Friday 28 August 2015

Friday Morning Ramble, 28.08.15

Bureaucracies aren’t good parents. Lesson learned?
Playgrounds may go due to safety bill – RADIO NZ

Bureaucracies aren’t good parents. Lesson learned? 
Kids probably no better off in state care – RADIO NZ

“Socialism is compassionate, caring, and helps children everywhere.”
Children with cancer go without chemo for weeks in Venezuela due to medicine shortage – LATINO.FOXNEWS.COM

“This latest from the Commissioner, and then Paula Rebstock's panel to "transform" CYF are just part and parcel of the ongoing drama that is chasing the tail of  inter-generational social malaise driven by paying people to have babies.”
The latest CYF instalment – LINDSAY MITCHELL

“So, the ‘system’ often fails to meet the needs of Maori children? First and foremost their parents and families failed to meet their needs… So the Maori population is double the Asian yet has 46 times more children in state care.  New Zealand, instead of overtly or covertly disapproving of Asians, should be looking at what they do that keeps their children safe and protected.”
Only 64 Asian children in state care – LINDSAY MITCHELL

“It appears we are creating a generation of New Zealanders whose sole  experience of entrepreneurship is writing a great application for government  funding.”
Jumping on the taxpayer bandwagon – Max Christofferson, STUFF

Chris Trotter labours under the illusion we are living in capitalism.
Reply to Chris Trotter: The West is Not Capitalist. – Mark Hubbard, LIFE BEHIND THE IRON DRAPE

“When it comes to decreasing housing prices, there are two solutions: decrease demand or increase supply.”
Taking Control of Rent Control – Adam Millsap, MERCATUS CENTER

“Waste” in bureaucracies. Let’s just pass a law.

“Donald Trump dropped his long-awaited immigration position paper this week. To no one’s surprise, it is a long list of restrictionist clichés about immigrants taking jobs, abusing welfare, and lowering wages for Americans. Here are the five biggest inaccuracies.”
5 Charts that Show Trump's Immigration Paper Is Nonsense: Foreigners are not a threat to the US economy – David Bier, F.E.E.
Why There’s No Such Thing as “Stealing American Jobs” – Michael Hurd, DR HURD.COM

“Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have both fallen for the oldest fallacy in economics.”
The Oldest Fallacy in Economics – Donald J. Boudreaux, F.E.E.
Trumponomics is Notonomics – Donald J. Boudreaux, CAFE HAYEK

“In economics, there is lots of room for difference of opinion, and although Donald Trump is entitled to his own opinion, he is not entitled to his own facts.”
Trump Gets His Facts Wrong On China – Charles Calomiris, FORBES

Investors watched in dismay as global markets spiraled into chaos Monday, sending the Dow plummeting 1,000 points within several minutes of the opening bell. But for some 2016 presidential candidates, the massive selloff was nothing short of a political opportunity.”
It’s the Economy, Stupid: Version 2016 – Michael Hurd, DR HURD.COM

“Do not fret, however. Beijing has called in the Red Cavalry—otherwise known as the People’s Bank of China.”
Here Comes The Red Cavalry——Goldman Says Back-Up The Trucks, Again! – David Stockman, CONTRA CORNER

“Turn those presses back on!”
Market talk suddenly turns to specter of QE4 – CNBC

How central banks make you eat your seed corn.
Who the Heck Consumes His Capital?!Keith Weiner, CAPITALISM MAGAZINE

Why ‘Grievance Feminism’ is a threat to serious feminist and humanitarian issues.
While women overseas face true oppression, Western feminists dream up petty hashtags – Dr Christina Hoff Sommers, DAILY TELEGRAPH

Eat them, skin them, save them.
Property rights can be used to protect endangered species – Lauran Huggins, LIBERTARIANISM.ORG

“I think of it as the single most important economic issue of our time, because if we don’t finally work it out that Keynes got it completely wrong, we are going to create for ourselves a permanently lower standard of living and a widening underclass of the unemployed and under-employed.”
Tom Woods on Say’s Law – Steve Kates, LAW OF MARKETS

“Economics is dead, and economists killed it.”
Economics Is Dead, and It Is Being Killed Again – Per Bylund, MISES DAILY

“The boundaries between industries are starting to blur, as disruptive innovators like APPLE, GOOGLE & AMAZON deal death blows to industry after industry.”
Commerce Commission understands neither creative destruction nor the scourge of lower prices on WordPress. – Jim Rose, UTOPIA – YOU ARE STANDING IN IT

“Markets will bend around the constraints until they die. It's almost as if it had been obvious. Oh wait - it was.”
How Minimum Wages Discourage Entrepreneurship – Donald J. Boudreaux, F.E.E.
As Minimum Wages Rise, Restaurants Say No to Tips, Yes to Higher Prices – N.Y. TIMES

“In the wake of a stronger than expected U.S. GDP report (see Second Quarter GDP Revised Up, as Expected, Led by Autos, Housing), some are questioning the stated growth.”
GDP by Other Measures; Will the "Real" GDP Please Stand Up? – MISH’S GLOBALE CONOMIC TREND ANALYSIS

Even Pablo Picasso is not immune to a downturn.
Art Collectors Pawn Masterpieces To Meet Market Rout Margin Calls – ZERO HEDGE

“The Keynesian response to the current stock market crisis in China, and the overall downturn in the economy, would be to open the floodgates and print money Bernanke style.
”This, of course, has major long term negative consequences and there are some indications China's central bank, the People's Bank of China, is not going to respond in Keynesian fashion.”
Is China in the Process of Ditching Keynesian Economics? – ECONOMIC POLICY JOURNAL

“The fallacy of mixed economy at centre of China's troubles.”
We all win if Beijing bows to market forces – Jonathan Fenby, THE AGE

“Among a people generally corrupt,
liberty cannot long exist.”

