Paul Krugman is at it again. In today’s New York Times, in his official capacity as a professional bleeding heart “liberal,” he once again revels in his role of flagellating the pursuit of happiness with the whip of human misery.
A philosophical divide between classic liberalism and the political forms now in vogue is manifest in the phrase, “Let’s agree to disagree.” To the classic liberal, this means we agree to end our discussion, debate, or argument and go about our separate ways. The phrase is the end as such. Certainly the classic liberal may engage the next person in a similar discourse and attempt to sway a new opinion, whether in person or by letter, handbill, pamphlet, etc., or through the more current versions of email, blog, or website.
Adam Smith is history’s most famous economist, yet people know precious little about what he wrote. Perhaps that is because the natural time to reflect on his contributions — the anniversary of his birth — is unknown. However, we do know that he was baptized on June 5, 1723, making the 5th an appropriate time hook to consider his work and insights.
The National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), a market regulator, has dropped civil charges against former technology investment banker Frank Quattrone. The NASD had accused him of improperly awarding shares in initial public offerings. It appears that all of the charges leveled against Quattrone were baseless and that he was being scapegoated for the collapse of the internet bubble.
A very nice oped in the Houston Chroncle, by Robert Bradley, concerning the global warming question. I’m glad he is fighting this fight. I thought that this issue would have died long ago, but It seems like nearly everyone on the left (broadly speaking) is convinced that this is the issue that they can use to crush all that they hate about modern life.
Dear Mr. Reisman— I enjoyed reading your blog just now, but if you go back and read what I wrote, you’ll note that I specifically set a parameter: to qualify a book had to be published in the last two decades. Atlas Shrugged was published, I believe, in 1959.
Mike Shedlock gives a rather Austrian-flavored explanation of inflation, noting that it is “best described as a net expansion of money supply and credit” through fractional reserve banking; that it cannot accurately be measured; that it can not accurately be measured with a fixed index; and that it generates a boom and bust cycle.
In his New York Times column of June 3, Joseph Nocera asks:
Choice phrases from NY Times op-ed columnist John Tierney on Nora Ephron and the rent-control crowd: “Like European nobles in crumbling castles, rentocrats are above money grubbing. They deserve their homes because of their longevity and their virtues. They compare rent control to Fulbright scholarships — a stipend wisely provided to worthy intellectuals and artists.
One of of the most underreported repercussions of the ill-advised SarbOx legislation is the flight of publicly traded foreign companies as they de-list from the Security and Exchange Commission in order to avoid burdensome compliance.
