedman: “[Price and wages controls] clearly would produce [commodity] shortages, labor shortages, grey markets, and black markets. If prices are not allowed to ration goods and workers, there must be some other means to do so. Price controls, whether legal or voluntary, if effectively enforced would eventually lead to the destruction of the free-enterprise system and its replacement by a centrally controlled system.” There are those to whom a centrally controlled system sounds splendid. I for one believe that the examples of Albania, Angola, Cambodia, Cuba, Eastern Europe, Vietnam, et al. and, the most striking of all, the 70 year miserably failed experiment of the Soviet Union are definitive. It is hardly accidental that mainland China has become and is increasingly so an economic colossus when they set out on the road to capitalism starting in 1979 under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping.
It is not only in the sphere of economics that big government is inimical to personal wellbeing. As government grows its influence intrudes into non economic areas such as personal freedoms of speech and actions. Differentiating between necessary laws for the preservation of public safety/welfare and excessively restrictive or intrusive laws is a whole topic which needs extensive elaboration. The recent Supreme Court decision allowing local government to use the constitutional right of eminent domain for seizing land for non exclusive public works such as shopping malls or sports arenas is but one of the latest intrusions. Such actions may not directly affect everyone, but to paraphrase 16th & 17th century English poet and clergyman John Donne: Do not send to know for whom those tenets affect, they will eventually affect you.
The implicit assumption among the general population and certainly the mainstream news media now seems to be that it is the primary responsibility and imperative of first, the national, then the state, and finally local government to take care of people caught up in natural disasters. It would make more sense if our form of governance were like the old Soviet Union, although I would not put much faith, so to speak, in an entity like that. It makes absolutely much less sense for people living in a free society to so think. In September 2005 in a repeat of a C-SPAN Book-TV program originally telecasted in 1994 on the 50th anniversary of the publication of the F.A. Hayek book The Road to Serfdom, economist Dr. Milton Friedman explained what it means to function and live in a free society. Hayek, an Austrian economist, won the Nobel Prize for economics in 1974 – Friedman won the Nobel Prize for economics in 1976. Friedman wrote an introduction to the 50th anniversary edition of the 1944 book The Road to Serfdom, a slightly expanded version of the introduction he wrote for the German 25th anniversary edition.
In his 1994 C-SPAN interview, Friedman went on to expound that all over the world socialism had failed and everywhere it was tried, capitalism had succeeded. He said that everyone admitted it (perhaps that was a slight exaggeration – the hard left, in this country and elsewhere, would not admit anything of the kind) and yet free enterprise/capitalism has been losing ground for some time. When Friedman was born in 1912 the percentage of the GDP by the federal government in this country was approximately 15% - 85% was due to private enterprise. In the immediate years after WWII, 1947-50, the government’s portion had grown to 25% and by 1994 it was 45%. And considering the controlling effect of governmental regulation on private business, the percentage realistically was over 50%. The good Dr. Freidman seemed as bemused and perplexed at this illogically continuing trend as any savant or ordinary clear thinking folk would be.
Yet this growth of government, especially at the federal level, seems inexorable, be it under control of Democrats or Republicans. What are we to make of this? If economic history has taught anything it is that economic wellbeing for most people is best served by as free an economic system as it is possible to create and encourage. I am not advocating license for an absolutely laissez-faire system without regard for laws or morality. The brigands of WorldCom, Global Crossing, Arkadelphia, Enron, et.al. were not engaged in free enterprise. They were particularly immoral and destructive thieves who undermined a true free enterprise system with their unconscionable deception and fraud. A possible punishment, although perhaps considered immoderate by a few, would be to subject them to the same extreme treatment that the Sindero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerillas perpetrated in Peru a number of years ago. To prove they could it and to terrorize and intimidate the people, they decorated Lima by hanging half of a dozen black dogs from lampposts around the city. It may prove unsettling to some and I would not recommend it, but the sight of the aforementioned thieves swinging from lampposts in New York, Philadelphia, Houston, etc. should, quod erat demonstrandum, have a deterring and salutary effect on would-be future corporate malefactors.
