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*** April 2012 low content thread ***

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John James replied on Wed, Apr 18 2012 8:14 PM

guy's channel is definitely worth subscribing to...

 

5 historical misconceptions rundown

 

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bloomj31 replied on Wed, Apr 18 2012 8:58 PM

Poor dog.

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Clayton replied on Wed, Apr 18 2012 9:14 PM

@JJ: Nice!

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Wheylous replied on Wed, Apr 18 2012 10:26 PM

My issue is his quick, offhanded, "oh-so-obvious"  "taxes buy civilization"

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Clayton replied on Wed, Apr 18 2012 10:38 PM

@Williamloveseconomics: The video is free energy crap. Nirvana fallacy (free energy = Utopia!). But even leaving that aside, the guy doesn't realize he's contradicting himself... we perceive harmony in Nature yet all other life forms we know of manage to flourish without free energy. So why do we have to have free energy in order to thrive?

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Williamloveseconomics replied on Wed, Apr 18 2012 10:46 PM

@Clayton. Thanks for the sum up. I got about 15 minutes in a lost interest. Never got me hooked in like the Mises lectures do. 

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NEPHiLiX replied on Wed, Apr 18 2012 11:24 PM

Can anyone help me find an essay that was (and may still be) found on Mises.org? It was an article by an Austrian Economist (I believe this was his only published article) that essentially claimed that Mises was wrong in the Socialist Calculation Debate. It turns out that it was actually well-written but that his claim that Mises was wrong was little more than a dramatic flourish that he nevertheless tried to maintain throughout the article--everything he pointed out was made very clear by Mises in his various publications after his Socialist Commonwealth article (Socialism, Bureaucracy, Human Action, et al). Accepting the claim required ignoring the clear spirit of Mises (by only looking at the calculation debate, and even then one had to do so rather narrowly) to arrive at his conclusion. His writing nevertheless was very lucid, especially regarding the role that private entrepeneurs play in limiting each other's decisions in the market, etc.

It was published in 2007 and I believe his last name was Mahaj, although I could be mistaken. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

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NEPHiLiX replied on Wed, Apr 18 2012 11:25 PM

Oh, and before anyone asks: no, it wasn't Caplan.

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John James replied on Thu, Apr 19 2012 1:11 AM

"MacKenzie"?

Were the Socialists really wrong about Economic Calculation?  [rev 2004] [rev 2005]

 

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NEPHiLiX replied on Thu, Apr 19 2012 1:31 AM

Those weren't it (but thanks those will help nonentheless)...I'm sure that the essay I'm referring to actually won some kind of distinction from the Mises Academy in 2007...I'm pretty sure also that it was proof-read by Salerno...this is driving me crazy! 

The worst part is that it's on my computer somewhere, because I highlighted key arguments in the pdf and made notes via adobe.

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gotlucky replied on Thu, Apr 19 2012 1:36 AM

 

Mandatory ‘Big Brother’ Black Boxes In All New Cars From 2015

A bill already passed by the Senate and set to be rubber stamped by the House would make it mandatory for all new cars in the United States to be fitted with black box data recorders from 2015 onwards.

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John James replied on Thu, Apr 19 2012 2:02 AM

Mateusz Machaj, "Market Socialism and the Property Problem: Different Perspectives of the Socialist Calculation Debate" [PDF]

It won the Lawrence W. Fertig Prize in 2009.

 

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NEPHiLiX replied on Thu, Apr 19 2012 2:07 AM

That's it!!! Son of a... Thanks JJ.

 

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EmperorNero replied on Thu, Apr 19 2012 5:16 AM

gotlucky:

 

Mandatory ‘Big Brother’ Black Boxes In All New Cars From 2015

A bill already passed by the Senate and set to be rubber stamped by the House would make it mandatory for all new cars in the United States to be fitted with black box data recorders from 2015 onwards.

It would be fun if they actually called them 'Big Brother Boxes'.

"They all look upon progressing material improvement as upon a self-acting process." - Ludwig von Mises
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Clayton replied on Thu, Apr 19 2012 11:50 AM

I think they should call them "Warm and Caring Happiness Boxes As Mandated by the Ministry of Love".

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bloomj31 replied on Thu, Apr 19 2012 12:23 PM

I wonder what kind of information those boxes will be gathering?

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ThatOldGuy replied on Thu, Apr 19 2012 12:50 PM

 

Here you go: 

Judge Napolitano’s Warning: Americans Should Be Aware of What the Government Is Trying to Do to Our Privacy
 

These black box recorders work much like the ones on airplanes, capturing data related to a crash. In some cases, authorities can tap into a car’s EDR to check vehicle speed, airbag deployments, and pedal application a few seconds before and after impact.

 

I'm sure they're harmless. /sarc

 

If I had a cake and ate it, it can be concluded that I do not have it anymore. HHH

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ThatOldGuy replied on Thu, Apr 19 2012 12:53 PM

 

EmperorNero:
It would be fun if they actually called them 'Big Brother Boxes'.

As a member of the 'they' I'll propose it at our next meeting. I'd have no problem calling that that.

 

If I had a cake and ate it, it can be concluded that I do not have it anymore. HHH

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bloomj31 replied on Thu, Apr 19 2012 1:03 PM

Doesn't sound so bad.

