Understanding Bitcoin
[UPDATE: The link below now goes to version 1.1, which fixes a slight mistake in a footnote and some typos.]
You guys think I spend my time at the karaoke bar and trolling Scott Sumner. Well, I do spend my time doing those things, but I also co-authored this guide to Bitcoin with Silas Barta. Joking aside, I really worked with Silas to make sure you can read this thing with no prior knowledge of cryptography, and can walk away knowing enough to really see how it works.
Awkward
Obviously these politicians like to posture, but Gruber really served up a softball on this one.
I’m Surrounded by Pacifists!
I think it started with David R. Henderson, but I’ve seen plenty of people on “my side” favorably cite Stephen Carter’s take on the Eric Garner case, in which he argues that you shouldn’t favor any laws that you aren’t willing to see police kill people over. (That’s a horrible sentence, I know. Don’t kill me.)
The thing is, I don’t think these guys can really mean what they’re saying. They’re not complete anarcho-capitalists, and yet would they be OK with the police killing someone for failing to pay a $10 tax bill? They’re not anarcho-communists, and yet would they be OK with the police killing a 10-year-old kid for shoplifting a candy bar?
People on “my side” predictably flipped out when Jon Stewart swore at Rand Paul, but I totally understand what Stewart’s problem was. There are plenty of people who are killed by police who weren’t engaged in black market activities. Just as white people get upset when “Jesse Jackson always makes this about race!” so too was Jon Stewart upset at Rand Paul making this about cigarette taxes.
Potpourri
==> The econosphere is hotly debating this new paper, which uses a clever “natural experiment” method to conclude that if the government passes a law making something more expensive, then (a) the thing becomes more expensive but (b) people buy less of it.
==> In terms not just of shocking police behavior but then the injustice of the aftermath, this story about a 12-year-old girl definitely should be on the short list.
==> Michael Malice says America’s respect for police is a form of political correctness.
==> The bad news is that Steve Landsburg is much more likely to have a protesting student beat the crap out of him because of his latest blog post on Eric Garner. The goods news is that my earnings will go up.
The Anti-Rand
On Facebook someone had a post that started with the premise, “If someone were to write the opposite of an Ayn Rand novel…”
So I started to make a joke, since I realized that Nya Dnar (backwards) sounded like some kind of African name. I was going to say that under that pen name, I wrote a novel about a humble man who came out of nowhere and took the world upon his shoulders.
But then I realized that story has already been written.
(Don’t get me wrong, I still made the joke, I’m just explaining the process.)
Scott Sumner Can’t Stand When People Use Interest Rates to Gauge the Stance of Monetary Policy
He hits a familiar theme in the opening sentence from a recent post: “There are days where everything seems hopeless. I still find that 98% of the pundits I read don’t even understand that low rates don’t mean easy money.”
But wait, there is at least one other man who gets it. Sumner explains that an FT article gets the analysis right. Sumner provides a block quotation to show this “ray of hope” in understanding. It contains the following two sentences:
Despite German misgivings, low interest rates are no evidence that money is too loose: nominal GDP growth stutters along at less than 3 per cent, a clear sign that the stance is much too tight. In recent years the ECB twice made the mistake of raising rates too soon, and thereby punished Europe with a deeper recession and a worse fiscal crisis.
I have often complained when Sumner would wag his finger at people for equating the ECB’s low interest rates with easy money in one post, then in another post say matter-of-factly that the ECB raising interest rates meant tighter money. But I think this is the first time when I’ve seen someone (whom Sumner endorses on this very point) making those two points in back-to-back sentences.
NYPD = Teachers’ Union + Guns
My column at Rare analyzes the police from a Public Choice perspective. “Reform” through conventional channels is not going to happen.
Now the NYPD officers involved in [the Abner Louima torture] case did get into serious trouble. In December 1999, Volpe was sentenced to 30 years in prison without the possibility of parole. In March 2000 three other officers were convicted of conspiracy to thwart the federal investigation into the torture, while Charles Schwarz was convicted on June 27, 2000 and sentenced to 15 years in prison, for helping Volpe assault Louima in the bathroom.
Note the proximity of these convictions to the Puerto Rican Day attacks of June 11, 2000. Although no one obviously came out and said it officially, at the time various sources within the NYPD made comments to the effect that they were “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”—as if the public was being unreasonable for not wanting police to sodomize suspects in precinct bathrooms, but also to want police to stand up when a terrified young woman explained that a gang of men were roaming around Central Park assaulting other women.
I was running out of space and wanted to keep this “mainstream” for Rare, but in a future article (maybe just here at Free Advice) I’ll explain why it’s not a contradiction for Rothbardians to be upset about the State throwing pot smokers in jail, but then failing to punish cops for killing unarmed suspects.
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