In his 1962 book Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman states: “Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very foundations of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of a social responsibility other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible. This is a fundamentally subversive doctrine.” He goes on to explain why that is so. It is my observation that many (perhaps most) people think that ExxonMobil is in the business of selling gasoline, motor oils, and elastomers and other petroleum derived packaging materials; Proctor & Gamble is in the business of selling soaps and household cleaners; and General Electric is in the business of selling electrical appliances. They are not. These corporations are in business to make money and the more the better – so long as they play by the rules by engaging in open and free competition, without deception and fraud. These companies and others make money by supplying their customers with goods and services to the best of their ability. If they satisfy their customers they will succeed and make money. If not they will go out of business. Clueless Bill O’Reilly and people of his ilk are in dire need of a course in Economics 101. O’Reilly had repeatedly said on his television show, The O’Reilly Factor, that “greedy” major oil companies should give back a portion of their profits to their customers. His arrogance is exceeded only by his ignorance.
As the price of gasoline kept increasing this year what was the result? After a slow reaction until it was obvious that higher prices were not transient, drivers began changing their habits by driving less and opting, in some cases, for more fuel efficient vehicles. And in the past couple of weeks gasoline prices began to abate. This is exactly what should happen. Price is the most efficient mechanism ever conceived for regulating supply. What if, under public pressure, government intervenes in this price/supply regulating couplet? By the imposition of a price ceiling on gasoline set below the natural market price, shortages would ensue. This is not mere speculation – it has happened with commodities, services, and labor all through history. I remember WWII price and wages controls and concomitant rationing. Of course war time has special exigencies from peace time as the country went into survival mode for the preservation of freedom. Still economic laws were not repealed – shortages or rationing inexorably follow price controls and during non war times there are no survival excuses.
Again quoting Milton Friedman: “[Price and wages controls] clearly would produce [commodity] shortages, labor shortages, grey markets, and black markets. If prices are not allowed to ration goods and workers, there must be some other means to do so. Price controls, whether legal or voluntary, if effectively enforced would eventually lead to the destruction of the free-enterprise system and its replacement by a centrally controlled system.” There are those to whom a centrally controlled system sounds splendid. I for one believe that the examples of Albania, Angola, Cambodia, Cuba, Eastern Europe, Vietnam, et al. and, the most striking of all, the 70 year miserably failed experiment of the Soviet Union are definitive. It is hardly accidental that mainland China has become and is increasingly so an economic colossus when they set out on the road to capitalism starting in 1979 under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping.
It is not only in the sphere of economics that big government is inimical to personal wellbeing. As government grows its influence intrudes into non economic areas such as personal freedoms of speech and actions. Differentiating between necessary laws for the preservation of public safety/welfare and excessively restrictive or intrusive laws is a whole topic which needs extensive elaboration. The recent Supreme Court decision allowing local government to use the constitutional right of eminent domain for seizing land for non exclusive public works such as shopping malls or sports arenas is but one of the latest intrusions. Such actions may not directly affect everyone, but to paraphrase 16th & 17th century English poet and clergyman John Donne: Do not send to know for whom those tenets affect, they will eventually affect you.
Friday, September 14, 2007
FREE ENTERPRISE VS. THE WELFARE STATE 34
Can anyone imagine what would happen to any politician who even vaguely intimated that the victims of Hurricane Katrina themselves bear some responsible for their plight? After the mainstream media and the left-wing Democrats were through with him/her for even daring to suggest that the people of New Orleans were partly to blame for not reacting collectively with responsibility and unselfishness he/she could forget about ever running for elective office again. There are some differences between what happened to the people in New Orleans and the ones in Australia, yet there are also important similarities. Would you ever expect the left in this country to admit fallibility of their overweening assumption that only government can help people despite all the evidence extant that private enterprise and self-reliance will always be more efficient and effective? The welfare state has hurt the very people it was suppose to help, yet there is not the proverbial chance of a snowball in hell of getting any meaningful change in that flawed philosophy.
There are too many assumptions which are never challenged, especially by the left. This is one example which is that in an emergency ordinary people are helpless and must depend 100% upon government for their salvation. In the constant drumbeat of the affluent Western democracies having a moral responsible to share their wealth with the poorer countries of the world when have you heard the question asked about what is wrong with these countries anyway? Just why do so many people from Mexico and Central America feel compelled to illegally enter the USA in order to have an economically decent income. The same question should be asked about the people from Northern and Eastern Africa, as well as Eastern Europe illegally entering Western Europe. A more permanent, equitable, and stable solution to this problem might eventuate if the UN would seriously address and act upon it in conjunction with the countries themselves – assuming a majority of the people in those countries want change and after the UN is reformed because as currently constituted and working the UN is so bureaucratic, inefficient, and corrupt as to make it useless.