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Jack Roberts replied on Thu, Apr 19 2012 4:31 PM

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Gero replied on Thu, Apr 19 2012 5:34 PM

I previously posted a list of news stories in this thread, but they need moderator approval, so will a moderator please approve it? Here is a new batch of stories:

Norway killer sharpened aim on computer games

Trouble in threes: Scandals hamper Obama's message

The Hooker that was Stiffed by the Secret Service

America’s drone sickness

Attacks on RT and Assange reveal much about the critics

Stakeless and Idle Yammering

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Clayton replied on Thu, Apr 19 2012 5:55 PM

Nigel Farage always reminds me of if Tim Curry played a British politician... lol

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gotlucky replied on Thu, Apr 19 2012 7:05 PM

The 100 Most Influential People in the World

Both Ron Paul and Anonymous made it onto the list.  Interestingly, Ralph Nader is the author of the Ron Paul entry.

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John James replied on Thu, Apr 19 2012 9:10 PM

via Tom Woods:

Note the name of the student with the F- paper on the teacher’s desk. Thanks to cartoonist Cole R. Peters.

 

 

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John James replied on Thu, Apr 19 2012 9:12 PM

One more from Tom:

 

Austrian Business Cycle Haiku

The Facebook page I bet Ludwig von Mises can get more fans than John Maynard Keynes challenged fans of the page to compose a haiku based on Austrian business cycle theory. Now I think you lose points if you use words like “interest rates.” Nothing lovely in that. It needs to be at a higher level of abstraction, I think.

I know nothing of the subtleties of the genre myself. I’m just interested in the 5-7-5 syllable rule, which itself isn’t cast in stone. But here’s my proposal:

Build without savings
Harmony into chaos
Things go unfinished

What’s yours?

(Thanks to Steven McDuffie.)

 

Drop your response in the comments on that post.

 

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John James replied on Fri, Apr 20 2012 6:04 AM

This at least kind of fits in:

 

 

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gotlucky replied on Fri, Apr 20 2012 10:48 AM

I posted this to the debate thread that Hashem started, but it's kinda hidden.  Anyway, I thought some of you might be interested in this:

The Forgotten Technology

From the website:

 

I am a retired carpenter with  35 years experience in construction. In my work experience, over the years, many times I had to improvise on tools that were not at hand in order to get the job done.

At one of these times, about 20 years ago, I had to remove some 1200 lb. saw cut concrete blocks from an existing floor. The problem was that we did not have a machine that could reach some of the blocks. The only obvious answer was to break the blocks into smaller pieces with a sledgehammer and load them into a wheelbarrow. To me, this seemed to be too much labor at the time, so I improvised.

Using a few rocks and leverage, I removed the blocks from below the floor to an area that the machine could reach them for removal. After doing this several times, the technique became very easy and quick. This experience had me consider the possibility that people may have used this technique before modern day equipment was available.

Basically, this guy has been able to recreate Stonehenge all by himself, with technology that could have been available thousands of years ago.

 

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Clayton replied on Fri, Apr 20 2012 3:44 PM

Austrian economics cheered at 4/4 Ron Paul UCLA rally!

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John James replied on Fri, Apr 20 2012 6:25 PM

gotlucky:
The 100 Most Influential People in the World  Both Ron Paul and Anonymous made it onto the list.  Interestingly, Ralph Nader is the author of the Ron Paul entry.

If I'm not mistaken, Nader was the author of the Paul article the last time Paul was on one of these lists.  (Can anyone find it?  Or maybe it wasn't Paul, but I definitely remember something like this before...Nader wrote it for some outside-the-box character, or Paul wrote one for him, or something...what am I thinking of?)

But you have to love the identifier (which is usually the person's profession or what they're most known for) they gave him.  Not "US Congressman"...not "politician"...not "physician"....not "political leader"....not "revolutionary"...

but "Libertarian".  Even when they're giving him props they still have to try any way they can to shove him down.  Let's not forget this.

 

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John James replied on Fri, Apr 20 2012 10:54 PM

Had to make sure everyone saw this:

The Inevitable Ron Paul Video Game

 

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John James replied on Sat, Apr 21 2012 12:17 AM

Here's a fun one:

Are you a true Ron Paul supporter? Take our quiz!

 

I'd really like to see the source code for this thing.  I'm curious to see how these metrics determine the result you get.  Here's the one I got:

Your results

You are an anarcho-capitalist.

You have sailed right past Paul's hard-nosed libertarianism and off into the uncharted waters of right-wing anarchism. You would be most happy living on a private island that you have declared a sovereign state, which, needless to say, won't be seeking to join the UN anytime soon..

 

 

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John James replied on Sat, Apr 21 2012 7:25 AM

Stealth Potato Chip Price Inflation

Joseph Emerson Brown emails:

I'm a big fan of your blog, keep up the good work!   Check out this video of a guy opening a bag of Lay's potato chips--he says there are only 5 chips and some crumbs. You should do a blog about how this is not a failure of the (unfree) market, or due to "greed" of the Lay's corporation--but that it is the government's fault, mostly due to inflation (IE the Fed's) fault!

 

 

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