- Edmund Burke

“The energy industry is the industry that powers every other to improve human life. The more affordable, plentiful, and reliable energy we can produce, the more (and better) food, clothing, shelter, transportation, medical care, sanitation, clean water, technology, and everything else we can have.
    “Unfortunately, because of backwards energy and environmental policies that are anti-development, not anti-pollution, we are squandering the opportunity of a generation, through blind opposition to our three most potent sources of power: hydrocarbon energy (coal, oil, and gas), nuclear energy, and hydroelectric energy.
    “It’s time to replace today’s energy deprivation policies with energy liberation policies.”
The Energy Liberation Plan – Alex Epstein, FORBES

“Big-government advocates will say that as society grows more complex, laws must multiply to keep up. The opposite is true. It is precisely because society is unfathomably complex that laws must be kept simple.”
Complex Societies Need Simple Laws – John Stossel, CAPITALISM MAGAZINE

“The former head of the Australian Productivity Commission laments that we have run out of the ability to use monetary and fiscal policy to generate higher levels of economic activity … It is so depressing to read such stuff.”
Five years too late – Steve Kates, CATALLAXY FILES

“People try to live within their income so they can afford to
pay taxes to a government that can't live within its income.”

- Robert Half

“Central bankers built a Brave New World where central bank money printing would boost stock prices and the wealth created would trickle down to workers and cause a booming economy. If you doubted that, you are now seeing proof that maybe this world was a little bit of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland along with the Aldous Huxley.”
If You Doubted The Central Bankers’ Brave New World, You Were Right – Lee Adler

“But most important in terms of the depression was the new statism that the Republicans, following on the Wilson administration, brought to the vital but arcane field of money and banking. How many Americans know or care anything about banking? Yet it was in this neglected but crucial area that the seeds of 1929 were sown and cultivated by the American government.”
1929 And Its Aftermath——A Contra-Keynesian View Of What Really Happened – Murray Rothbard, MISES.ORG

“Government is the great fiction, through which everybody
endeavours to live at the expense of everybody else.”

- Frederic Bastiat

“The patent system is not a tool for entrenched interests to stifle competition as ivory-tower academics would have us believe. Patents allow independent inventors and small companies to compete against better funded rivals, who would otherwise simply take away their inventions.”
Looking Down on the Patent System from the Ivory Tower – Joseph Allen, I.P. WATCHDOG

“Patents are commercial assets, not litigation tools. Unfortunately, far too much time and writing is spent talking about litigation and not studying how patents function in the creation and distribution of new values in the marketplace.”
The Top 10 Reasons Why Your Startup Needs Patents – David Pridham & Brad Sheafe, FORBES

"The creative community has been buzzing this past week in response to the NY Times Sunday Magazine piece by Stephen Johnson, 'The Creative Apocalypse That Wasn’t.' Not surprisingly, feedback in the Times comments section was decidedly negative. As the week’s progressed we’ve also seen a number of thoughtful responses in commentaries published across the web.
    “No, actually everything’s not hunky-dory in the creative universe.”
Counterpoints to Steven Johnson’s NY Times Magazine piece — “The Creative Apocalypse That Wasn’t” – Ellen Seidler, VOX INDIE

“In what can only be characterized as a bizarre, rambling, and intellectually dishonest article, The Economist has inexplicably taken the position that patents are not necessary for innovation. This anti-patent hit piece is full of inaccuracies and outright falsehoods, masquerading as thoughtful commentary on an issue where the authors are quite clearly ignorant.”
What ‘The Economist’ Doesn’t Get About Patents – Gene Quinn, I.P. WATCHDOG
The Economist bites the hand that feeds it: patents - Gene Quinn & Steve Brachmann, I.P. WATCHDOG

“…no empirical support for the theory that ‘patent hold up’ is a problem in the high-tech industries that rely on patented tech standards (such as WiFi).”
An Empirical Examination of Patent Holdup – OXFORD JOURNALS

Inalienable Rights: What's Up With That?
Ayn Rand’s Theory of Rights: The Moral Foundation of a Free Society – OBJECTIVE STANDARD
Getting property rights right: Mixing my labour? – NOT PC

“As fall semesters in the U.S. gear up across the country, freshman and returning students enter a university culture filled increasingly with social justice warriors and party-obsessed drifters.”
On Cloud Nine or Crying Their Eyes Out: How Emotionalism is Destroying Student Culture – Thomas Duke, THEUNDERCURRENT
The contagious madness of the new PC – Mary Wakefield, SPECTATOR

“Ladies, gentlemen, people of indeterminate gender…”
Political correctness is killing freedom of speech – BRENDAN O’NEILL.CO.UK

Science experiments are supposed to be reproducible. If they can’t be reproduced, their results are not science. “Psychologists have completed a major review of the findings of 100 psychology studies. Less than half could be reproduced.”
Massive study reports challenges in reproducing published psychology findings – SCIENCE DAILY
Yes, many psychology findings may be “too good to be true” – now what? – RETRACTION WATCH

“What recent research says about fraud, errors, and other dismaying academic problems.”
A Scientific Look at Bad Science – THE ATLANTIC

Now this is how to do a death notice.  (From the NZ Herald, this morning.)

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[Hat tips Suzuki Samurai, Adam Mossoff, Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property, Geek Press, Michael Field, Mikayla Novak, Ezra Klein, Jane, spiked, Manhattan Institute, Rothbardian, Mark Hubbard, Louise Lamontagne, Stuart Hayashi, Daniel Stratton, Laissez Faire Capitalism, Michael Brown, Jim Matzger, The Centre for Independent Studies, Jim Rose]

Thanks for reading.
Have a great weekend!
PC

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