Speaking of false assumptions, there is a great 2004 book titled How Capitalism Saved America by Thomas J. DiLorenzo which challenges some of those assumptions. Among the issues and historical examples he dissects are these:
1.) The common belief is that the British settlers at the Jamestown (Virginia) colony in 1609 (the second group to go there) and the Plymouth (Massachusetts) colony in 1620 were kept from complete starvation by the largesse of the Indians. That is not what happened. Of the original 104 Jamestown settlers in 1607 all but 38 died - most by starvation. A second group of 500 came in 1609 and 440 of those died of starvation and disease. The problem was the lack of private property. Everything that was produced went into a common pool for the community and to repay the investment and generate profits of the Virginia Company back in England. In 1611 a “high Marshall”, Sir Thomas Dale, went to the colony and quickly diagnosed and corrected the problem. He gave each man three acres and required only that each would have to work for one month a year to repay the Virginia Company. The colony soon began to prosper since each was benefiting from his own labor and there was no more free riding. Whereas the Indians were originally implored to sell the colonists corn, after the transformation of the colony into an individual enterprise system the Indians bought corn from the colonists in exchange for furs and other items. Thus mutually beneficial trading and bartering between the colonists and Indians occurred. Similar conditions existed with the Plymouth colony. Originally there was collective land ownership and pooled output for the entire colony. Approximately half of the 101 Pilgrims who arrived in 1620 were dead within a few months. Another 100 arrived in the next three years and were barely able to survive. The governor of the Plymouth Colony, William Bradford, solved the problem of low productivity by introducing individuality owned land, the same policy as was pursued in the Jamestown Colony and the result was the same. The Plymouth colonists prospered. It is clear that collectivization fails every time it is tried and free enterprise succeeds. Why is it that each generation has to learn this lesson anew? It would seem that as Henry Ford said, “History is bunk.”
2.) The so called “robber barons” in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Grenville Dodge, Henry Villard, James J. Hill and others are generally considered to be no more than greedy, exploitative capitalists. In truth they supplied goods and services through a competitive economical system, created many jobs, and increased the economic prosperity of the country.
3.) Herbert Hoover is forever remembered as a “do nothing” president who allowed the country to go into and remain in a protracted economic depression. The facts are different. Hoover was a hyper-interventionist who instituted many federal government programs which made the economic depression worse. The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act greatly restricted imports to America and predictably also greatly restricted American exports after other nations retaliated against us and further hurt our and other countries' economies. This act should more accurately be called the Smoot-Hawley-Hoover Act as Hoover strongly supported it.
4.) Franklin Delano Roosevelt is celebrated as the champion of the people who brought the country out of the worst economic depression in history through the creation of myriad federal bureaucracies and work programs. In fact although WWII brought on nearly full employment through production of war materials and millions of people being employed in the military, the depression ended only after the end of the war. There was a shortage of consumer goods during the war years (most production was directed towards materials of war) with inflation held in check by wage and price controls and rationing. During the depression years of the 1930’s the unemployment rate did not decline despite the federal spending of the Roosevelt administration. The USA unemployment rate was 16% in 1931 and 19% in 1938 after nine years of the New Deal – three under Hoover and six under Roosevelt. The unemployment rate in 1929 just prior to the depression was 3.2%. It is true, for instance, that the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) program brought electrification to many rural American homes and small business and employment to thousands of others, yet it was at the expense of other Americans. It is always the problem that the spending on government programs robs the private sector of funds and opportunity. Who is more efficient in spending – government or private enterprise? There is seldom proper accounting for waste and inefficiency in government spending while the viability factor and profit incentive of business keeps down waste and inefficiency. Pay attention to the upcoming expenditures in the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast and especially New Orleans for a further lesson in government waste, corruption, and ineptitude.
5.) Despite claims to the contrary by agitprop liberals the energy crisis of the 1970’s was corrected by deregulation formulated by the Reagan administration in the 1980’s. The recent blackouts in California and the Northeast were not caused by deregulation, but by restrictive federal and state government policies which curtailed exploration, production, refining, and transmission of multifold forms of energy. Artificially restrict supply and shortages ensue – wow, what a novel concept.
That above mentioned book is excellent I highly recommend it. I did not discuss all of the issues such as the differences of mercantilism vs. true free market capitalism, but it is in the book.
