In the wake of two major hurricanes and the calls for federal intervention, we repost Vedran Vuk's classic 2006 article that detailed how by "doing its job," FEMA blocked economic recovery in New Orleans after the Hurricane Katrina disaster.
History reveals that prohibitions are indeed classic examples of the co-opting of public-spirited intentions by rent seekers within the political process, thereby explaining the existence of what at first appears to be irrational policies.
What needs to be understood clearly is the mischievous nature of the governmentally sheltered fractional-reserve banking system. In terms of the relative frequency of "boom-bust" cycles, we find ourselves precisely where we were without the "monetary policy".
Your high-publicity stunts before Congress, at the National Academy of the Sciences, the IPCC, and in the press will put you directly in the crosshairs of just such a maniac, I fear, especially if you don't quit while you're ahead.For the sake of science, Dick, for the sake of collegiality, for your own sake, give it a rest. You know as well as I do that the issue isn't global warming. The issue is what side of the bread our butter is on.
We must realize that the two most powerful motivations in human history have always been ideology and economic interest, and that a joining of these two motivations can be downright irresistible.
Hans-Hermann Hoppe has famously argued that any attempt to argue against the libertarian ethic of self-ownership and non-aggression is self-refuting, since the very act of engaging in an argumentative exchange presupposes the legitimacy of each participant’s exercising exclusive control over the scarce resources involved in arguing: his own mind and body.
Taylor, and you other critics of the spontaneous outcomes of the market economy, please do us all a favor: Go read Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson.
Further, the idea that the quantity of money is important to trade is incorrect. The market does not desire a certain quantity of money.
The inability of modern philosophers to furnish any kind of argument for the maintenance of a government is a notorious weakness.
