Paul M. Jones

[I]t's certainly true that closed, secretive networks become less effective--but that doesn't mean they become less effective at the things we dislike them doing. Stalin remained exceptionally good at purges and liquidations all through World War II, and that didn't stop him from helping to win the war, and dominating half of Europe. It's just that it took more dead Russian boys to do it, because being secretive and purge-oriented kind of hampered the efficiency of the economy, leaving them a little short of key items like guns. But since Stalin was running a super-secretive, centrally controlled regime, that insight didn't really matter.

via No More Secrets - Megan McArdle - National - The Atlantic.

Prices are really useful. But in whole large sectors of the Chinese economy, particularly the banking sector, the government sets those prices. This means huge information loss, and the concomitant possibility that there is a vast misallocation of resources.

Don't those things happen in markets? Hell yes: witness the housing bubble. On the other hand, witness East Germany. To get a really catastrophic misallocation of resources, it seems to take a government; corporations can only screw things up on an artisinal scale.

Emphasis mine. Via Should China Rethink High Speed Rail? - Megan McArdle - Business - The Atlantic.

But why don’t supermarkets, restaurants, churches, apartment complexes, clothing stores, dog groomers, and other service providers in Fairfax County encounter the same problems that plague the school system? After all, the county is growing just as fast and just as unevenly for these merchants as it is for Fairfax County Public Schools. Yet we never hear that some coffee shops or department stores continue to be overcrowded while others are well under capacity. Why might this be?

via School Lessons.

The most amazing thing about the Berlin Wall is that the world didn't see it coming.

It's easy to dismiss this as hindsight bias. But at least one man - the brilliant German classical liberal Eugen Richter - saw the Wall coming over sixty years before it went up. In 1891, decades and revolutions before Orwell's Animal Farm, Richter published Pictures of the Socialist Future. It's a dystopian novel about what happens to Germany after a socialist takeover.

I just finished reading the aforementioned book; it's available as a free PDF here; it really is astounding that Richter, in 1891, was able to foresee so accurately and well. Via The Writing on the Wall, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty.

My first bite of meat after 3.5 years of veganism was both the hardest and easiest thing I’ve ever done. Tears ran down my face as saliva pooled in my mouth. The world receded to a blank nothingness and I just ate, and ate, and ate. I cried in grief and anger, while moaning with pleasure and joy. When I took the last bite I set back and waited to feel sick. I had just devoured a hunk of dead animal, the most evil thing I could conceive of, surely my body would reject this debasement and I would feel vindicated that I truly was meant to be a vegan.

Instead, my face felt warm, my mind peaceful, and my stomach full but….I searched for a word to describe how it felt….comfortable. I realized that for the first time in months I felt satiated without the accompaniment of stomach pain. I had only eaten a small piece of cow flesh, and yet I felt totally full, but light and refreshed all at once. I reveled in that new and unexpected combination of sensations. How amazing it was not to need to eat for an hour solid till my stomach stretched and distended over my pants just to buy an hour or two of satiety. How beautiful it felt to be able to eat the exact thing that for so long my body had been begging for. I felt profoundly joyful in finally listening to the wisdom of my body. What a revelation.

via A Vegan No More | Voracious.

Politicians fear lots of things -- honest labor, easily understood and headline-friendly scandals, constituents who read Hayek -- but above all they fear having their credit cards taken away.

via Why Is the World Bailing Out Ireland? - By Kevin D. Williamson - Exchequer - National Review Online.

... there is a longstanding tension between conservatives who are focused on limiting government power and conservatives who are focused on wielding government power. I would put it this way: some of us are focused on keeping government small, and we are not particularly concerned with who has power. Other conservatives are focused on having conservatives in power, and they are not particularly concerned with whether government is small.

To those of us in the libertarian camp, the "neocons" come across as corrupted by liberal statism. To those in the conservative camp, the "libertarians" come across as corrupted by liberal nihilism.

via Two Strains of Conservatism, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty.

The theory behind most of what the Federal Reserve does to stimulate the economy is this: If we make money cheaper, people will borrow more of it--and then they'll start spending again.

That theory works in most recessions. When the economy begins to weaken, the Fed cuts interest rates. Banks, companies, and consumers see that it now costs less to borrow money to buy the things they want to buy. So they borrow money and buy them. And the economy strengthens again.

But we aren't in a normal weak economy, says economist Gary Shilling of A. Gary Shilling & Co. We're in a "deleveraging" economy. And that means that we will keep reducing our debts and borrowing, no matter how cheap money gets.

via GARY SHILLING: Of Course The Fed's Plan Won't Work -- We're Deleveraging!.

People who decide to drive rather than take a short-haul flight will face approximately 80 times the fatality rate per mile that people on commercial airlines face. The TSA is killing people.

via Abolish the TSA, David Henderson | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty.

The Republicans control the House of Representatives and are bracing for a long battle over the President’s health care proposal. In the spirit of bipartisanship and sanity, I propose that the first thing on the chopping block should be an ineffective organization that wastes money, violates our rights, and encourages us to make decisions that imperil our safety. I’m talking about the Transportation Security Administration.

via Full Frontal Nudity Doesn’t Make Us Safer: Abolish the TSA - Art Carden - The Economic Imagination - Forbes.