There are too many assumptions which are never challenged, especially by the left. This is one example which is that in an emergency ordinary people are helpless and must depend 100% upon government for their salvation. In the constant drumbeat of the affluent Western democracies having a moral responsible to share their wealth with the poorer countries of the world when have you heard the question asked about what is wrong with these countries anyway? Just why do so many people from Mexico and Central America feel compelled to illegally enter the USA in order to have an economically decent income. The same question should be asked about the people from Northern and Eastern Africa, as well as Eastern Europe illegally entering Western Europe. A more permanent, equitable, and stable solution to this problem might eventuate if the UN would seriously address and act upon it in conjunction with the countries themselves – assuming a majority of the people in those countries want change and after the UN is reformed because as currently constituted and working the UN is so bureaucratic, inefficient, and corrupt as to make it useless.
Speaking of false assumptions, there is a great 2004 book titled How Capitalism Saved America by Thomas J. DiLorenzo which challenges some of those assumptions. Among the issues and historical examples he dissects are these:
1.) The common belief is that the British settlers at the Jamestown (Virginia) colony in 1609 (the second group to go there) and the Plymouth (Massachusetts) colony in 1620 were kept from complete starvation by the largesse of the Indians. That is not what happened. Of the original 104 Jamestown settlers in 1607 all but 38 died - most by starvation. A second group of 500 came in 1609 and 440 of those died of starvation and disease. The problem was the lack of private property. Everything that was produced went into a common pool for the community and to repay the investment and generate profits of the Virginia Company back in England. In 1611 a “high Marshall”, Sir Thomas Dale, went to the colony and quickly diagnosed and corrected the problem. He gave each man three acres and required only that each would have to work for one month a year to repay the Virginia Company. The colony soon began to prosper since each was benefiting from his own labor and there was no more free riding. Whereas the Indians were originally implored to sell the colonists corn, after the transformation of the colony into an individual enterprise system the Indians bought corn from the colonists in exchange for furs and other items. Thus mutually beneficial trading and bartering between the colonists and Indians occurred. Similar conditions existed with the Plymouth colony. Originally there was collective land ownership and pooled output for the entire colony. Approximately half of the 101 Pilgrims who arrived in 1620 were dead within a few months. Another 100 arrived in the next three years and were barely able to survive. The governor of the Plymouth Colony, William Bradford, solved the problem of low productivity by introducing individuality owned land, the same policy as was pursued in the Jamestown Colony and the result was the same. The Plymouth colonists prospered. It is clear that collectivization fails every time it is tried and free enterprise succeeds. Why is it that each generation has to learn this lesson anew? It would seem that as Henry Ford said, “History is bunk.”
2.) The so called “robber barons” in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Grenville Dodge, Henry Villard, James J. Hill and others are generally considered to be no more than greedy, exploitative capitalists. In truth they supplied goods and services through a competitive economical system, created many jobs, and increased the economic prosperity of the country.
3.) Herbert Hoover is forever remembered as a “do nothing” president who allowed the country to go into and remain in a protracted economic depression. The facts are different. Hoover was a hyper-interventionist who instituted many federal government programs which made the economic depression worse. The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act greatly restricted imports to America and predictably also greatly restricted American exports after other nations retaliated against us and further hurt our and other countries' economies. This act should more accurately be called the Smoot-Hawley-Hoover Act as Hoover strongly supported it.
4.) Franklin Delano Roosevelt is celebrated as the champion of the people who brought the country out of the worst economic depression in history through the creation of myriad federal bureaucracies and work programs. In fact although WWII brought on nearly full employment through production of war materials and millions of people being employed in the military, the depression ended only after the end of the war. There was a shortage of consumer goods during the war years (most production was directed towards materials of war) with inflation held in check by wage and price controls and rationing. During the depression years of the 1930’s the unemployment rate did not decline despite the federal spending of the Roosevelt administration. The USA unemployment rate was 16% in 1931 and 19% in 1938 after nine years of the New Deal – three under Hoover and six under Roosevelt. The unemployment rate in 1929 just prior to the depression was 3.2%. It is true, for instance, that the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) program brought electrification to many rural American homes and small business and employment to thousands of others, yet it was at the expense of other Americans. It is always the problem that the spending on government programs robs the private sector of funds and opportunity. Who is more efficient in spending – government or private enterprise? There is seldom proper accounting for waste and inefficiency in government spending while the viability factor and profit incentive of business keeps down waste and inefficiency. Pay attention to the upcoming expenditures in the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast and especially New Orleans for a further lesson in government waste, corruption, and ineptitude.
