And here I thought recessions and the business cycle had something to do with state manipulation of the money supply. Now we have a new culprit: Patent Reform. So here’s the deal. There’s increasingly hyperbolic opposition to patent reform efforts. In the last year or so, the U.S.
If you think about it, it is inherently implausible that the state could be an effective administrator of justice, for which there is a supply and demand like any other good. Shortages, inefficiencies, arbitrariness, and underlying chaos all around are going to be inherent in the attempt.
Because we are dealing here with the meting out of coercion, we can add that inhumane treatment and outright cruelty are also likely to be an inherent part of the system.
Well, after a couple of decades of battling copyright extensions, the famed cyberlawyer Lessig has detected the Real Problem: government. In this Economist article, he proposes to improve the “transparency” of government activities through the Internet.
Here is Murray Rothbard’s hilarious and exciting story of the rise and fall of the libertarian involvement in New Left politics.
[Cross-posted at Organizations and Markets]
Cato’s new Center for Promotion of Human Rights Launches Innovative Web-based Freedom Programs for World Audience. This includes “six innovative foreign-language web-based programs” designed “to promote libertarian ideas and policies around the world”. “These new programs will publish in Chinese, Portuguese, French, Persian, Kurdish, and on the continent of Africa in English and Swahili.
The turmoil in the US subprime mortgage market has developed into an international credit crisis. It is eroding investor confidence in credit and credit-related products and, most important, raising concerns about the solidity of the banking sector, as evidenced by banks’ elevated funding terms and diminished stock prices. As a direct response to the credit crisis, the US Federal Reserve Bank first paired the Federal Funds Target Rate twice — by 50bp on September 18, another 25bp on October 31, and another 25bp on December 11 — bringing the official rate to 4.25%.
NYT:
A day after the Federal Reserve disappointed investors with a modest cut in interest rates, central banks in North America and Europe on Wednesday announced the most aggressive infusion of capital into the banking system since the terrorist attacks of September 2001.
And it makes you wonder why they don’t do a one-time zillion dollar infusion of “capital” and make the whole world wealthy forever.
