Can you imagine how awesome a blog by Murray Rothbard would be? Or Mises Dailies by Mises himself? These great men were not given their full due in their lifetimes, because they were writing in the media era of the monolithic broadcast and the monolithic print run. With such a model, power and interest has a competitive advantage over truth. But the internet (at least the present “pre-net-neutrality” internet) is different. The truth will out, eventually, in a decentralized model.

Dubai is delaying payment on its debts and that has sent stock markets around the world lower. This could be a trigger that reverses the remarkable bear market rally that has taken place since March.

Dubai was also the location of the crisis signal in the Skyscraper Index in August 2007. Things have become increasing less optimistic in what was considered a “magic kingdom” for the success of remarkable construction projects.

Jason Rosenhouse over at Evolution Blog provides the following “breain teaser”:

It is the month of August; a resort town sits next to the shores of a lake. It is raining, and the little town looks totally deserted. It is tough times, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit. Suddenly, a rich tourist comes to town. He enters the only hotel, lays a 100 dollar bill on the reception counter, and goes to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one.

As I mentioned in Radical Patent Reform Is Not on the Way, in In re Bilski, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) modified previous holdings regarding the patentability of software or business-method patents in upholding the rejection of patent claims involving a method of hedging risks in commodities trading. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court and oral arguments were heard earlier this month.

I’ve done a good deal of writing on Hoppe’s argumentation ethics defense of libertarian rights and related matters (see Revisiting Argumentation Ethics, Mises and Argumentation Ethics). I was reminded recently of Guido Hülsmann’s superb and unique presentation of argumentation ethics in his paper “The A Priori Foundations of Property Economics,” Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 7, no.

A fascinating chart from J.P. Morgan provides a look at the percentage of cabinet level political appointees who have private sector experience from Roosevelt to Obama.

Of course there is a downside to private-sector experience. In government, these people tend toward corrupting partnerships between government and business. And yet, it seems essential that if some gang were going to purport to enact policies to bring economic growth, some real-world knowledge is a good idea.

[This article is excerpted from chapter two of The Rise and Fall of Society.]