5.) Despite claims to the contrary by agitprop liberals the energy crisis of the 1970’s was corrected by deregulation formulated by the Reagan administration in the 1980’s. The recent blackouts in California and the Northeast were not caused by deregulation, but by restrictive federal and state government policies which curtailed exploration, production, refining, and transmission of multifold forms of energy. Artificially restrict supply and shortages ensue – wow, what a novel concept.
That above mentioned book is excellent I highly recommend it. I did not discuss all of the issues such as the differences of mercantilism vs. true free market capitalism, but it is in the book.
Friday, September 7, 2007
DO AS I SAY NOT AS I DO 33
A 2005 book Do As I Say (Not As I Do) by the conservative Hoover Institute’s Peter Schweizer exposes the hypocrisy of sanctimonious and prevaricating liberals such as:
►Michael Moore insists that corporations are evil and claims he doesn’t invest in the stock market due to moral principle. But Moore’s IRS forms show that over the past five years he has owned shares in such corporate giants as Halliburton (Can you imagine that – the company of the arch enemy, Dick Chaney, the bete-noire of liberals and according to them the apex of evil humans and corporations), Merck, Pfizer, Sunoco, Tenet Healthcare, Ford, General Electric, and McDonald’s.
►Staunch union supporter Nancy Pelosi has received the Cesar Chavez Award from the United Farmworkers Union, but the $25 million Northern California vineyard she and her husband own is a non-union shop. The hypocrisy doesn’t end there. Pelosi has received more money from the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees union than any other member of congress in recent election cycles. The Pelosis own a large stake in an exclusive hotel in Rutherford, Calif. It has more than 250 employees. None of them is in a union according to Schweizer. The Pelosis are also partners in a restaurant chain called Piatti, which has 900 employees. The chain is – you guessed it – a non-union shop.
►Ralph Nader claims that unions are essential to protect worker rights, but when an editor of one of his publications tried to form a union to ameliorate miserable working conditions, the editor was fired and the locks changed on his office door.
►Linguist and socialist Noam Chomsky has described the Pentagon as “the vilest institution on the face of the earth” and has lashed out against tax havens and trusts that benefit only the rich. However over the last 40 years Chomsky has been paid millions of dollars by the Pentagon (one has to wonder why) and he used a venerable law firm to set up his irrevocable trust to shield his assets from the IRS.
►Al Franken says that conservatives are racist because they lack diversity and oppose affirmative action, but less than 1% of the people he has hired over the past 15 years have been African-Americans.
►Ted Kennedy has fought for the estate tax and spoken out against tax shelters, but he has repeatedly benefited from an intricate web of trusts and private foundations that have shielded most of his family’s fortune from the IRS. One Kennedy family trust wasn’t even set up in the U.S. – it’s in the Fiji Islands.
►Another Kennedy, environmentalist and congressman Robert Kennedy Jr. has said that it is not moral to profit from natural resources, although he receives an annual check from the family’s large holdings in the oil industry.
►Barbra Streisand has talked about the necessary of unions to protect a “living wage.” As for herself, she prefers to do her filming and postproduction work in Canada where she can pay less than American union wages.
►Bill & Hillary Clinton have spoken out in favor of the estate tax, and in 2000 Bill Clinton vetoed a bill seeking to end it. Yet the Clintons have set up a contract trust that allows them to substantially reduce the amount of inheritance tax their estate will pay when they die. Hillary, for her part, has written and spoken extensively about the right of children to make major decisions regarding their own lives, including having abortions without parental notification, but she barred 13 year old daughter Chelsea from getting her ears pierced and forbid the teen from watching MTV or HBO. Good for Hillary for making responsible decisions about her daughter – too bad she is such a hypocrite when it comes to other people’s children
►Billionaire Hungarian-American businessman and money exchange manipulator George Soros says the wealthy should pay higher, more progressive tax rates, but he holds the bulk of his money in tax-free overseas accounts in Curacao, Bermuda, and the Cayman Islands.
Schweizer writes: “Liberals claim to support affirmative action, but don’t practice it. They support higher taxes, but set up complicated tax shelters to avoid paying them. They claim to be ardent environmentalists, but abandon their cause when it impinges on their own property rights. The reality is that liberals like to preach in moral platitudes. They like to condemn ordinary Americans and Republicans for a whole host of things: racism, lack of concern for the poor, polluting the environment, and greed. But when it comes to applying the same standards to themselves, liberals are found to be shockingly guilty of hypocrisy.
