Carlin on Political Language
Viresh Amin passes on this fairly entertaining address Carlin made to the Washington press corps (I think). It’s not hilarious but it’s great compared to other such speeches.
Learn Principles of Economics Online!
The full infomercial is here. There is a cool screenshot at the bottom of the article, in which I am quite enthusiastic.
All joking aside, if you know any kids who aren’t quite ready for Rothbard, my class will be ideal. The textbook spends a lot of time merely defining things that most of us had to pick up through osmosis. For example, as dumb as this is, I don’t think anyone ever actually explained to me what a corporate stock was.
The Policeman Is Not Your Friend, v. 304
Wow, David Kramer finds another one. In a lot of the examples of bully cops, there is something that the person did to “ask for it.” For example, the guy who got detained for hours crossing the US/Canadian border: Sure, that shouldn’t have happened, but he didn’t need to get sarcastic with the border agent.
In contrast, check out this short video. There is a woman with cerebral palsy walking down the street in broad daylight, and a cop just shoves her to the ground. What is amazing about this is that the sidewalk is chock full of people. It would be inconceivable to me to see, say, a Starbucks employee doing something like this in uniform in front of dozens of witnesses. Not because Starbucks employees are inherently angels, but because they would know they would get instantly fired for doing something like this with witnesses.
Charles Rangel Says Apparently There Is Such a Thing as a Dumb Question
I heard about this on Rush. (That’s partly how I justify listening to AM talk radio; there are hilarious audio clips.) Look at the arrogance of this guy. He lets the cat out of the bag about the role of our watchdog media.
In Defense of Shaq and Palin
All the pundits are (understandably) having a good time because Sarah Palin said “refudiate.” And I remember back in grad school, the other American in the program and I had a good chuckle when Shaquille O’Neal at a news conference emphasized his answer to a question by saying something like, “Period! P-e-r-o-d, aww, whatever.”
Well I cut people slack for things like this. At the event we just held in Nashville, it was Saturday afternoon and we were doing the final Q&A with the audience. I was running on fumes at that point. I forget what the question was, but in my answer it was actually relevant to refer people to the Krugman music video. I said, “Just go to YouTube and type in ‘bob murphy krugman,’ and that’s spelled…” and then I proceeded to misspell Krugman. (I heard myself saying two ns.) Worse, I started panicking and just punted by saying, “Well, I just misspelled it, you can look it up.”
I truly believe if someone had offered me $20 to spell Krugman at that moment, I would have passed.
Konfident Krugman
Joseph Gagnon recommends a three-pronged attack by the Fed:
First, the Fed should lower the interest rate it pays on bank reserves to zero….Three-month Treasury bills currently yield 0.15 percent, and that rate, too, should be brought down to zero.
Second, the Fed should bring down the rates on longer-term Treasury securities by targeting the interest rate on 3-year Treasury notes at 0.25 percent and aggressively purchasing such securities whenever their yield exceeds the target. That is a 65-basis point reduction from the current rate of 0.90 percent….
Finally, the Fed could bolster the stimulative effects of these actions by establishing a full-allotment lending facility to enable banks to borrow (with high-quality collateral) at terms of up to 24 months at a fixed interest rate of 0.25 percent.
In response to this suggestion, Krugman writes:
We don’t know how well the Gagnon plan would actually work — but there’s no harm in trying, and large potential benefits. The only possible reason for the Fed not to be more aggressive now is fear of embarrassment, of not getting big results.
And now we really see Krugman’s cockiness, with the parts I’ve put in bold. I can understand if you’re using a Keynesian model, and you think that all things considered, in the real world it would be a good idea for the Fed to get more aggressive.
But to say that Gagnon’s quite specific recommendations have no possible downside?! Krugman really can’t see even a theoretical drawback to the Fed setting up a new lending facility?
In case you think I’m being a hypocrite, consider something on my side of the fence. In Carlos and my new book (which will be available for purchase and free download very soon–we’re just working out the kinks), we have a section talking about how the Fed and Treasury could link the dollar back to gold. Now I will be the first to admit that the specific plan we outline, could blow up in our faces. We think it would be better than the status quo, but it’s possible if we implemented the plan, that something could go wrong. There’s always problems like that, when you try to tinker with the regulatory apparatus.
Father vs. Son: Civil War, or Lonnie’s Karaoke?
[UPDATE below.]
Most of you won’t care, but a lot of my relatives read this blog. (Or at least, they claim to at holidays when I see them.) Ryan Gosche captured a shot of my dad. I killed with Mack the Knife, then he had to pull out all the stops in his rendition of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.” The crowd could not contain their ecstasy. Would it be immodest to say we owned Lonnie’s that night? I think not.
Incidentally, my dad is a musical force to be reckoned with. I’ve sung Neil Diamond karaoke songs, but my dad literally played with him (once) in front of an audience. So I’m not saying my dad could beat up your dad, but I bet he could sing Beatles songs better than your dad.
After my dad was done, one of my Mises Academy students (he can identify himself if he wants, don’t want to get him in trouble with the missus if he said he was in bed by 10pm) came up and said to my mom, “You are a saint, living in the same house with these two hams.” I don’t know what he was talking about.
UPDATE: I know, I know, he looks nothing like me. But really, that’s my dad.
Anarchists With Too Much Time on Their Hands
I can identify at least two of the Austro-anarcho-capitalists in this video. How many can you spot, kids?
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