Potpourri
==> Rob Bradley talks about Exxon and its support for a carbon tax. (Did you know that?)
==> Very interesting Reason podcast with Glenn Greenwald. Note in particular how Greenwald (and I believe Snowden also) disagree with Assange’s policy to just dump everything on WikiLeaks, as opposed to the way Greenwald and Snowden carefully released only portions of stuff to try to protect privacy.
==> This Greenwald piece is GREAT if you want to see the timeline of the saucy allegations about Trump. In particular, you should know that this “dossier” had been making the rounds for months, and no media outlet would touch it until 2 days ago. Greenwald tells the story. The Guardian explains the role John McCain played in the tale.
==> When JRR Tolkien bet CS Lewis: The outcome was way better than when I bet David R. Henderson.
==> An interesting post at FEE from Dan Sanchez on Bitcoin and the regression theorem. Also see my discussion here (just search for “regression”).
==> IER and my Senate testimony (though I’m not named) is part of a brewing debate on the “social cost of carbon.”
Danny’s article is also great. I think it sufficiently clearifies this issue. The regression theorem needs to be tweeked, but its main thesis, which was to explain how money can have value without arguing in a circle, stands fine as Danny argues.
The regression theorem always goes back to day one when something first got “exchange value”. It doesn’t matter if it is a commodity money (use value), fiat money (even if started out of nowhere only due to government force), or even something like BitCoin (combination of ideology/investment opportunity for the future).
To say that BitCoin could not possibly get off the ground due to the regression theorem is implicitly saying no Ponzi scheme could ever get off the ground either. And we all know Ponzi schemes get off the ground often enough… However of course that doesn’t mean BitCoin must be here forever, that is a different question altogether. However current conditions in the world let me think that BitCoin is not going away quite soon.