Interestingly Peter Schweizer was served legal papers demanding to know where he obtained his information about some of the people he targets. Note there was no allegation of slander or false information in his book. His critics simply wanted to know how he found out about them. Fortunately there is this important document which states that: “Congress shall make no law….abridging the freedom of speech or of the press…..” Liberals might want to review our Constitution occasionally.
►Michael Moore insists that corporations are evil and claims he doesn’t invest in the stock market due to moral principle. But Moore’s IRS forms show that over the past five years he has owned shares in such corporate giants as Halliburton (Can you imagine that – the company of the arch enemy, Dick Chaney, the bete-noire of liberals and according to them the apex of evil humans and corporations), Merck, Pfizer, Sunoco, Tenet Healthcare, Ford, General Electric, and McDonald’s.
►Staunch union supporter Nancy Pelosi has received the Cesar Chavez Award from the United Farmworkers Union, but the $25 million Northern California vineyard she and her husband own is a non-union shop. The hypocrisy doesn’t end there. Pelosi has received more money from the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees union than any other member of congress in recent election cycles. The Pelosis own a large stake in an exclusive hotel in Rutherford, Calif. It has more than 250 employees. None of them is in a union according to Schweizer. The Pelosis are also partners in a restaurant chain called Piatti, which has 900 employees. The chain is – you guessed it – a non-union shop.
►Ralph Nader claims that unions are essential to protect worker rights, but when an editor of one of his publications tried to form a union to ameliorate miserable working conditions, the editor was fired and the locks changed on his office door.
►Linguist and socialist Noam Chomsky has described the Pentagon as “the vilest institution on the face of the earth” and has lashed out against tax havens and trusts that benefit only the rich. However over the last 40 years Chomsky has been paid millions of dollars by the Pentagon (one has to wonder why) and he used a venerable law firm to set up his irrevocable trust to shield his assets from the IRS.
►Al Franken says that conservatives are racist because they lack diversity and oppose affirmative action, but less than 1% of the people he has hired over the past 15 years have been African-Americans.
►Ted Kennedy has fought for the estate tax and spoken out against tax shelters, but he has repeatedly benefited from an intricate web of trusts and private foundations that have shielded most of his family’s fortune from the IRS. One Kennedy family trust wasn’t even set up in the U.S. – it’s in the Fiji Islands.
►Another Kennedy, environmentalist and congressman Robert Kennedy Jr. has said that it is not moral to profit from natural resources, although he receives an annual check from the family’s large holdings in the oil industry.
►Barbra Streisand has talked about the necessary of unions to protect a “living wage.” As for herself, she prefers to do her filming and postproduction work in Canada where she can pay less than American union wages.
►Bill & Hillary Clinton have spoken out in favor of the estate tax, and in 2000 Bill Clinton vetoed a bill seeking to end it. Yet the Clintons have set up a contract trust that allows them to substantially reduce the amount of inheritance tax their estate will pay when they die. Hillary, for her part, has written and spoken extensively about the right of children to make major decisions regarding their own lives, including having abortions without parental notification, but she barred 13 year old daughter Chelsea from getting her ears pierced and forbid the teen from watching MTV or HBO. Good for Hillary for making responsible decisions about her daughter – too bad she is such a hypocrite when it comes to other people’s children
►Billionaire Hungarian-American businessman and money exchange manipulator George Soros says the wealthy should pay higher, more progressive tax rates, but he holds the bulk of his money in tax-free overseas accounts in Curacao, Bermuda, and the Cayman Islands.
Schweizer writes: “Liberals claim to support affirmative action, but don’t practice it. They support higher taxes, but set up complicated tax shelters to avoid paying them. They claim to be ardent environmentalists, but abandon their cause when it impinges on their own property rights. The reality is that liberals like to preach in moral platitudes. They like to condemn ordinary Americans and Republicans for a whole host of things: racism, lack of concern for the poor, polluting the environment, and greed. But when it comes to applying the same standards to themselves, liberals are found to be shockingly guilty of hypocrisy.
Interestingly Peter Schweizer was served legal papers demanding to know where he obtained his information about some of the people he targets. Note there was no allegation of slander or false information in his book. His critics simply wanted to know how he found out about them. Fortunately there is this important document which states that: “Congress shall make no law….abridging the freedom of speech or of the press…..” Liberals might want to review our Constitution occasionally.
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